I am putting a flag down - this is going to be a Too Big To Fail album and it’s going to have all the problems that come with that
Replies
That last one was fucking trash and I was fully onboard with her after folklore
aug 12, 2025, 3:02 pm • 0 0 • view
I dunno. if that album about the two week relationship she had with the singer of a fake rock band didn't implode, she's probably untouchable
aug 12, 2025, 2:55 pm • 14 0 • view
Attention, babe.
aug 12, 2025, 3:35 pm • 0 0 • view
I didn't put it in these words, but that's kind of what I thought about the last album.
aug 12, 2025, 4:01 pm • 1 0 • view
I think it’ll be good
aug 12, 2025, 3:30 pm • 3 0 • view
If she’s dropping Antonoff and going back to Max Martin, she knows TTPD wasn’t great!
aug 12, 2025, 3:31 pm • 2 0 • view
At the very very least, it will sound better. Lorde's new album is so much better to listen to than the last Antonoff-produced one.
aug 12, 2025, 3:34 pm • 3 0 • view
She now has a Spotify playlist with only max martin-produced songs. If this album if 1989 and Rep with a smattering of Red mixed into one, I’m cool with it.
aug 12, 2025, 3:41 pm • 2 0 • view
Vitalogy
aug 12, 2025, 2:53 pm • 3 0 • view
Big ‘07 Patriots energy with Max Martin subbing in for Randy Moss
aug 12, 2025, 2:59 pm • 0 0 • view
I'm gonna argue that Tortured Poets was her too big to fail album and that for better or worse she feels like she has something to prove here.
aug 12, 2025, 2:54 pm • 16 0 • view
Dang. Was just about to say that. No fair.
aug 12, 2025, 3:02 pm • 1 0 • view
like too full of stuff? No quality control?
aug 12, 2025, 3:22 pm • 0 0 • view
Trying really hard to make a big, successful record
aug 12, 2025, 3:25 pm • 1 0 • view
Counterpoint: it’s gonna fucking own
aug 12, 2025, 2:48 pm • 7 0 • view
Poodle Hat - Weird Al Yankovic Wait, hear me out: Coming off his 90s run of Off The Deep End, Alapalooza, Bad Hair Day, and Running With Scissors, Weird Al had become a cultural institution, getting interviewed on MTV, all of it. Then Poodle Hat dropped and the only "hit" was the Polka.
aug 12, 2025, 3:09 pm • 5 0 • view
Let's remember some Too Big To Fail albums, I'll start - REM's Monster
aug 12, 2025, 2:48 pm • 76 2 • view
Watch the Throne
aug 12, 2025, 2:53 pm • 10 0 • view
U2 - How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb
aug 12, 2025, 7:23 pm • 1 0 • view
Adding Tales from Topographic Oceans (which I love) for any prog nerds here. That’s far from the only prog album specifically from 1973 that qualifies (ELP’s Brain Salad Surgery, Jethro Tull’s A Passion Play)
aug 12, 2025, 3:05 pm • 1 0 • view
Kiss put out four officially-branded solo albums in 1978 that all shipped Platinum, and their only cultural resonance is when “New York Groove” is played after Mets games.
aug 12, 2025, 2:55 pm • 26 0 • view
a staple of used record stores notable for their uncharacteristic good condition compared to other LPs of the era
aug 12, 2025, 3:09 pm • 0 0 • view
I was just looking on Discogs to see how cheap a Mint or VG+ copy of any of those you can find, and some label in Russia reissued all four of them as picture discs in 2006. Up there in the Weird Pressings Hall of Fame with the Colorado Rockies version of that last Rolling Stones album.
aug 12, 2025, 3:18 pm • 0 0 • view
The what version of the last Rolling Stones album? Excuse me?
aug 12, 2025, 3:22 pm • 1 0 • view
Oh yeah, they did a really weird cash grab with Major League Baseball where they made 30 different team themed sleeves therollingstonesshop.com/collections/...
aug 12, 2025, 3:24 pm • 1 0 • view
A fun indicator of a team's popularity is if its version isn't available anymore (that would be Yankees, White Sox, Tigers, A's, Mariners, Mets, Phillies, Cubs, Cardinals, Pirates, Dodgers) therollingstonesshop.com/collections/...
