TRAINWRECKORDS: "Mission Earth" by Edgar Winter and L. Ron Hubbard

Sara's Brave grates on me like nothing else. It's up there with Alicia's "Girl on Fire" as a ploy from a once respected artist for mainstream cred. Katy knows who she is and at least her song has the personal touch with her citing herself, and a well publicized break up to back it up.

Bryan Bindman

This is so interesting! I really need to dig into Edgar Winter's stuff. I was so excited to hear Lewis narrating too! Also I remember that Rhino commercial on a VHS of Plan Nine from Outer Space from back in the day, makes me wonder if they distributed films too?

Call Me Christina {PuellaDocta}

I can’t believe Stymie was mislead😳

Synanon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synanon did their c ... controversial-movement propaganda album so much better. They even discovered Joe Pass! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sounds_of_Synanon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvPjlvLqnz8&list=PLutPrZUX__DYoot9LoEtIZs3pfDD0fF43

Leo Comerford

At first, I wondered how a Scientology-backed album by Edgar Winter could possibly turn out so boring and "normal" sounding. Then, I realized that this exactly what cults like Scientology want you to believe: that they're normal. If anyone's seen the SOS video on Best of the Worst: does this album sort of remind you of that one? Granted, this one was a little less batshit in its lyrical content.

Charles Kieser

Nobody should do anything like The Astonishing. Bad prog at its most self parody

Christina Kelley

Joy City vaguely reminds me of the Duck Tales theme song.

Stephen Gillie

Only been to Del Taco twice (they're rare in WA State) but omg I want their tacos now.

Stephen Gillie

It's been up on YouTube all day and Zenu hasn't struck you down. I think you may in the clear, Todd.

Kristopher Bluth

Minor mistake here. "Albinism" is pronounced "al-buh-ni-zm," not "al-bye-ni-zm."

Brian Martin

This is your best video yet, Todd.

James Eldred

The framing device of the novel is that it is an official governmenr report and as such has had all obscenities removed by the Voltarian censors

Todd in the Shadows

That's Lewis Lovhaug quoting the books!

Brian Martin

What’s so funny is that Todd provided the voice for Andrew Hussy in Sarah’s video when she was talking about his emails to her

Erik Danielson

I’m glad that “X Threatened Me and then it got worse” is now its own YouTube sub-genre. Thanks, Sarah Z! Also, this video is captivating.

Franco del Rosario

Good stuff.

Curious — are the bits where the narrator says "(Bleep) this place!" actually that in the text, or is it a censoring on your end? Just curious because I've come across similar instances of deleting expletives in other pulp SF novels I've read, heh.

Matt Keeley

I signed up for the Patreon just for this video.

Damian Penny

I for one would absolutely listen to a Pern concept album. Are you kidding?! (And lol at "fortunately no one ever tried to ballot-stuff the Hugos again." Did not expect a Rabid Puppies joke in the middle of a Trainwreckords video.)

Sadie S

Any part in particular you thought I needed to add lyrics? I thought I got all the ones where it mattered

Todd in the Shadows

Very well done, sir. Absolutely fascinating.

Jeremy Hanna

Wait a minute, am I seizure-inclined because I’m on Earth or because I am an Earthling?

Jeremy Hanna

*eye rolls*

Joy City reminds me of 80s/90s jingles. We have this now closed water park nearby called Wild Water and Wheels that had the same jingle for thirty years and I swear they sound identical.

One quick thing. Doug E Fresh has not passed away. Also, nice Norm MacDonald tribute there.

I'd appreciate it if you'd add subtitles to all the songs when you're discussing lyrics. Some of the words were a little hard to make out when you didn't bring up screenshots of the poems. Also, I don't know if Dragonriders of Pern had an album but it would have sold. I mean, I've got the Atlas of Pern and have seen the actual board game for sale more than once. Also also, that series is science fiction, not fantasy. Alien planet and all that. But your calling it fantasy further reinforces your statement that you know nothing about it so it's all good.

Taia Hartman

Pretty much what I was thinking. This is something that needs to be stretched out to the musical equivalent of feature length.

1) Todd has mentioned Edgar Winter before, in the Rick Derringer episode, but it's OK if you didn't watch or didn't remember that. 2) As a science fiction fan - I remember the Sad / Rabid Puppies. Oh holy moly do I ever. IDK if we were calling chuds by that name yet, but that was absolute chud nonsense. The only good thing that came out of that debacle was N. K. Jemisin mercilessly trolling the Puppies when she won her Best Novel Hugo for The Fifth Season.

