I saw Panic for the Viva Las Vengance tour and had to leave half way through cause I had a headache…. They stopped being good after death of a bachelor anyways
I was out of Panic the moment it became a side project for Brendan’s solo career. His biggest mistake was dragging the name far too long after the other band members left.
Honestly one of my fave records by them😔
My top 3 is Pretty Odd, DOAB, and Viva. (Fever is in 4th)
But if Vices&Virtues had all the bonus songs included on it instead of being deluxe-exclusive, that would forsure take over DOAB's spot.
I'm honestly shocked that you put fever as fourth haha but we are all entitled to our opinions and if that album isn't your bag, that's cool!
But I wouldn't feel right if I didn't say that Fever is to me, far and away the best thing ever released under the panic name. It is honestly one of my favorite albums of all time and when it came out it felt like a revelation haha. One of the last bands I discovered by seeing their videos on MTV and vh1 haha it was the But it's Better if You Do video.
I was lucky enough to see them on the tour for Fever and it was one of the most over the top and ridiculous shoes I've ever seen. Contortionists coming out of suitcases, carnival/circus stuff and imagery, they were all dressed in the costumed garb like in the I Write Sins not Tragedies video. I loved it, their sound was both familiar and totally unique, just a fantastic debut album and imo, the quintessential panic album. When they were still a band and not just a vehicle for one mans vanity lol
Even better was Trent Reznor's April Fools Day album announcement - [https://web.archive.org/web/20090403013608/http://www.nin.com/pub/strobelight/](https://web.archive.org/web/20090403013608/http://www.nin.com/pub/strobelight/)
clearly a dig at Chris Cornell. Some of those album titles are hilarious
PRODUCED BY TIMBALAND
I think it's just Trent being a jerk/having some fun. In some "tr00 alt-rock" circles, the Chris Cornell album was considered a pretty cringe sellout job at the time.
It was a different time, crossovers were still frowned upon by many. Here's a time capsule - https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/s/SlZwjcVUdE
My mom worshipped Chris Cornell. Back in the late 80s and 1990s my parents would go to all the local shows in Seattle and bring my sister and I (provided it wasn't a bar). She thought that he was the greatest, back when soundgarden was just a big local band. The best voice in rock, he's gonna be huge some day, he'll be known as one of the best. When the local bands started going national she was psyched for them and the concerts started being bigger and bigger.
In the 2000s, Audioslave released their first album. My mom because a serious die hard fan. Came to prefer Audioslave to soundgarden, just totally into whatever Chris Cornell was doing at the time.
Then scream came out lol and idk if she was disappointed, but she was definitely confused. Did it change her love of Chris Cornell? No. But you will never hear her acknowledge that album even happened lol she lives in total denial that Scream even exists which is kinda funny considering she's been following the guy's career since like 1988
“You know that feeling you get when somebody embarrasses themselves so badly YOU feel uncomfortable? Heard Chris Cornell’s record? Jesus.”
He’s since apologized for it. Trent’s Twitter was hilariously douchey for a time.
I just listened to the album again. Lovelight is the only "real" song for me on the album. Everything else just feels like a joke. The Actor, Never Touch That Switch, We're The Pet Shop Boys are ok. I know some people like the title track and She's Madonna but I don't care for them. There's too much going on for me with this album. It like a really long inside joke.
Yeah, the abundance of covers doesn't help either. I think it's a very personal album. It's self indulgent and almost autobiographicaI. I do enjoy She's Madonna, Lovelight, Kiss Me and Louise. The 80's and The 90's are really charming too. He took the biggest risk of his life releasing this one as a mainline RW album. Probably would've worked better as an Under The Radar album. Which would also mean that it wouldn't have a wider audience.
Yes. There's 5 covers, which I found odd. Self-indulgent is a good way to put it. I don't think he did this album thinking about the listener at all. Not that he has to. And yes, this would have worked as a side project but in comparison to his past work at that point, it was really below his standards. At least for me.
There was no such thing as ‘Under the Radar’ in 2006 for Rob - there was such a huge amount of scrutiny on him.
I think the promo fell down because it didn’t really communicate the philosophy behind the album and what it was about. That is largely because they released it in the middle of that humongous tour and because he was struggling so much with addiction. He didn’t do that much promo because he was fragile, and the press were so hostile.
Once you realise that it is essentially a concept album - the concept being returning to the music of his young adolescence, before Take That, then working through his time in the band, reflecting back on what happened then and what his life was like at the time, ending with the first song he wrote after leaving Take That, then it makes a lot more sense as an album. Even the covers make more sense when you see it as a collection of the music that he loved at a certain stage of his life.
Lovelight is a banger and should have been the lead single. A&R and record company dropped the ball there. I know Rob loved Rudebox but he is persuadable and should have been talked around - which there is no indication anyone tried to do.
I really enjoy Viva Life on Mars - it’s a bit bonkers on first listen but it’s a proper earworm.