aug 12, 2025, 3:28 pm • 0 0 • view
That song does kick ass
aug 12, 2025, 3:09 pm • 0 0 • view
A classic of the genre
aug 12, 2025, 2:58 pm • 2 0 • view
I wasn’t expecting you to imply this new Taylor album was going to be good as hell
aug 12, 2025, 2:50 pm • 2 0 • view
The White Album.
aug 12, 2025, 3:46 pm • 1 0 • view
be here now
aug 12, 2025, 7:39 pm • 2 0 • view
Be Here Now by Oasis, though idk if it fully counts because it did well but is now regarded as a cocaine-fueled wreck
aug 12, 2025, 2:56 pm • 22 0 • view
That was the one I was going to write in before I settled on Monster
aug 12, 2025, 2:57 pm • 3 0 • view
Killers, Day & Age
aug 12, 2025, 3:00 pm • 0 0 • view
I initially was pretty meh about Monster due to the hype. Some time later I came to appreciate that it’s a pretty good album on its own.
aug 12, 2025, 3:01 pm • 1 0 • view
Tusk
aug 12, 2025, 3:10 pm • 2 0 • view
The third Tame Impala record
aug 12, 2025, 3:11 pm • 0 0 • view
First Impressions of Earth
aug 12, 2025, 8:07 pm • 0 0 • view
Sweat/Suit
aug 12, 2025, 3:36 pm • 4 0 • view
Candy Apple Grey *ducks while pointing out that it has some absolute bangers*
aug 12, 2025, 3:31 pm • 1 0 • view
Chinese Democracy
aug 12, 2025, 2:51 pm • 8 0 • view
Voodoo Lounge
aug 12, 2025, 3:05 pm • 5 0 • view
Bridges To Babylon was even more that. They brought in Babyface and The Dust Brothers to produce lol
aug 13, 2025, 3:07 pm • 0 0 • view
Kid A. Also happens to be their best album. But it was a “we’re going to do this and you can’t stop us” kind of deal.
aug 12, 2025, 3:35 pm • 1 0 • view
yep, this one - if you're making a Too Big to Fail album, you have an artistic obligation to make it *weird*
aug 12, 2025, 4:36 pm • 0 0 • view
(quietly, so quietly, what was that, did i just imagine a sound?): The Blueprint
aug 12, 2025, 6:26 pm • 0 0 • view
U2-How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb
aug 12, 2025, 2:56 pm • 4 0 • view
U2 dominates this genre.
aug 12, 2025, 2:56 pm • 12 0 • view
Sure, but without Monster, you don’t get New Adventures in Hi-Fi which was recorded on the Monster tour.
aug 12, 2025, 2:57 pm • 4 0 • view
I feel like Tortured Poets Department was already this. Feel like it hit and sank without making much of an impact.
aug 12, 2025, 3:21 pm • 6 0 • view
U2, Zooropa Arcade Fire, Reflektor
aug 12, 2025, 2:53 pm • 4 0 • view
U2, Pop
aug 12, 2025, 2:51 pm • 28 0 • view
Reflektor
aug 12, 2025, 2:51 pm • 6 0 • view
You’re not wrong, but I was gonna say Everything Now
aug 12, 2025, 3:00 pm • 3 0 • view
Absolutely
aug 12, 2025, 2:58 pm • 2 0 • view
But isn't that album's enduring legacy that it was, in fact, a failure?
aug 12, 2025, 7:48 pm • 0 0 • view
In Utero
aug 12, 2025, 3:07 pm • 3 0 • view
The Wall
aug 12, 2025, 3:35 pm • 0 0 • view
okay hold on Monster is a masterpiece, their last one. What are we doing here?
aug 12, 2025, 2:59 pm • 4 0 • view
I think it's like Waterworld where commercial expectations are inextricably linked to the conventional wisdom about the work (when they shouldn't be) (Monster is perhaps my favorite R.E.M. album)
aug 12, 2025, 3:12 pm • 1 0 • view
and I always liked it but a lot of R.E.M. fans REALLY didn't like it
aug 12, 2025, 3:12 pm • 0 0 • view
i think people have come around on considering it great now but at the time i think it was considered a letdown after automatic. and tbh you could find it in every used record store for like a decade after it dropped
aug 12, 2025, 3:01 pm • 11 0 • view
Ha yes I've made that same observation MANY a time. That orange cover, filling every bin. It's the most "Used CD Store" album ever unless that's "Pocket Full of Kryptonite." (Which I may or may not have bought used.)
