TRAINWRECKORDS: "Turn It Upside Down" by Spin Doctors

Don't know anything about Popper specifically, but I suspect he hadn't come out as a whack job fascist in the 90s, so may be a smidge unfair to judge the Spin Doctors based on that. (Everything else however is fair game)

Lanth

https://twitter.com/SongVsSongPod/status/1412476455867486210

Matt Cramp

Yo, anyone know what happened with Todd's Twitter??

Jasper Phua

I’m in a playlist contest called “Music League” with some friends. We all add songs to a playlist based on the theme (I.e. songs about breakups, songs with animals in the title, etc.), then we all vote on the songs we like the best. One of us put “Big Fat Funky Booty” on a playlist and it got 0 votes.

Charles Kieser

When it was released I was a skinny nerd who was recording Dr. Demento deep dives so I was the last person to pop a monocle to the Billboard charts, but even I admit the second half of my CD was rarely listened to. Certainly not a album I'd discuss with friends or even put on when I had them around, but there is something about being in the summer sun with "Hungry Hamed's" playing indistinctly in the background...

Carla Hoffman

“….a more cerebral version of the Spin Doctors” “This song is called BIG FAT FUNKY BOOTY” Jesus Lord, the editing of that absolutely killed me.

Franco del Rosario

Oh, it's definitely on the list of things I've considered

Todd in the Shadows

Like probably a lot of you, I've been following The Number Ones series over at Stereogum and it just occurred to me that if any one song could qualify as a Trainwreckord, it'd have be the title track for Debbie Gibson's Electric Youth. With one single, she went from pop prodigy to indisputable dork (Up With People would laugh at this), and that's not just cool kid snobbery. Her debut album generated four top five hits and "Lost In Your Eyes" spent three weeks at number one, but after "Electric Youth" topped out at number eleven she only hit the top forty twice ever again. As silly as it may seem, that one goofy song seems to have marked a real line in the sand for her career. Am I totally crazy here?

Kristopher Bluth

I always thought Little Miss...was the failed single from Album 2.

Keith Badje

Thanks Todd... with you on this one. I was in my mid 20s when this came out. Even then, I could not comprehend why "Cat" was the lead single. And while the second half of the CD is wildly disappointing, I admit to an affinity for "Someday all this will be road"

This whole album has a distinct Spinal Tap/Jazz Odyssey feel to it.

Justin V

That Cleopatra's Cat song sounds like something Paul Simon would make if he developed both an interest in Roman history and a severe blow to the head.

Great video! Might I suggest Amanda Marshall's 'Everybodys Got A Story'? She was as brilliant a Canadian export as Alanis with incredible songs, then pulled a Jewel and sold out to bad results.

Taylor Abrahamse

"Turn It On the Upside" by Spingarden

Jack Rosen

I was going to say Spin Doctors could be a One Hit Wonderland as much as a Trainwreckords, but then I looked them up and was surprised to find "Little Miss Can't Be Wrong" got to #2 on the US Mainstream Rock chart. Blues Traveler seems like a good subject for a One Hit Wonderland video. Their mainstream awareness is single-handedly due to "Run-Around." They were certainly unique with John Popper playing harmonica.

Josh Liller

There was also New Kids on the Block "Face the Music" where they tried to go for more of a mature R and B/New Jack Swing sound, but they ended up only playing theaters instead of the stadiums and arenas they were used to and the tour got cancelled like halfway through when one of the band members got fed up and left.

RedBedroomRecords

I know a guy who knows the lead singer's sister-in-law

Triple 9

No mention of the Spin City theme song they did?

Maybe if they'd collaborated with Peacey P on that Biscuit Head song, they would have had that crossover hit that would have saved them.

Russet Burbank

"Biscuit Head" made me laugh so hard for reasons I really can't explain.

About a decade too early. I could see this album working a lot better in the early 2000's. It's not garage rock but I could see it working on tour with The White Stripes doing killer live shows.

Juan Nunez

I remember reading an article quite recently about Spin Doctors actually being a cult-beloved 'real' blues band nowadays, playing small live shows instead of making records. Convinced me to go back and revisit so I bought a copy of PFoK. I was sort of moderately enjoying it until I caught an obvious John Popper harmonica riff on the fourth song or so. I think John Popper is a bad ass with a harmonica and I used to really love Four, but he's also undeniably identified himself as an absolute whack job fasicst, so that's the end of me financially supporting anything he is a part of. I'm glad to now know there's no reason to dive any deeper or try any harder to 'get' any of this beyond a couple of fun singles. I certainly remember the ubiquity of that album cover in every damn The Wherehouse I ever walked into...

They actually played my county fair a few years back. I didn't go, but now I'm kind of curious about how they must have sounded among the deep-fried Oreos and the Sea Dragon.