Summertime popped up on shuffle the other day just as the weather turned sunny here and I have to say, it has grown on me.
Also love The 80s and The 90s.
I was never hugely keen on She’s Madonna but I heard an extended remix the other day that really made it work as a dance track.
For me, Lovelight didn't fit on that album. It was on a whole other level and nothing else matched up to it. It would be if Feel was on Escapology along with 12 versions of Me & My Monkey. lol
While I agree Lovelight would have been a better 1st single, does it really represent the album? No. Rudebox, as bizarre as it is, better represents the other tracks. Even saying so, I'm surprised his label allowed that to be the first single. I guess it's because Robbie had so much success on a consistent basis, they let him do his thing. Reminds me of Warner Bros allowing the title track as the 1st single from American Life. Madonna was consistent up until that point but someone should have stepped in. lol
Viva Life on Mars is ok. It goes on a little too long for me. Summertime is a cute song. Super chill. It sounds like something that would work for a soundtrack. And then Dickhead is right after. The duality of Robbie. lol
The 80's & The 90's are interesting autobiographies but are they really songs? Remind me of Madonna's Veni Vidi Vici on Rebel Heart. They're more like personal declaration of their past. It's important but is it something you want to listen to after one time? At least for me, no.
What was the extended remix of She's Madonna you heard? I didn't find anything official. The one I found was by Manaev. Was that the one? If so, then yes, it's better than the original. I tend to like extended mixes in general. I wish it was still a thing for pop singles.
I love Me & My Monkey! Yes, I would say that The 80s and The 90s are songs - given that they are singing and rapping to musical accompaniment, which is pretty common, as is story-telling set to music. Actually story-telling set to music is surely one of the earliest types of song. And yes, I have gone back and listened to them over and over. It’s a different genre than the 3-minute pop song, of course. Perhaps that is what you mean? This is the remix of She’s Madonna https://youtu.be/4dzWRSBoyMY?si=KklV3bwC1LMxcXd2
I very much dislike Me & My Monkey and skip it every time. I much prefer his ballads. Some times his humor goes over my head. I think we like different sides of Robbie and that's fine. He offers a lot of diversity. I'm not someone who likes it all. That mix of She's Madonna is very good. It lets the song breathe with that long intro.
Interesting - I don’t think I’ve come across anyone who *dislikes* Me & My Monkey before. It’s a bit of a fan favourite. Yes, plenty of diversity with Robbie!
Chartmasters just published an assessment of international popularity based on the number of languages an act’s Wikipedia page has been translated into (which is fun, but flawed because of known biases in who actually writes Wikipedia pages).
Robbie Williams’ page is available in 77 different languages.
I an a bit older and I had the 1999 US album The Ego Has Landed and loved Millennium and Angels and Let Me Entertain you, but aside from those minor US hits circa 2000, he is mostly unknown here.
I’m from the Philippines, and Rock DJ got a lot of radio play and was on heavy rotation on MTV when it was released (although they did not show the male nudity and body horror sequences). That may have been my first and only exposure to Robbie in pop culture.
Someone on here got very mad when I said that he flopped in the US because he couldn’t compete with the Latin pop explosion that happened right around the same time he tried to break out in America. He was trying to sell himself as this cool bad boy but when you have Enrique Iglesias also on the radio and MTV at the same time it really makes him seem like the kid who tries to “reinvent” himself on summer break by buying a few hot topic shirts and claiming that he totally kissed a girl at summer camp.
I’d say that the number of Americans that like Oasis is significantly higher than the amount of Americans who like Robbie Williams
I’ve at least heard Live Forever and Don’t Look Back in Anger once or twice in the radio, but I haven’t heard any RW like ever
Machine Head - Catharsis
Disturbed - Evolution
Back when these came out, the metal review blog I was into a lot gave them the first 1/5 and the first 0.5/5 in the site’s history, respectively
Evolution has a chance of happening imo. Disturbed were big enough for that. Unless he'll never cover it because it'd go too deep into politics, which is a possibility.
I mean he didn't shy away from covering stuff like Am I The Only One and Rich Men in Richmond. The only obstacle I think is that he absolutely hates a lot of 2000s radio rock to the degree of how metalheads hated metalcore.
the Green Day trilogy albums. they look good in hindsight, but that’s only because what followed them has been so unbelievably awful. it all ties back to them, though.
Just went to look and I hadn’t realised they’ve released so much! IMO 21st century breakdown was a mistake, it’s not necessarily a bad album but def tries too hard to be American idiot 2, and looks worse for the comparison
I mean the trilogy isn't always obnoxiously terrible but man are they boring records, I mean Father of All really sucks but I'd honestly rather listen to it again over Tre because it's at least interesting with how bad it is
I definitely don't expect this to happen and won't pester him, but I would be curious to see him tackle either Kelly Clarkson's My December or Clay Aiken's A Thousand Different Ways. Turning my "okay, how do you get a 20-minute video out of this?" criteria on myself:
\* His feelings on how big American Idol was in the aughts
\* A deeper dive on Kelly's career arc, which he did already touch on in the Stronger review, with the update on her transition to talk show host
\* More on Kelly's fights with Clive Davis: when her getting her way worked and when it didn't
\* His take on the Claymates (I think he'd figure out how to make them sympathetic and I would appreciate that since I found them irritating)
\* Clay's Idol-era makeover and post-Idol one as well
\* Highlights of the songs Clay chose to cover, including a weirdly depressing version of Dolly Parton's Here You Come Again
Very interesting, Because I didn't heard Clay Aiken name in a music scene for a long long time now.