aug 12, 2025, 3:03 pm • 7 0 • view
It was an intentional departure from Automatic and Out of Time that the many, many people who came on during those albums were not ready for.
aug 12, 2025, 3:06 pm • 0 0 • view
And misread by a LOT of people as a trend-chasing stab at "nineties loud guitar rock," which neglected that they'd ALWAYS been a rock band and that "Monster" sounds NOTHING like any of the canonical "grunge" stuff. Its obvious borrowings are from seventies glam, if anything!
aug 12, 2025, 3:08 pm • 0 0 • view
use your illusion I/II
aug 12, 2025, 3:33 pm • 15 0 • view
Ok but those had some bangers on them
aug 12, 2025, 3:37 pm • 1 0 • view
Chinese Democracy, natch
aug 12, 2025, 7:06 pm • 0 0 • view
It doesn't make sense now, but Creed's Weathered definitely fits this.
aug 12, 2025, 2:49 pm • 3 0 • view
Oasis "Be Here Now"
aug 12, 2025, 3:05 pm • 0 0 • view
Lorde, Solar Power Metallica, St. Anger The Killers, Sam’s Town
aug 12, 2025, 3:09 pm • 0 0 • view
The 20/20 Experience Vols 1&2
aug 12, 2025, 3:36 pm • 0 0 • view
Oasis - Be Here Now fits this bill to a T.
aug 12, 2025, 3:42 pm • 1 0 • view
and yet half the songs from that have been on rollicking Comedy Emmy Award Nominee The Bear
aug 12, 2025, 2:51 pm • 7 0 • view
lol
aug 12, 2025, 3:30 pm • 0 0 • view
Dan Rather agrees.
aug 12, 2025, 2:49 pm • 11 0 • view
I want to use that as a trivia question.
aug 12, 2025, 3:00 pm • 0 0 • view
I’m that U2 iPhone one.
aug 12, 2025, 3:07 pm • 6 0 • view
I'm not sure if I entirely follow your definition, but Hootie & the Blowfish "Fairweather Johnson" sold over two million copies, and it wasn't because of anything on "Fairweather Johnson".
aug 12, 2025, 7:34 pm • 1 0 • view
Also a little more obscure, but Mike Oldfield's follow-up to "Tubular Bells", "Hergest Ridge", "was the UK's number one album in the week ending September 14 1974 and remained so for three weeks", and has sold more than two million copies according to its Wikipedia page.
aug 12, 2025, 7:38 pm • 0 0 • view
All of Steely Dan
aug 12, 2025, 2:51 pm • 3 0 • view
Gaucho absolutely was that, and somehow ended up being their best record anyway. Fagen’s The Nightfly very quietly became the comeback album.
aug 12, 2025, 2:58 pm • 1 0 • view
Please stop making this a post about how you feel about Monster. It's a good album! It is still clearly Too Big To Fail. I sang Strange Currencies for karaoke at my wedding!
aug 12, 2025, 3:32 pm • 42 0 • view
Still working on a display piece of a rack of bargain bin Monster CDs, I have 9 and I think I need 3-5 more to really get the point across. I like that album as well but your idea is seared into my brain, we were HS juniors when it came out and were impossibly excited to buy/listen to it!
aug 12, 2025, 4:38 pm • 2 0 • view
A bunch of my choices were already taken, so I'll go with Tusk
aug 12, 2025, 3:06 pm • 14 0 • view
YES
aug 12, 2025, 3:24 pm • 2 0 • view
You know my dad's friend played the synth when they'd do it live
aug 12, 2025, 3:24 pm • 5 0 • view
21st Century Breakdown by Green Day
aug 12, 2025, 3:35 pm • 0 0 • view
American Idiot
aug 12, 2025, 3:51 pm • 0 0 • view
I think 21st Century Breakdown is more appropriate
aug 12, 2025, 5:23 pm • 2 0 • view
if we're being fair, nimrod should probably have been Green Day's "let it be"
aug 12, 2025, 5:35 pm • 1 0 • view
Does Chocolate Starfish and the Hotdog Flavored Water count?
