TRAINWRECKORDS: Rick Springfield’s “Tao”

Todd you should do the Garth Brooks Chris Gaines one next

An album made after a death of a father influenced by far eastern country, made by an artist whoose age is cathing up to him… But unlike Gorillaz "The Mountain" this album is bad.

Hey, Rick, if you had thoughts about Nuclear Waste, take it up with NEVADA! Nevada was and is the biggest obstacle to a proper national nuclear waste storage facility since they're all "not in my backyard" even though it has to be one of the 50 states, and Nevada is overwhelmingly government land far from major population centers. The entire Country was looked over, and Yucca Mountain was selected, and it's the state of Nevada that's been the biggest roadblock.

Alright, here's my definitive list so far of Trainwreckords categories (albums can fall into multiple of these):

Sorted by reasons they failed:

– Artists desperately trying to stay hip with the times : 0304, Kilroy Was Here, Van Halen III, Cyberpunk, Summer in Paradise, The Funky Headhunter, Crash, Lost and Found, Generation Swine, Crown Royal, Ringo The 4th, Man of the Woods, No Fixed Address
– Sophomore Slumps : Zingalamaduni, Turn It Upside Down, Fairweather Johnson, This Unruly Mess I've Made

– Album was made to stroke someone's ego : Be Here Now (The Gallagher Brothers), Generation Swine (Nikki & Tommy), Summer In Paradise (Mike Love), Cut The Crap (Bernie Rhodes), Two The Hard Way (Cher & Gregg, but mostly Cher), Mission Earth (L. Ron Hubbard)

– Band drama : Mardi Gras, Van Halen III, Zingalamaduni, St Anger, Generation Swine, American Dream, Crown Royal, Results May Vary

– Personal drama/insecurities : MTV Unplugged 2.0, American Life, Witness, Paula, Lost & Found, Bad Reputation, This Unruly Mess I've Made

– Bizarre, hilarious experiments : Kilroy Was Here, Cyberpunk, Two The Hard Way, Passage, Funstyle, Mission Earth, Ringo the 4th, Lulu, Tao

– Deliberate self-sabotage : Funstyle, This Unruly Mess I've Made

Sorted by quality:

– Mediocre : Passage, Be Here Now, American Life, Zingalamaduni, Crash, Fairweather Johnson, Ringo the 4th, Turn It Upside Down, Cry, Eye of the Zombie, Tao

– Terrible : Kilroy was Here, The Funky Headhunter, Cyberpunk, American Dream, Mardi Gras, Two the Hard Way

– Exceptionally terrible : 0304, Van Halen III, Cut the Crap, Summer in Paradise, Funstyle, St Anger, Mission Earth, Generation Swine, Crown Royal, No Fixed Address, Results May Vary, Lulu

– Total faceplant : Witness, Lost and Found, Man of the Woods, This Unruly Mass I've Made

– Morally reprehensible : MTV Unplugged 2.0, Paula, Bad Reputation

I have to admit. Some of these don't sound that bad. To me Dance This World Away was the best one. Couldn't stop listening to that one. The synthesizer could be better.

I thought you added the last two "Who's there?" In ride em b do jr and then came to the realization that it wasn't Todd's garbled edited voice. Damn.

Your commentary and wit are first rate.Thank you.

Is Ride Em B Do Jr. the first vaporwave interlude?

Jesse’s Girl follows my hushand everywhere. His name is Jesse.

Seems like the story of an artist who was woefully unaware of his limitations…and also assuming that his personal life was much more interesting than it was.

Springfield’s strengths were writing hookfilled if derivative singles and having the charisma to put them over. Nobody was looking to him for radical new sounds or Eastern wisdom.

It’s not that he’s devoid of talent, but that his talents are all mid-tier. He’s a good actor, as long as it’s the right role. He’s a good guitarist and singer, but not remarkable or distinctive. He’s a smart guy, but not unusually bright or soulful.

When he plays to his strengths, he’s great…but when he steps outside of them, the wheels come off pretty quickly.

10:22 Tim Pierce spotted

I'm more familiar with Real American.

The Puerto Rican singer Wilkins did a cover of The Tao of Love (El Poder del Amor) and he mostly removes the Chinese stuff, but he still talks about "things changing in me". He's a dedicated latin ballad guy, and Michael Sembello's production is relatively fuller even if still very 80s.

And that's where I have to give Pitbull credit, he's never married or shown an official girlfriend. He's unabashedly a playboy.

So no discussion of how this song that pretty much nobody remembers was beating "Money For Nothing" on the charts?

Rick Springfield looked at 5,000 years of Taoist philosophy and said "cool word, zero homework needed" — then buried it under 8 synths and a drum machine so aggressively gated that even Phil Collins winced. That's not enlightenment, that's a man with a sampler budget and a midlife crisis. The "State of the Heart" solo sounding like a dying cat getting run over by the car that killed it is the funniest description of music I've heard all year. And don't get me started on him putting his dog on every album cover — dude's been outsourcing his personality to a golden retriever for 40 years and honestly I respect the hustle. TRAINWRECKORDS is the best shit on this platform, subscribe to Todd or I'll lecture YOU about Taoism.

I don't think were considering the overarching impact that c*caine had on this.

5:50 wtf, is that like Mac Tonite's lost bastard son or something?

I thought I’d only heard two songs by this guy until Todd started playing through his backlog and I realized I knew most of his hits from three years of working retail.

Thank you for unlocking the memory of CELEBRATE YOUTH YEAH I DON'T. I totally had forgotten about that song.
What's the other big single? I love that song . But what do I know? I'm gen X

0:56 never heard of it in my entire life (i was born in 1993)

1:29 ok that one i know