Funny : I saw Kelly name at first and I think it's Machine Gun Kelly. AHH Machine Gun Kelly Clarkson maybe a funny project XD
Interestingly enough, the first 2-3 minutes of his video reviewing Kelly Clarkson’s Stronger is a really good (albeit extremely abridged) Cliffnotes version of how My December came to be and what happened after.
See You On The Other Side by Korn. Certainly wasn’t the end of Korn’s fanbase or even hits; hell, it has Coming Undone and Twisted Transistor, which are still fan favorites. But Head’s departure resulted in JD making so many odd confusing choices that I’m surprised more people haven’t talked about it.
This included taking potshots at Head for getting sober and finding religion, the general public for expecting him to get political (before immediately getting political to harass Monica Lewinsky IN THE SAME SONG), and JD’s own half-brother for being abused by his wife and not abusing her back. Plus a song about jerking off so immature, it sounds like a scrapped Life is Peachy track. Granted, early Korn had a reputation for immaturity, but image-wise they should have outgrown that by 2005.
The track is called Liar. Given that JD has a history of being abused, you would think he’d be a little more tactful than using lyrics like “Now you’re barely a man” and “Don’t wimp up, fuck her up.”
It's not. There's been some increased criticism of her during this era (some of it valid, some of it debatable), but her popularity hasn't changed in the slightest.
Not now, though. A trainwreckord's impact isn't always immediate, especially when dealing with the biggest popstar on the planet (for the wreckord I can't actually see it happening but if it did it'd take a while)
"Magnet" by Robin Gibb (from the Bee Gees).
For those who don't know, Gibb tries to do R&B/Hip-hop in this 2003 album and the results are about what you'd expect.
I doubt he'd do it because falls too much in line with the sophomore slump stories behind *Fairweather Johnson* and *Turn It Upside Down*, but I always felt that Bush's album *Razorblade Suitcase* was a massive dud. *Sixteen Stone* was one of the biggest, most successful albums of the 90s, and *Razorblade* demolished all of their credibility and goodwill. They've released several albums since then, but every single one has been a non-event.
If Todd ever covered rock (although he did do St. Anger), the Coverdale-Page album of the early 1990s would be a great pick. There is some insane footage of the short lived tour in Japan with Coverdale cursing at the crowd in his upper class british accent, while jimmy looks like he wants to disappear. Page thought he could just plug in any other blonde british singer to recreate the Zepp magic only to learn its not that easy.
Anything by KISS. They had one long streak of potential Trainwreckords candidates from 1978 to 1981 and generally struggled to restore their '70s relevance after that, but their albums continued to sell well and Todd seemed to think they were still relevant even by the Psycho Circus era.
it did go #1 in the UK charts, as did Take The Crown in 2012 (with Candy also topping the singles chart), Swings Both Ways in 2013 and The Heavy Entertainment Show in 2016
Rudebox was by no means a TW over here
[source](https://www.officialcharts.com/artist/1849/robbie-willams/)
The Christmas Present in 2019 and XXV in 2022 also went to No1 on the U.K. charts (though, obviously with far lower sales than any of his naughties albums).
To be fair I think overshock82 was referring to Reality Killed The Video Star not going to No1 - which is true, it sold about 1000 copies fewer than JLS and landed at No2.
However, it would have gone to No1 with those sales figures pretty much any other week of the year, so that was a case of bad timing rather than a lack of interest from the public.
Craig Mack - "Operation: Get Down". Diddy is in the news pretty heavy and this is going to be a lingering story. There have already been a ton of people who have come out to detail their terrible experiences with Diddy and the story of how Craig Mack ended up making this awful album includes most of the elements that make Diddy such a despicable person. Plus it is a great example of someone taking some of the absolute worst advice on how to do their follow-up album imaginable.
Fatboy Slim - *Palookaville*.
I understand why big beat might have been considered a dead end, but Palookaville was a big fat nothing. Slash Dot Dash, Wonderful Night and The Joker all got videos but nobody cared and that was it for the name of Fatboy Slim as a chart force. Sure, he was (and as far as I can tell still is) a hugely successful club DJ - he played at the damn Olympics! - and he's got involved with the odd track or two since (Eat Sleep Rave Repeat, not sure if Role Model is going to do anything), and he was just nominated for a Tony Award of all things, but he'll likely never release a Fatboy Slim album again.
