Todd In The Shadows Thread

Isn't he more of a Hitless Hit Album guy?

No, he had a hit with a cover of All Along The Watchtower.

That's why Todd calls it the Hendrix Clause right?

I still want him to do an episode breaking down The Hendrix Clause and why some musicians we would never, in a million years, call a One Hit Wonder, still only had one technical hit in their lifetimes.

He should totally do it as an April Fools episode of One Hit Wonderland.

Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Apr 27th 2019 at 8:03:20 AM

Todd doesn't call it Hendrix Clause, we do.

And he already kind of did an April Fools episode, with Float On. (Although the joke was that he set us up to think he was doing Modest Mouse, but he was actually doing The Floaters.)

I wonder if he's holding back on making videos until his whole situation gets sorted out.

A new Pop Song Review is now out on Patreon. It's a review of the current number-one smash "Old Town Road".

Mmmm, good analysis. I like it.

I've never even heard of this song or the discourse surrounding it until just now.

So Billy Ray Cyrus technically isn't a one hit wonder anymore.

"Fine. If Billy Ray Cyrus is a one hit wonder then so are The Cardigans"-Love Fool OHW.

No longer a two-hit wonder, technically

Old Town Road is too damn catchy.

"MTV Unplugged No. 2.0" by Lauryn Hill is on Youtube after Todd won his copyright appeal.

Edited by apathetictales on May 4th 2019 at 1:15:17 AM

From the excerpts Todd played on the video, this album actually intrigues me, though I don't know if it does it to the point I'd go buy it or anything. I'm oddly attracted to the "rawness" and imperfections of it. It's a much more, uh, stable performance overall, but one of the reasons I love Rush's All the World's a Stage is that it's similarly raw, and not just a studio album with crowd noise inserted after the fact (Which is what A LOT of "live" albums end up being after all the post-production/etc, a couple of Rush's included).

Oh geez, that vid was painful. It is all too clear that she is not in a good place. And it does not get better for her.

"Thinkpiece bait"? This is new for me. What's that about?

That was uncomfortable.

New Pop Song Review out on Patreon. Todd takes on Lil Dicky once again as he reviews his star-studded charity single "Earth".

It's an easy target because a) it's a charity single and Todd already hates those on principle, basically, b) it's barely a song, and c) the artist has very quickly lost basically all his hip-hop cred (as comedically based as it was) in the last year.

That said, I'm glad Todd's doing it because he tweeted a couple of months ago about Lil Dicky and said essentially that while he's 100% a culture vulturing hack now, he isn't an untalented writer or rapper and he's not sure why he decided to go the the Freaky Friday route even before Earth and I think that's both the correct take and one that a lot of smart music people on the internet, including Mark at Spectrum Pulse, refuse to acknowledge or believe because of what his career has consisted of in the past couple of years, his recent-ish comments on the genre, and the sheer ridiculousness of his name/persona. I think I'll appreciate Todd talking about the time when he seemed like he was a legitimately good rapper making dumb but enjoyable songs.

This song makes me mad. The animation quality and production values are frankly quite astounding, and the 'marimba + world music chant' combo, combined with the world-encompassing visuals, takes me immediately back to my days playing Civilization IV. But I also understand that is not the merit of the song that make me like those bits, it's the fact that it is tapping my nostalgia for something completely different.

The song itself is kind of atrocious. The immense star power is severely underutilized and out of the entire song of comedic lines maybe two are actually remotely funny.

Fortunately it seems to be plummeting off the charts in a freefall so it's unlikely I'll ever hear it again, outside maybe Todd's video for Top Ten Worst Hit Songs of 2019.

Todd should do a worst hit songs of the 2010's next year.

I kinda would like to see a sort of "My Best Reviews/My Worst Reviews" video to mark a decade of doing this.

I've been binging some older Todd stuff and man, that was different. In general he seems a lot angrier and a lot of what he says feels less like a genuine critique and more like your typical 'angry shit talking reviewer' of that early 2010's period. If he still talked like that now, I don't think I'd be watching him, honestly.

Something that really stood out to me was what he said about Taylor Swifts "Mine." Not only is he just really harsh sounding towards it, his opinion just came off to me as someone that really didn't get what the song was about.

"The most rebellious thing she does in this song is date a college guy." It's a love song explicitly from the point of view of a young woman who, having watched her parents marriage fall apart and subsequently had to deal with a distant father, is afraid of committing to a relationship because it might end up in divorce ("You made a rebel of a careless mans careful daughter.") It might feel weird to focus on this song so much, but I feel like it's indicative of how different his early stuff is in how he approached it.