aug 12, 2025, 2:49 pm • 12 0 • view
Fun fact, that album still holds the record for fastest selling rock album of all time and probably will forever since no one buys music anymore, so I say it absolutely counts
aug 12, 2025, 3:52 pm • 4 0 • view
Wu-Tang Forever
aug 12, 2025, 2:50 pm • 5 0 • view
Yep. Though its peaks are some of Wu Tang's highest peaks
aug 12, 2025, 5:21 pm • 0 0 • view
Don't get me wrong, I love that record. It's just a bit of a bloated mess at times.
aug 12, 2025, 5:26 pm • 1 0 • view
Jawbreaker - Dear You
aug 12, 2025, 5:30 pm • 0 0 • view
I'm too young to remember how it was received, but maybe Around the World in a Day?
aug 12, 2025, 4:09 pm • 0 0 • view
Absolutely. This might be the winner. Everyone still bought the album, but there was a "what's this hippy shit?" backlash from the crowd that discovered him through Purple Rain.
aug 12, 2025, 4:54 pm • 1 0 • view
Nine Inch Nails’ The Fragile
aug 12, 2025, 3:42 pm • 2 0 • view
is Chinese Democracy in this category I don't even know
aug 12, 2025, 2:51 pm • 18 0 • view
a better answer is probably Favourite Worst Nightmare
aug 12, 2025, 2:55 pm • 1 0 • view
or Random Access Memories for sure
aug 12, 2025, 2:56 pm • 0 0 • view
maybe that's more like duke nukem forever
aug 12, 2025, 2:52 pm • 8 0 • view
critical environment super different. It will get universal praise.
aug 12, 2025, 3:08 pm • 16 0 • view
A Too Big To Fail album can still do well, critically and financially, but it's still going to bear the marks of it being too big to fail
aug 12, 2025, 3:20 pm • 5 0 • view
Metallica - Load
aug 12, 2025, 2:51 pm • 14 0 • view
Oasis' Be Here Now
aug 12, 2025, 7:38 pm • 0 0 • view
Michael Jackson History
aug 12, 2025, 2:53 pm • 4 0 • view
I was gonna say - Basically all his post-Bad albums are like a junkie dead set on recapturing their highest high
aug 12, 2025, 4:38 pm • 0 0 • view
I feel like Tortured Poets Department already kinda was, my least favorite album of hers in ages and I like her music
aug 12, 2025, 2:50 pm • 49 0 • view
I had a friend go "this is the longest between albums post-pandemic" and remind me she's working with max martin. this is a too big to fail record.
aug 12, 2025, 2:51 pm • 14 0 • view
I agree. I think we already hit that point with TPD, and I think this album is going to be a recovery. It is produced by Max Martin and Shellback, the main producers of 1989 and Reputation, and not Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner, who I think made her last albums sound WAY too similar.
aug 12, 2025, 2:54 pm • 7 0 • view
Ah, yeah. Didn’t know that. I’m an OG fan of the National and still felt like Dessner was on balance a terrible influence on her lol.
aug 12, 2025, 3:00 pm • 2 0 • view
I agree with this as well. While I don't actively dislike any of her music, I am a MUCH bigger fan of 1989 - Lover than anything after.
aug 12, 2025, 3:04 pm • 0 0 • view
She's just not a sophisiticate and that's fine! It's a weird look on her.
aug 12, 2025, 3:06 pm • 1 0 • view
She phoned it in with TTPD.
aug 12, 2025, 3:04 pm • 0 0 • view
Tusk & Sandanista! come to mind.
aug 12, 2025, 3:10 pm • 1 0 • view
No way. This is a comeback album.
aug 12, 2025, 2:52 pm • 0 0 • view
How? She's already at the top, there's nothing for her to come back to.
aug 12, 2025, 7:41 pm • 0 0 • view
The last album was less than a total success by her standards, at least in terms of cultural impact. This isn't a situation where she is following up a career high point.
aug 12, 2025, 9:40 pm • 0 0 • view