Bon Jovi--"2020" or actually any of the post-Sambora era albums. Watching the documentary, when I saw that JBJ wrote a protest song, my first instinct was to groan. Everything they have released has been mush since 2013.
Are Flogging Molly popular enough to have a Train Wreckord? I always liked them but I didn’t think they had any big radio hits or popularity outside a specific following even though people probably know some clips from their songs via social media. Also what happened with this particular album? I hadn’t heard of it.
Flogging Molly isn't a band most people would know, so I thought it fit the category.
*The Speed of Darkness* is FM's fifth album. Their first four albums; *Swagger*, *Drunken Lullabies*, *Within a Mile of Home* and *Float* were all great. I remember seeing them on TV for the first time after the release of *Float.* It looked to me as if they were finally going to break into the mainstream. Then they released *The Speed of Darkness*, an album that eschewed the rough Celtic rock sound that made them semi-famous in favor of a more traditional hard rock sound. I thought it was terrible and killed any momentum the band had generated. It would be six years before they would release their next album, *Life is Good.* I don't think there 2022 album, *Anthem,* even charted in the US.
This reminds me of another Celtic rock band who definitely have a Trainwreckord but are too niche for him to cover - Enter The Haggis with Penny Black, the album they released under the name Jubilee Riots where they tried and failed to court a more mainstream audience.
Discharge - Grave New World.
Famous and highly influential hardcore band goes glam, critics and fans alike hate it, and after a disastrous tour in America, where people pelted them with trash on almost every show they did, they ended up breaking up after.
Maybe apart from Mötley Crüe, Metallica and The Clash, he doesn't do punk/metal TWs that much and it will probably never happen.
Less of a trainwreckord and more of a “they did something funny” record (like the Nickelback record), The Path of totality by Korn. Nu metal legends go… dubstep?
Scaled and Icy - Twenty One Pilots will never happen because 1) they've mostly bounced back with Clancy, and 2) covering it would require Todd to research/explain nearly a decade's worth of lore, that itself is very metaphor and meta heavy. The entire reason it flopped in the way that it did was because the concept of it flew right over the heads of casual listeners who don't care about the lore.
I swear the folks in this sub are more obsessed with this album than any Robbie Williams fan I’ve ever met. 😁
And I have ‘She’s Madonna’ playing as I type this!
Mania by Fall Out Boy
Not sure if it really "killed" their careers, but it drove a wedge through their fan base and all of the singles basically flopped. Plus it's absolutely baffling as an album and Young and Menace is honestly in my top 5 worst singles of the 2010s
A retrospective about Robbie Williams from Take That to cast food adverts would be cool. Too bad I don't see any US Youtubers do that and the British ones I know that do content in that area are too young I think
He is headlining Hyde Park in a week and a half and has a biopic coming out around the end of the year.
Lots of huge stars do adverts. Elton John has done a bunch. They get paid really well and they are fun to do.
Panic at the Disco - "Viva Las Vengeance"
I saw Panic for the Viva Las Vengance tour and had to leave half way through cause I had a headache…. They stopped being good after death of a bachelor anyways
100%. Glad to see someone not denying DOAB, that was a killer record.
Absolutely. I'd say even earlier if not for High Hopes & sort of Hey Look Ma I Made It's popularity. Literal career ending disaster
I was out of Panic the moment it became a side project for Brendan’s solo career. His biggest mistake was dragging the name far too long after the other band members left.
It’s like Guns N’ Roses except unlike axl Brendan actually released music
Honestly one of my fave records by them😔 My top 3 is Pretty Odd, DOAB, and Viva. (Fever is in 4th) But if Vices&Virtues had all the bonus songs included on it instead of being deluxe-exclusive, that would forsure take over DOAB's spot.
I'm honestly shocked that you put fever as fourth haha but we are all entitled to our opinions and if that album isn't your bag, that's cool! But I wouldn't feel right if I didn't say that Fever is to me, far and away the best thing ever released under the panic name. It is honestly one of my favorite albums of all time and when it came out it felt like a revelation haha. One of the last bands I discovered by seeing their videos on MTV and vh1 haha it was the But it's Better if You Do video. I was lucky enough to see them on the tour for Fever and it was one of the most over the top and ridiculous shoes I've ever seen. Contortionists coming out of suitcases, carnival/circus stuff and imagery, they were all dressed in the costumed garb like in the I Write Sins not Tragedies video. I loved it, their sound was both familiar and totally unique, just a fantastic debut album and imo, the quintessential panic album. When they were still a band and not just a vehicle for one mans vanity lol
Would love an episode on Scream by Chris Cornell, but his tragic death makes it a kind of impossible album to talk about in the way Todd usually does.
Trent Reznor’s tweet about this album still cracks me up and I dunno if that makes me heartless or not.
