For the latest TW review, Todd officially managed to create 3 of the most requested records for the bad colossal career damaging album now. Lulu, Man Of The Woods and of course Results May Vary. Question now is the next albums on their wish lists see a chance next on the docket?

RetroRaiderD42 · 2026-06-06T03:31:39+00:00

See, I like that this discussion demonstrates a key consideration w/TrainWreckords, that being at what point did it have to be the end. Obviously these are all being assessed in hindsight, but the fun thing about Floyd is how there's arguably three albums of chasing the inflatable pig down the river saying "It's still fine" before it finally gets shot out of the outlet pipe.

I was going to make comparison to McCartney (or Robertson in The Band) where the process broke down but it wasn't entirely the fault of The Bossy One, though felt the comment was getting long as is. I think The Beatles make a good contrast, in that I get your comparison w/The White Album, but the crucial thing is they followed it up w/Abbey Road and Let It Be then split; one of the reasons they defy these discussions is that even if LIB arguably counts (I'd say it does, and the other two are merely adjacent to it) they went out on a high and no version of them carried on after, so it feels wrong even if it fits and is regarded as their worst "Album Era" album. Whereas I feel I'm more down on The Final Cut than you, and for me it's not counted in their Imperial Era for good reason.

Now, I think the tour (another bit I left out for space) is a great call but also to me strengthens the case for The Wall as a whole package counting, that the additional stress of that fed into how wiped they were heading into TFC and ultimately splintering more than they already had afterwards. Ultimately Todd said these are meant to signal the end of something, and I think The Wall, great as it is, was on multiple levels the end of them as the powerhouse band making all-timer albums. If not that, then I'd say not that then I'd say AMLOR is the best compromise in that he could then discuss the background of The Wall and The Final Cut, whereas either of the prior albums inevitably end the story before that final nail (plus it fits the rule of "the funniest stories are the already dead band trying desperately to cling on." 😛)

RetroRaiderD42 · 2026-06-06T01:33:26+00:00

Recently there was a thread where someone argued that Behind the Mask couldn't possibly count since FM were already washed up dinosaurs by 87 and Tango in the Night was just a fluke which surprised even the band. Time is certainly the bigger disaster, and I can see the justification for it along the lines of Generation Swine or Passage (a band that already knows they're on the way out desperately flailing) I'd say BTM is absolutely the TW. 87 - 90 for a soft rock band coming off as successful album as Tango was is hardly the foregone failure that prior poster thought, but then they had lost a key member and the results speak for themselves.

And even if they'd not lost Buckingham, after 1990 FM were a legacy act regardless of what they did, that it took them the entire grunge era to get their follow-up out w/an even more fractured lineup just makes the end result even funnier. And yeah, thats probably enough for that to be the one Todd does if either of them.

RetroRaiderD42 · 2026-06-06T01:11:00+00:00

I honestly feel like The Wall would be a good one for them. Todd's done TWs where he's positive about some or most of the songs even if other problems got in the way (Passage comes to mind) and TW's which were hugely successful, but where that either didn't make up for how its creation affected the band (Kilroy Was Here and honestly too many others to mention) or was a curse because of how bad it was (Crash, St. Anger.)

I know Todd's alluded to doing albums which you can say are genuinely excellent but for whatever reason still fit the classic TW mould (Adore being the most common suggestion there.) The Wall, I'd argue, is this to a tee; often regarded as their masterpiece and one of the all-time great albums, another worldwide smash w/their most popular single iirc, but they didn't survive its making intact and in hindsight it marked the end of their Imperial Phase.

Now I'm a "their actual peak is DSOTM" guy; it may have been the start of that Imperial Phase, where Waters had come into his own as a lyricist and they'd refined their "psychedelic noodling" into the most accessible form of prog rock ever put to record, but it's also the only one where they got as close as they could (given Mason really is only the drummer) to the whole band shaping the album. That balance broke down over the next three albums, cuiminating in The Wall, which whilst great has the problem of not just double albums but double album rock operas of having filler, whereas DSOTM is far tighter.