Grace

Del Taco >>> Scientology. Also, why are some humans constantly so attracted to megalomaniac psychos that they're willing to follow their personality cults to the point of self harm? Over and over and over again. Fucking idiot people suck!!! All of this music seems to be terrible...

also lol this sounds like a bad prince album (like late 90s prince)

duke86fan

The "and, you guessed it, Frank Stallone" gag got me good. RIP Norm.

Peter Guilherme

"Oh, Edgar Winter. I heard of that.... wait, L. Ron Hubbard, the Scientology guy? The video's 40 minutes?! I'm gonna need to break out the movie-theater butter for this!"

Prophet of Pop Toddstradamus just dropped a 43 minute instant classic. I know people suffer for their art, but damn. I think it's time you get some r&r at Joy City!

Laura Tate

Not you just casually mentioning one of my all time favourite albums (Lonely Avenue). 😅

somehow i can't object to the idea of L Ron being the first person to make a soundtrack to a book... i mean todd barton did "Music and Poetry of the Kesh" for Ursula K. Le Guin but that was 3 years after space jazz

duke86fan

This is one of your best. I love the amount of research you bring to these videos. Random reactions: 1. It's great to hear Linkara's voice on this! 2. As an Al Jarreau fan, I almost had a heart attack when I saw he was a Scientologist. I did some quick Googling, and thankfully he left the church before he died.

Jennifer Layton

Can't believe I'm saying this but looking at the album, the track list, and all the random one spot locations and one off characters they chose to make songs about, this is clearly going into some Killroy Was Here levels of lack of cohesion. Honestly they should have just gone whole hog and made this Lambs Lie Down length.

Ben French

Very fascinating episode! Never heard of Edgar Winter before but i'll admit this might be the best album covered on this show along with that Human League album. Also LOLed at the reference to the whole Sad/Rabbid Puppies affair at the Hugos in the 2010s. I did manage to find the whole thing online on one of those unofficial MP3 sites for those that don't want to spend money on this thing:https://www.mp3va.com/edgar-winter-mission-earth-r520918

RedBedroomRecords

This is the minorest of nitpicks, Ron Miscavige (David’s father) passed away a few months ago and is referred to in present tense (“who is now”)

Jacob

I'd totally watch that show.

Justin V

I laughed my ass off at LET ME INNNNN Eric Andre reference

Youre going missing lol

John Rogan

I'm so impressed by this episode that I'm going to sign up for Curiosity Stream lmao

Kim P

I completely lost it with Krin’s clickbait title card, it’s right up there with the Timothy video.

Graham Smith

primal and experimental is The Stooges or Trout Mask Replica. not all the worst sounds of the 80s.

Creamer

Fun fact: I read this series when I was a kid. My dad used to sell insurance, which meant he was on the road a lot, and in the '80s one of the ways he'd pass the time was keeping big doorstop novels around to read. He'd kept them in the back of the car, and since you couldn't stop me from reading anything I could get my hands on in those days, I eventually worked my way through them. Not exactly age appropriate, but again, eighties.

Jason Schneiderman

There are tonnes of used Scientology books out there, because the Church gives away so many. If you've worked in libraries for a while you might have had dozens of donations from the Church come in. I haven't seen any in the last few years though.

Joe G

Wow, Linkara does sniveling voice acting extremely well, doesn't he? As for the actual music itself, if Winter had gotten some other vocalists to sing and ditched the bad Eighties production, it...well, it still would've been awful, but not this egregiously so. Maybe it could've held a respectable place on an AV Club's Least Essential Albums list (And am I sensing a touch of Stockholm Syndrome by the time Todd gets to "Joy City"? I suppose it's catchy, but I kept waiting for the voiceover telling me Joy City's summer hours and that it's just off the beltline...)

Kristopher Bluth

ngl, I probably would buy a Dragonriders of Pern album just from the name alone. And I never read the books.

Attercap

I loved this episode!

bunsbunsbunsbunsbuns

*Sees the video is 43 minutes long* *Sees I have 43 minutes before I have to go to work* Me: LET'S GOOOOOOOOOO

Matthew

He dragged out the Light-bringer! HUZZAH!!

CarlWheezer24

This is such a fun video and I love that you’re diving into the weird musical anomalies that history would have lost. Ever thought of covering some weird celebrity musical vanity projects like Rocket Man or Songs from the Crystal Cave? Always a fan, thanks for the episode.

43 minutes? You're spoiling us, Todd. You really are.