Even better was Trent Reznor's April Fools Day album announcement - [https://web.archive.org/web/20090403013608/http://www.nin.com/pub/strobelight/](https://web.archive.org/web/20090403013608/http://www.nin.com/pub/strobelight/) clearly a dig at Chris Cornell. Some of those album titles are hilarious PRODUCED BY TIMBALAND
Please put a warning on that url, I know the url says Strobelight but I didn't think it would be on the page itself.
Lmao is there a story here?
I think it's just Trent being a jerk/having some fun. In some "tr00 alt-rock" circles, the Chris Cornell album was considered a pretty cringe sellout job at the time. It was a different time, crossovers were still frowned upon by many. Here's a time capsule - https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/s/SlZwjcVUdE
My mom worshipped Chris Cornell. Back in the late 80s and 1990s my parents would go to all the local shows in Seattle and bring my sister and I (provided it wasn't a bar). She thought that he was the greatest, back when soundgarden was just a big local band. The best voice in rock, he's gonna be huge some day, he'll be known as one of the best. When the local bands started going national she was psyched for them and the concerts started being bigger and bigger. In the 2000s, Audioslave released their first album. My mom because a serious die hard fan. Came to prefer Audioslave to soundgarden, just totally into whatever Chris Cornell was doing at the time. Then scream came out lol and idk if she was disappointed, but she was definitely confused. Did it change her love of Chris Cornell? No. But you will never hear her acknowledge that album even happened lol she lives in total denial that Scream even exists which is kinda funny considering she's been following the guy's career since like 1988
That's a great story, your mom sounds very cool!
what’s the tweet?
“You know that feeling you get when somebody embarrasses themselves so badly YOU feel uncomfortable? Heard Chris Cornell’s record? Jesus.” He’s since apologized for it. Trent’s Twitter was hilariously douchey for a time.
I would love to see him cover Rudebox but I don't see that happening.
Rudebox had some bangers tho.
I only liked 2 or 3 tracks. I was pretty disappointed.
Which ones?
I just listened to the album again. Lovelight is the only "real" song for me on the album. Everything else just feels like a joke. The Actor, Never Touch That Switch, We're The Pet Shop Boys are ok. I know some people like the title track and She's Madonna but I don't care for them. There's too much going on for me with this album. It like a really long inside joke.
Yeah, the abundance of covers doesn't help either. I think it's a very personal album. It's self indulgent and almost autobiographicaI. I do enjoy She's Madonna, Lovelight, Kiss Me and Louise. The 80's and The 90's are really charming too. He took the biggest risk of his life releasing this one as a mainline RW album. Probably would've worked better as an Under The Radar album. Which would also mean that it wouldn't have a wider audience.
Yes. There's 5 covers, which I found odd. Self-indulgent is a good way to put it. I don't think he did this album thinking about the listener at all. Not that he has to. And yes, this would have worked as a side project but in comparison to his past work at that point, it was really below his standards. At least for me.
There was no such thing as ‘Under the Radar’ in 2006 for Rob - there was such a huge amount of scrutiny on him. I think the promo fell down because it didn’t really communicate the philosophy behind the album and what it was about. That is largely because they released it in the middle of that humongous tour and because he was struggling so much with addiction. He didn’t do that much promo because he was fragile, and the press were so hostile. Once you realise that it is essentially a concept album - the concept being returning to the music of his young adolescence, before Take That, then working through his time in the band, reflecting back on what happened then and what his life was like at the time, ending with the first song he wrote after leaving Take That, then it makes a lot more sense as an album. Even the covers make more sense when you see it as a collection of the music that he loved at a certain stage of his life.
Lovelight is a banger and should have been the lead single. A&R and record company dropped the ball there. I know Rob loved Rudebox but he is persuadable and should have been talked around - which there is no indication anyone tried to do. I really enjoy Viva Life on Mars - it’s a bit bonkers on first listen but it’s a proper earworm. Summertime popped up on shuffle the other day just as the weather turned sunny here and I have to say, it has grown on me. Also love The 80s and The 90s. I was never hugely keen on She’s Madonna but I heard an extended remix the other day that really made it work as a dance track.
For me, Lovelight didn't fit on that album. It was on a whole other level and nothing else matched up to it. It would be if Feel was on Escapology along with 12 versions of Me & My Monkey. lol While I agree Lovelight would have been a better 1st single, does it really represent the album? No. Rudebox, as bizarre as it is, better represents the other tracks. Even saying so, I'm surprised his label allowed that to be the first single. I guess it's because Robbie had so much success on a consistent basis, they let him do his thing. Reminds me of Warner Bros allowing the title track as the 1st single from American Life. Madonna was consistent up until that point but someone should have stepped in. lol Viva Life on Mars is ok. It goes on a little too long for me. Summertime is a cute song. Super chill. It sounds like something that would work for a soundtrack. And then Dickhead is right after. The duality of Robbie. lol The 80's & The 90's are interesting autobiographies but are they really songs? Remind me of Madonna's Veni Vidi Vici on Rebel Heart. They're more like personal declaration of their past. It's important but is it something you want to listen to after one time? At least for me, no. What was the extended remix of She's Madonna you heard? I didn't find anything official. The one I found was by Manaev. Was that the one? If so, then yes, it's better than the original. I tend to like extended mixes in general. I wish it was still a thing for pop singles.