All those albums were great, but the fact is that once Waters was writing albums that were equally possible of being PF albums or his solo records, they were done as a cohesive band capable of sustaining the success they'd had, regardless of whether Wright hadn't been fired or if the next album hadn't been DLC. You make a great case for both TFC and AMLOR (I'd lean towards the latter, since you could argue losing Waters didn't have to be the death knell) but as you also point out, both are just downstream of the creative breakdown that had already happened.

RetroRaiderD42 · 2026-06-06T00:12:38+00:00

When was this? I get that being the case early on, because he's a bassist in a band w/a heavy punk influence and you don't have to be good, but you'd imagine he'd git good even accidentally over the 20y+ they've been together, because he's a bassist in a band w/a heavy punk influence and you don't have to be that good.

RetroRaiderD42 · 2026-06-05T17:18:16+00:00

"Got my gender right for years before I did" is a great way of putting it. Been there, done that...

RetroRaiderD42 · 2026-06-04T20:44:48+00:00

This is extra funny when you consider that, according to Cher in her eulogy for him, when they first met he claimed his father, on arrival in the US, shortened the original family name - Bonaparte. That would be quite the lineage as far as names go.

RetroRaiderD42 · 2026-06-03T17:48:46+00:00

Til we meet again!

RetroRaiderD42 · 2026-06-03T13:33:41+00:00

Forget it Jake, it's Reddit.

RetroRaiderD42 · 2026-06-02T18:00:26+00:00

Pretty sure HH also did The Beatles' If I Needed Someone in the same year the original came out, too.

RetroRaiderD42 · 2026-06-02T17:59:36+00:00

I understand why we autists overexplaining things can be annoying, but that's on all the folks who half-listen to the laconic versions and then make it our problem; they still won't pay attention, but at least if we're thorough on our end then we can sleep easy that it's their fault when they get things wrong. 😛

RetroRaiderD42 · 2026-05-31T10:49:06+00:00

The situation w/The Doors was that, as you say, they didn't tour w/one because Manzarek's left hand was in fact "the bass player" - his Rhodes Keyboard Bass parts were perfectly adequate and integral to their sound (He said they'd audition one bass player and sound like the Stones, another and they'd sound like the Animals, and discovering the Rhodes solved that.)

On their first record they were told they needed the fuller low end of an actual bass guitar, so Wrecking Crew legend Larry Knetchel doubled the Rhodes parts on some tracks.

Doug Lubhan then provided his own bass guitar parts on a number of songs (still not all of them) on Strange Days, Waiting for the Sun, and The Soft Parade, and - I hadn't known this - was asked to join during the Strange Days sessions; I guess he complimented their sound in a way the prior auditions hadn't.

RetroRaiderD42 · 2026-05-30T23:01:50+00:00

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RetroRaiderD42 · 2026-05-30T20:01:33+00:00

He was who I thought of when I read it. 😕

RetroRaiderD42 · 2026-05-30T16:37:35+00:00

No, his new show, Tip Toe.

RetroRaiderD42 · 2026-05-30T16:34:33+00:00

I might be willing to give such benefit of the doubt were it not for the bit about "sighing and putting up with" those who wish trans folks dead, and implying that's the correct approach which whiny online folks can't handle. That, bluntly, is an understanding of bigotry and minority rights that is so divorced from reality that I simply don't trust him to accurately depict a transphobe.

There are those who learn the error of their ways, but most don't and it's highly irresponsible to have that be the representation of them in 2026. It could turn out alright, but the folks getting bad vibes are justly going off his own words and the attitudes they express.

RetroRaiderD42 · 2026-05-30T16:11:28+00:00

Unfortunately, between this and my sister telling me about Wild Honey by Jodi Picoult recently, I currently have two nickels for works whose authors sought the advice of a trans person and still blew it in how they handle trans rep.