Kristopher Bluth

"I'd be fine if I heard this at a blues bar" *grins in knowing what happened to the Spin Doctors*

Nick DeCicco

Chris looks like Amish Paradise Weird Al in the “You Let Your Heart Go Too Fast” video

Tim Mackie

Guess this explains why I remember seeing this album for years in used record stores in the 90s but knew absolutely no songs from it.

Vanessa Picard

Oh, and the third album might be worth mentioning for its cover of KC and the Sunshine Band's "That's the Way (I Like It)" guest starring Biz Markie. No, I'm not kidding. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2hO14tRENs

Kristopher Bluth

King Missile. Now that's a name I've not heard in a long, long time...

Kristopher Bluth

I can see what they were trying to do with putting out "Cleopatra's Cat" as a lead single, but the song and the rest of the album weren't able to back up their ambitions. Between this and Zingalamaduni, the summer of 1994 was a bad time for acts that broke big two years previously (And as someone who was in college at this time, that jam band shit got really old really fast. Phuck Phish.)

Kristopher Bluth

okay but "hungry homeds" actually just made me cringe.. like too "slice of life" it's like a fucking advertisement or something oh god.

Creamer

As a stoner the Spin Doctors make me wanna become a Christian Youth Counselor. Also, ever consider doing a Trainwreckord on an album that saw an upward projected band just fall short even while making a good album? I'm thinking Failure "Fantastic Planet," but idk just a thought

Adam ODonnell

It’s funny you mention No Rain and Send Me On My Way in the early part about the jam bands. I’d argue those could make good future One-Hit Wonderland episodes.

Tom Carter

The vibe I get from "Cleopatra's Cat" is Soul Coughing’s "Screenwriter's Blues" or King Missile. The weird-ass, semi-spoken-word thing had a small bit of life in it on college radio and the brief slam poetry trend boosted it further.

Jason Schneiderman

That was much more fascinating than I expected them, especially for a band that you barely remember their second hit

Stephen Combs

I’ll argue that the song that killed their career is Two Princes. It’s the worst song on Pocket Full of Kryptonite, it goes on about a half-hour too long, and the four chords are D, Bm, A, G. That’s right -DBAG. But to underline their appeal on college campuses - when I went to visit my cousin at Princeton in 1992, I stepped out of the car and immediately bumped into a kid asking me, “Uhhh … are you going to see Spin Doctors tonight?” I wouldn’t have minded. The guys can play. If they were a jam band with one hit in Little Miss, they’d have had a better career. But no. Princes kneel before you.

Beau Dure

Have you ever actually smoked weed before Todd

John Rogan

Nah, they had 3 hits. I remember the title track from their debut album getting a lot of radio play on alternative stations, and I even still hear it occasionally.

Jeffrey Rysewyk

He can’t be a one hit wonder when he has 4 hits from “ kick push, superstar, show goes on, battle scars. And how does Lasers not represent “ Trainwreckords” ??? He was coming off of two classics, “ Food & Liquor “ and “ The Cool “, then fans had to wait 3 years for an album that got protested against and fans end up hating. It’s the perfect set up for a train wreck. Maybe not Tetsuo & Youth because that album was a masterpiece, but Lasers was everything Lupe stood against, he put out a pop rap album when he was anti corporate in his whole career. Sorry but your wrong about this one. You can have a hit and still be a train wreck.

Justin Wood

Lasers had The Show Goes On so it makes no sense overall in this context, comes off more like a potential One Hit Wonderland than anything except that we know how much else he has in the tank

When you say “hardcore liberal” do you mean an actual leftist who wants to torch the two-party system or someone willing to die for Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer’s kneeling?

Please do Lupe Fiasco “ Lasers “ or “ Tetsuo & Youth “ as the next train wreckords. Both albums is filled with Label drama, and the hacker group “ Anonymous “ hacking Atlantic records threatening to release music if they don’t put the album out and release of his contract. Album Lasers even had fans protesting outside of Atlantic records with the head guy coming out with a boom box playing music, asking them “ don’t you want the music to be good “? To finally releasing the albums and the fans hating it lol.

Justin Wood

I mean, the early Ween songs had actual jokes in them. Easy to understand ones, too. I'm not entirely sure why "Cleopatra's Cat" is supposed to be funny, and I've read me some history.

maruhkati

The jokier songs sound like bad attempts at the early Ween albums (another band who'd hop on the jam circuit later on).

Str00p

This is really kind of a stealth OHW from a two-hit band - falling into the "hit song(s) not indicative of what the band actually wanted to sound like" subcategory. The problem here is that they didn't really seem to have a clear idea of what they actually wanted to sound like. It may also be the stereotype of jam bands not actually knowing how to write songs might be accurate here.

maruhkati

When you're up late and there's a new Trainwreckords, you know you've chosen will

Aaron Larson

Ayy that's a cool one. I wonder if you got into the fact that one of the members is a trumpian and the other is a hardcore liberal. What a spin!

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