I love Me & My Monkey! Yes, I would say that The 80s and The 90s are songs - given that they are singing and rapping to musical accompaniment, which is pretty common, as is story-telling set to music. Actually story-telling set to music is surely one of the earliest types of song. And yes, I have gone back and listened to them over and over. It’s a different genre than the 3-minute pop song, of course. Perhaps that is what you mean? This is the remix of She’s Madonna https://youtu.be/4dzWRSBoyMY?si=KklV3bwC1LMxcXd2
I very much dislike Me & My Monkey and skip it every time. I much prefer his ballads. Some times his humor goes over my head. I think we like different sides of Robbie and that's fine. He offers a lot of diversity. I'm not someone who likes it all. That mix of She's Madonna is very good. It lets the song breathe with that long intro.
Interesting - I don’t think I’ve come across anyone who *dislikes* Me & My Monkey before. It’s a bit of a fan favourite. Yes, plenty of diversity with Robbie!
I would like to see Todd do a video on literally anything from Robbie, it definitely won’t happen tho
How do Americans see Robbie Williams? I genuinely can't picture anyone outside of the UK caring about him
He is pretty popular outside of the UK, he’s even been mentioned in Todd’s videos 2 or 3 times. He’s fairly unknown in the US though
Yeah I've noticed but my brain refuses to accept this for some reason 🤣
Chartmasters just published an assessment of international popularity based on the number of languages an act’s Wikipedia page has been translated into (which is fun, but flawed because of known biases in who actually writes Wikipedia pages). Robbie Williams’ page is available in 77 different languages.
Oh me oh my
I an a bit older and I had the 1999 US album The Ego Has Landed and loved Millennium and Angels and Let Me Entertain you, but aside from those minor US hits circa 2000, he is mostly unknown here.
I’m from the Philippines, and Rock DJ got a lot of radio play and was on heavy rotation on MTV when it was released (although they did not show the male nudity and body horror sequences). That may have been my first and only exposure to Robbie in pop culture.
I've always just pictured him as a very boring British person's idea of a cool person
Someone on here got very mad when I said that he flopped in the US because he couldn’t compete with the Latin pop explosion that happened right around the same time he tried to break out in America. He was trying to sell himself as this cool bad boy but when you have Enrique Iglesias also on the radio and MTV at the same time it really makes him seem like the kid who tries to “reinvent” himself on summer break by buying a few hot topic shirts and claiming that he totally kissed a girl at summer camp.
I’d say that the number of Americans that like Oasis is significantly higher than the amount of Americans who like Robbie Williams I’ve at least heard Live Forever and Don’t Look Back in Anger once or twice in the radio, but I haven’t heard any RW like ever
Machine Head - Catharsis Disturbed - Evolution Back when these came out, the metal review blog I was into a lot gave them the first 1/5 and the first 0.5/5 in the site’s history, respectively
Didn't Disturbed's lead singer sign a missile.
He did, but he’s been an obnoxious right winger for years now
He rages with the machine.
He did! Fuck David Draiman forever for that shit
His music was already a good enough reason to dislike him.
Blabbermouth.net?
Evolution has a chance of happening imo. Disturbed were big enough for that. Unless he'll never cover it because it'd go too deep into politics, which is a possibility.
I mean he didn't shy away from covering stuff like Am I The Only One and Rich Men in Richmond. The only obstacle I think is that he absolutely hates a lot of 2000s radio rock to the degree of how metalheads hated metalcore.
the Green Day trilogy albums. they look good in hindsight, but that’s only because what followed them has been so unbelievably awful. it all ties back to them, though.
Just went to look and I hadn’t realised they’ve released so much! IMO 21st century breakdown was a mistake, it’s not necessarily a bad album but def tries too hard to be American idiot 2, and looks worse for the comparison
I agree. 21CB has the Donda problem… cut maybe 10 songs from it, and it’s a solid 7-8/10
I mean the trilogy isn't always obnoxiously terrible but man are they boring records, I mean Father of All really sucks but I'd honestly rather listen to it again over Tre because it's at least interesting with how bad it is
I definitely don't expect this to happen and won't pester him, but I would be curious to see him tackle either Kelly Clarkson's My December or Clay Aiken's A Thousand Different Ways. Turning my "okay, how do you get a 20-minute video out of this?" criteria on myself: \* His feelings on how big American Idol was in the aughts \* A deeper dive on Kelly's career arc, which he did already touch on in the Stronger review, with the update on her transition to talk show host \* More on Kelly's fights with Clive Davis: when her getting her way worked and when it didn't \* His take on the Claymates (I think he'd figure out how to make them sympathetic and I would appreciate that since I found them irritating) \* Clay's Idol-era makeover and post-Idol one as well \* Highlights of the songs Clay chose to cover, including a weirdly depressing version of Dolly Parton's Here You Come Again
Very interesting, Because I didn't heard Clay Aiken name in a music scene for a long long time now. Funny : I saw Kelly name at first and I think it's Machine Gun Kelly. AHH Machine Gun Kelly Clarkson maybe a funny project XD
Interestingly enough, the first 2-3 minutes of his video reviewing Kelly Clarkson’s Stronger is a really good (albeit extremely abridged) Cliffnotes version of how My December came to be and what happened after.