David Claiborne

I'm strangely happy to know that my patreon bucks probably went into Todd getting two copies of this musical anomaly and that he even trudged through that awful book for this video... He didn't need to go so above and beyond, and yet he did. I think I have even more respect for him as a content creator now than I did before - and that was still a lot. (Also, I'm sure crossing the t's and dotting the i's was probably a high priority since incorrect details could've had a swamp of Scientologists up his ass - but even still that's not something most would take on. Mad respect for your work, Todd)

AstarothLuLz

this is one of your best videos todd, fucking amazing.

Stefan Ristic

There was no way that an album concept like this was ever going to work for a single-LP. If you wanted to adapt something as huge as Mission Earth to a musical format, you'd probably need to do something like The Astonishing, and even then you'd probably have to heavily condense the source material down.

As Todd explains, Edgar Winter is more of a cult figure than a mainstream figure so that's probably why this album doesn't have more notoriety.

Except 2112, while taking from Ayn Rand's philosophy, doesn't really have direct source material in the same way Mission Earth does, and of course can be a lot more consise, given that 2112 is just a single 20-minute suite. If you're going do something as massive as Mission Earth justice in musical form, it would have to be less 2112 and more The Astonishing.

This sounds like if The Buggles made themes for Saturday morning cartoons

heeeeeeeeck, 45 minutes of TrainWreckords? Yesssssssss

Folks in the comments - I've read about as much of the Mission Earth series as Todd has, and he's not kidding about how weird and bad it is.

maruhkati

I would like to state for the record that I would absolutely buy any Dragonriders of Pern albums that anyone cares to produce. But then those books were my life in high school.

Yvonne Hanafee

This is incredible.

Martin

everytime todd pleads that scientology shouldnt sue him makes me chuckle, yes I am aware its a real possibility but being european makes me have a different view on it

Holy shit - you knocked this one out of the park, Todd!! This was an incredibly thorough and high quality documentary. Now I’m going to go listen to Joy City a bunch, lol. I didn’t know that Scientology was anti-psychiatry and psychology but it makes so much sense. Basically the idea of their religion is creating an alternative to mental health medicine. One of my few regrets in life is that I stumbled upon a ton of Scientology study books at a yard sale outside of Petersburg, VA back in 2009 and I passed on buying them. I looked through a few of them and they were partner exercises about dealing with thetans. The best way I could describe them was as if someone was throwing out old health care textbooks. There were boxes of them. But I got really nervous being there and looking through them - why were they there? Was it a trick to try and recruit me? I was fascinated but was worried that if I showed interest that I wouldn’t be able to just buy the books and leave, and I certainly wouldn’t be able to scan and share them with the world to make fun of them. There’s also some weird ties with Scientology and chiropractors. Back in 2010 I “won” a free massage at a chiropractor office in Baltimore, MD and when I first arrived everyone working there had the blankest expressions I had ever seen. when they took me back to a room they left me with a bookshelf with nothing but L. Ron Hubbard books. They didn’t give me a massage - instead they took an X-Ray and then did an adjustment on my neck (same weird expressionlessness during this process) and I actually passed out due to a medical condition that I didn’t know I had at the time and everyone in the office panicked. I woke up in a bed somewhere else in the office and they kept asking if I was okay and then basically shooed me out. So, yeah. I think a lot of what draws people into Scientology and keeps people there is actually alternative forms of health care. That’s what religion in general kind of does - it draws people in during hard times and provides spiritual support. Scientology just takes it to the next step with mental and physical health. One last Scientology story you didn’t ask for: I worked with a girl who grew up in the Scientology church in Switzerland. Her father was super active in it and all of the things I mentioned above are what drew him in. She was an atheist and had no active relationship with the church but interestingly she didn’t see it as any different from any other religious institution - she had the “it helps others but isn’t for me” attitude.

When talking about who the album is for(with the niche subject matter); Rush's 2112 album is based off of Randian philosophy, yet the album stood on its own because of the music.

Sunny

Please do a One-Hit Wonderland Episode on "Stay" by Eternal

Michael Jones Jr.

...I looked at the cover art, and I thought, "Hey, wait a minute!" I double-checked the "by" credits, and oh. Oh dear. Guess I'm in for it now.

SpectralTime

So dang excited. My mind was blown when I first found out this album existed. I don’t know why it’s not more infamous.

the purple shaman

should work

Todd in the Shadows

should work now

Todd in the Shadows

should work now

Todd in the Shadows

should work now

Todd in the Shadows

Well it's working for me at the moment at least. I suppose I'll cherish it while I can. Definitely didn't see this coming.

Henry Kiley

Schrödinger's video

apocalypsethen

L Ron's shooters must work fast huh

Lennon Riley

I only see “sorry that video doesn’t exist” when I click on it

ImADudeDuh

And its gone

Lita Vyper