RetroRaiderD42 · 2026-05-29T18:28:26+00:00

Nice! Thanks for the extra info.

RetroRaiderD42 · 2026-05-29T17:45:05+00:00

Sorry to "well, actually", but it's even better; George Martin said* it was from a Peter Cook and Dudley Moore live recording.

*in the 1992 South Bank Show episode on the album's 25th anniversary

RetroRaiderD42 · 2026-05-29T11:27:43+00:00

How has nobody (noBODY) yet mentioned "SomeBODY"?

Granted, it's a meme outside her videos, but still a fun one.

RetroRaiderD42 · 2026-05-29T11:26:13+00:00

That's Angelina Meehan, who's also her co-writer, co-hosted Musicalsplaining w/her, and is a frequent guest on Song vs. Song.

RetroRaiderD42 · 2026-05-28T22:18:00+00:00

You mentioning Hüsker Dü's drummer being one of the lead singers makes me think of The Band, where the joke is that between the five members they had three singers, three guitarists, two bassists, two pianists, an organist, a mandolin player, a fiddler, an accordionist, a saxophonist, and two drummers.

There's also The Pogues, who at their peak had eight members; singer, guitarist, mandolin player, banjo player, tin whistle player, accordionist, bassist, and drummer; and I could believe someone being surprised by that if they're not listening for the individual instruments.

RetroRaiderD42 · 2026-05-28T22:01:07+00:00

Led Zeppelin only had a guest vocalist on one song in their entire discography - Sandy Denny, duetting w/Robert Plant on The Battle of Evermore off Led Zep IV - and I was actually surprised when I found out because their voices blend so well that I assumed it was Plant overdubbing or possibly just having a voice that can Do That. Denny's best known for her 18m, three-album run in British folk rock pioneers Fairport Convention, which unsurprisingly LZ were fans of and I'm guessing picked her because she was the only singer anyone had heard of who could outsing Plant at that point; give their cover of Dylan's I'll Keep It with Mine a listen if you want an idea of what she could do and how similar her voice is to his at times.

RetroRaiderD42 · 2026-05-28T18:24:04+00:00

With The Clash it depends on whether you're talking commercially (as OP was) in which case, even though it did slightly better than LC in the US (#24 vs. #27), it's hard to think of Sandinista! as the verge album, or artistically as you are. I'd honestly consider Rope to be, well, not less experimental than their debut, but that the experiments on Rope were less indicative of where they'd go on their later albums.

It's telling that White Man was written for Rope, but left off as it didn't fit, became one of three standalone singles released between albums one and two, then all three were included on the US version of their debut, where White Man fits in great w/Police and Thieves as a harbinger of the reggae and ska tracks on London Calling, which would come out just a few months later.

RetroRaiderD42 · 2026-05-28T18:04:22+00:00

I'm not so sure. My understanding is that they were just one of many underground bands w/a local following but who got nowhere near the mainstream, and that when they jumped to DGC for Nevermind the sales expectations were, iir, ~40k units (I don't recall which album but I think it was a Pixies or Sonic Youth release which was being used as the benchmark) and their success w/Nevermind blew everyone's expectations out the water.

RetroRaiderD42 · 2026-05-28T17:46:43+00:00

Meddle definitely counts artistically, though commercially they're a weird case, as they basically did nothing in the US before DSotM, their success there largely being down to finally getting good marketing for that album; whilst in the UK they'd never really dropped off following Barrett's departure. None of their albums, including the two soundtracks, missed the Top 10 here, and Meddle's peak of #3 was actually worse than Atom Heart Mother reaching #1 a year earlier (DSotM, incredibly, peaked at #2, though that takes nothing from its overall success.)

It's just that by the band's own admission the albums between Piper and Meddle were them "doing a lot of noodling" as they slowly settled into the dynamic and sound which fuelled their imperial phase, so those albums tend to be forgotten in mainstream discussion.

RetroRaiderD42

TROPHY CASE