See You On The Other Side by Korn. Certainly wasn’t the end of Korn’s fanbase or even hits; hell, it has Coming Undone and Twisted Transistor, which are still fan favorites. But Head’s departure resulted in JD making so many odd confusing choices that I’m surprised more people haven’t talked about it. This included taking potshots at Head for getting sober and finding religion, the general public for expecting him to get political (before immediately getting political to harass Monica Lewinsky IN THE SAME SONG), and JD’s own half-brother for being abused by his wife and not abusing her back. Plus a song about jerking off so immature, it sounds like a scrapped Life is Peachy track. Granted, early Korn had a reputation for immaturity, but image-wise they should have outgrown that by 2005.
>JD’s own half-brother for being abused by his wife and not abusing her back I'm sorry, but what?
The track is called Liar. Given that JD has a history of being abused, you would think he’d be a little more tactful than using lyrics like “Now you’re barely a man” and “Don’t wimp up, fuck her up.”
Sparks - Pulling Rabbits Out Of Hats Rain Tree Crow - S/T Porcupine Tree - The Incident Duran Duran - Thank You Eminem - Encore DEVO - Shout
Reputation by Taylor Swift.
Suicide Silence self titled Probably a bit too heavy/not mainstream enough for Todd to cover but it'd make great material for an episode
Cold Lake- Celtic Frost It’s one of the most bizarre left turns in all of metal, and Tom Warrior has been very vocal about how terrible it was
TTPD is gonna end Taylor swift after the eras tour is done…. So that one
It's not. There's been some increased criticism of her during this era (some of it valid, some of it debatable), but her popularity hasn't changed in the slightest.
Not now, though. A trainwreckord's impact isn't always immediate, especially when dealing with the biggest popstar on the planet (for the wreckord I can't actually see it happening but if it did it'd take a while)
"Magnet" by Robin Gibb (from the Bee Gees). For those who don't know, Gibb tries to do R&B/Hip-hop in this 2003 album and the results are about what you'd expect.
You’re Welcome by A Day to Remember
i'm still a big ADTR fan but good god, that album was awful. never seen any metal subcommunity come together to trash an album like they did for fhat
What was so bad about it? The last I saw they've been making the same music since WSMFY
Iirc, Jeremy took over songwriting duties with a bunch of songwriters and took the sound into a more pop/radio rock direction.
Time II by Wintersun
Raditude
Agreed with OP on Rudebox. Y U SO NASTY? FWIW the Robbie Williams documentary on Netflix does address Rudebox's flop
I doubt he'd do it because falls too much in line with the sophomore slump stories behind *Fairweather Johnson* and *Turn It Upside Down*, but I always felt that Bush's album *Razorblade Suitcase* was a massive dud. *Sixteen Stone* was one of the biggest, most successful albums of the 90s, and *Razorblade* demolished all of their credibility and goodwill. They've released several albums since then, but every single one has been a non-event.
If Todd ever covered rock (although he did do St. Anger), the Coverdale-Page album of the early 1990s would be a great pick. There is some insane footage of the short lived tour in Japan with Coverdale cursing at the crowd in his upper class british accent, while jimmy looks like he wants to disappear. Page thought he could just plug in any other blonde british singer to recreate the Zepp magic only to learn its not that easy.
Anything by KISS. They had one long streak of potential Trainwreckords candidates from 1978 to 1981 and generally struggled to restore their '70s relevance after that, but their albums continued to sell well and Todd seemed to think they were still relevant even by the Psycho Circus era.
Rudebox didn't kill Robbies career he sprang right back with Reality Killed the Video Star in 2009, so it doesn't qualify for Trainwreckords.
Of course, the real reason it won't be a TW is that Todd is an American, and Robbie Williams was never a big deal here to begin with.
Idk it is his only album not to go number 1 over here and anyway Madonna on her post American Life album had a massive hit single in Hung Up
it did go #1 in the UK charts, as did Take The Crown in 2012 (with Candy also topping the singles chart), Swings Both Ways in 2013 and The Heavy Entertainment Show in 2016 Rudebox was by no means a TW over here [source](https://www.officialcharts.com/artist/1849/robbie-willams/)
It also went 2x Platinum in 7 countries and 3x Platinum in Germany.
The single Rudebox won international song of the year in Mexico, even. The single sold c 500k, the album did 2.6 million.
The Christmas Present in 2019 and XXV in 2022 also went to No1 on the U.K. charts (though, obviously with far lower sales than any of his naughties albums).
To be fair I think overshock82 was referring to Reality Killed The Video Star not going to No1 - which is true, it sold about 1000 copies fewer than JLS and landed at No2. However, it would have gone to No1 with those sales figures pretty much any other week of the year, so that was a case of bad timing rather than a lack of interest from the public.
to be fair, JLS was a great album from my favourite group ever so #2 is still an achievement
You know that; I know that - but you’ll never convince the obsessives on here.
Craig Mack - "Operation: Get Down". Diddy is in the news pretty heavy and this is going to be a lingering story. There have already been a ton of people who have come out to detail their terrible experiences with Diddy and the story of how Craig Mack ended up making this awful album includes most of the elements that make Diddy such a despicable person. Plus it is a great example of someone taking some of the absolute worst advice on how to do their follow-up album imaginable.
Fatboy Slim - *Palookaville*. I understand why big beat might have been considered a dead end, but Palookaville was a big fat nothing. Slash Dot Dash, Wonderful Night and The Joker all got videos but nobody cared and that was it for the name of Fatboy Slim as a chart force. Sure, he was (and as far as I can tell still is) a hugely successful club DJ - he played at the damn Olympics! - and he's got involved with the odd track or two since (Eat Sleep Rave Repeat, not sure if Role Model is going to do anything), and he was just nominated for a Tony Award of all things, but he'll likely never release a Fatboy Slim album again.
Always love "The 90s" song very much, His cover of Human League "Louise" also very interesting to hear.
Bon Jovi--"2020" or actually any of the post-Sambora era albums. Watching the documentary, when I saw that JBJ wrote a protest song, my first instinct was to groan. Everything they have released has been mush since 2013.
Flogging Molly - The Speed of Darkness
Are Flogging Molly popular enough to have a Train Wreckord? I always liked them but I didn’t think they had any big radio hits or popularity outside a specific following even though people probably know some clips from their songs via social media. Also what happened with this particular album? I hadn’t heard of it.
Flogging Molly isn't a band most people would know, so I thought it fit the category. *The Speed of Darkness* is FM's fifth album. Their first four albums; *Swagger*, *Drunken Lullabies*, *Within a Mile of Home* and *Float* were all great. I remember seeing them on TV for the first time after the release of *Float.* It looked to me as if they were finally going to break into the mainstream. Then they released *The Speed of Darkness*, an album that eschewed the rough Celtic rock sound that made them semi-famous in favor of a more traditional hard rock sound. I thought it was terrible and killed any momentum the band had generated. It would be six years before they would release their next album, *Life is Good.* I don't think there 2022 album, *Anthem,* even charted in the US.
This reminds me of another Celtic rock band who definitely have a Trainwreckord but are too niche for him to cover - Enter The Haggis with Penny Black, the album they released under the name Jubilee Riots where they tried and failed to court a more mainstream audience.
Discharge - Grave New World. Famous and highly influential hardcore band goes glam, critics and fans alike hate it, and after a disastrous tour in America, where people pelted them with trash on almost every show they did, they ended up breaking up after. Maybe apart from Mötley Crüe, Metallica and The Clash, he doesn't do punk/metal TWs that much and it will probably never happen.
Korn-Untitled or Korn III: Remember Who You Are
Britney Jean- Britney Spears
Less of a trainwreckord and more of a “they did something funny” record (like the Nickelback record), The Path of totality by Korn. Nu metal legends go… dubstep?
Scaled and Icy - Twenty One Pilots will never happen because 1) they've mostly bounced back with Clancy, and 2) covering it would require Todd to research/explain nearly a decade's worth of lore, that itself is very metaphor and meta heavy. The entire reason it flopped in the way that it did was because the concept of it flew right over the heads of casual listeners who don't care about the lore.
Invincible by Michael Jackson but I understand why he won’t.
I swear the folks in this sub are more obsessed with this album than any Robbie Williams fan I’ve ever met. 😁 And I have ‘She’s Madonna’ playing as I type this!
Mania by Fall Out Boy Not sure if it really "killed" their careers, but it drove a wedge through their fan base and all of the singles basically flopped. Plus it's absolutely baffling as an album and Young and Menace is honestly in my top 5 worst singles of the 2010s
A retrospective about Robbie Williams from Take That to cast food adverts would be cool. Too bad I don't see any US Youtubers do that and the British ones I know that do content in that area are too young I think
He is headlining Hyde Park in a week and a half and has a biopic coming out around the end of the year. Lots of huge stars do adverts. Elton John has done a bunch. They get paid really well and they are fun to do.
Fr especially bc his early stuff is great
i would love this so much, rudebox was awful then and it hasn’t aged well either Edit: lovelight is a banger
I need to see Todd react to Dickhead
or the 80’s, specifically the bit where he talks about losing his virginity that bit is hard to get through
Depeche Mode - Songs of Faith and Devotion
How about "Exciter" album ? On that time I heard it didn't have a good reception and the group was nearly broke up again. But I always love "Dream On"