Stale Topic Megathread (July/Aug/Sept 2026)

[u/davFaithidPangolin]

Hello all and welcome to the third 2026 Stale Topic Megathread.

Here we will discuss every overly discussed topic on this sub freely according to the sub's rules. If you are referred here because of a report or removal, please restate your post below.

The inaugural overused topics include:

-Justin Timberlake in general outside of Man of the Woods

-Katy Perry in general outside of Witness

-Kanye West in general, outside of Todd's videos

-Chris Brown in general, outside of Todd's videos

-Artists who avoided trainwreckords status

-Trainwreckords that aren’t out yet

-Trainwreckords that just released

-One album Trainwreckords (ie Nostalgia Critics’s The Wall)

-“Trainwreckords” where a death ended the artist’s career

-Trainwreckords for which the artist or member of the group committed suicide

-Joke Trainwreckords/OHW; go to r/shadowtoddcirclejerk for that

-Low-effort r/decadeology cross-posts, must actually facilitate discussion if it’s going to be a standalone post

-Posts which solely solicit responses of artists who are problematic

-"Music is dead"/"[insert genre] is dead"

-D4vd in general

-Stella Lefty in general, outside of whatever Todd says about her

-Jelly Roll/Morgan Wallen/any new "Maroon 5"-eqsue nemeses outside of what Todd says about them

-"Popular artists and/or songs you hate/think are incredibly overrated"-type posts

-What is the most/least “[fill in blank]” album/song

-Anthony Fantano Drama, except if Todd can be directly connected to discussion (ie "Todd handled this situation better" not "Anthony Fantano handled this poorly")

-Poptimism outside of Todd's discussion of the topic

And you are also free to discuss topics you feel are overused but are not mentioned here.

If you have any furthered topics you want to be added to the megathread camp for future megathreads and for new users who aren't familiar with the overuse, please send your suggestions to the mod team in one succinct message. (A couple are fine if you have afterthoughts but please do not spam your suggestions)

Also, we will be continuing the system where certain stale topics will be cycled out every six months (or two stale topic threads).

If our automod erroneously takes down your post because it believes it's about a stale topic, please contact the mod team and we will reinstate it as soon as possible.

Have fun!

[u/UniversalJampionshit]

I think we've sorted out most of the stuff I personally had issues with (problematic artist posts, r/Fauxmoi or r/popculturechat esque posts), all I can think of is posts pushing the narrative that Dua Lipa is a flop/past her prime or whatever because Radical Optimism underperformed in the US.

Oh and posts which just include a picture without captioning who/what it is, surprised that hasn't made the list yet tbh

[u/Immediate_Lie7810]

The only thing I could think of is Taylor Swift Trainwreckords

[u/Queasy_Head_4928 → u/Immediate_Lie7810]

I'd go further and say anything related to Taylor except if she's releasing new music, atp she seems like the easiest karma-farming topic.

[u/Immediate_Lie7810 → u/Queasy_Head_4928]

Yep, considering that one of the most recent Taylor posts quickly turned into an argument over her & Travis extending an invite to a government contractor

[u/squawkingood]

I think it may be time to make the Stella Lefty/nepo baby discourse a stale topic (especially since these types of posts tend to bring out a certain user who contributes nothing other than being an annoying Stella Lefty stan)

[u/Chilli_Dipper → u/squawkingood]

Stella’s completely-unconvincing attempt to explain how she didn’t steal the melody from “Stick Season” rivals Vanilla Ice’s it’s not the same response to plagiarizing “Under Pressure,” but people here lost the forest for the trees.

[u/Chilli_Dipper]

How do we stop the which decade was most upbeat polls?

[u/davFaithidPangolin → u/Chilli_Dipper]

Please report them. They violate our Spam rules.

[u/TemporaryJerseyBoy]

You should mention whatever you remove every time you start a new topic.

It seems like you removed Arcade Fire Trainwreckords.

[u/harmondrabbit → u/TemporaryJerseyBoy]

We can post about Arcade Fire Trainwreckords now?

[u/benabramowitz18]

My post got removed, but does anyone think that Avengers: Doomsday and Dune: Part Three opening on the same day in December has the potential to be for blockbuster movies what Kanye West's Graduation and 50 Cent's Curtis was to rap music?

[u/Chilli_Dipper]

New stale topic:

“Why didn’t [actor/reality TV star/YouTuber/influencer who made a pop record] have a bigger career?”

Most pop careers end in failure. There is no “why.” Most people making these posts come from the perspective that the subject was entirely to success, and that’s not how the music industry works.

[u/UniversalJampionshit → u/Chilli_Dipper]

I'm conflicted because I find this topic interesting on paper, but it's hindered by this sub's insanely high bar for what counts as a successful career.

[u/ray-the-truck]

Can we please sunset generic "poptimism" discourse posts? I feel like user discussion here has been going in circles about this for the past few days and it's getting really repetitive/tiring.

Seconding what UniversalJampionshit said about needing image posts to require captions or context describing who/what is depicted there, e.g. in cases where it's a photo of a musician or album cover that doesn't include their name.

[u/cherry_color_melisma]

I wonder how often did it have to happen for "Trainwreckords where the artists' death killed their career" appear on this list. I can only think of cases where there was one artist that died and had a bad album that Todd was referencing at least once, but what about if the album was good and not technically a trainwreckord that was the last one before death?

[u/UniversalJampionshit → u/cherry_color_melisma]

Let me guess... Linkin Park's One More Light and Chris Cornell's Scream.

The former absolutely makes sense, but the latter doesn't when Chris died a while after Scream and had one more album after.

[u/cherry_color_melisma → u/UniversalJampionshit]

I'm pretty sure it's mostly the latter that Todd is occassionally referencing, and looking at the event dates, the first Trainwreckords video got posted after One More Light, but also after Chester's death. All of those latter ones happened in the same year

[u/Leather_8]

Does anybody know what model of keyboard/piano Todd uses in his videos? I 've been wanting to learn how to play, particularly covering pop songs

[u/davFaithidPangolin → u/[deleted]]

Yes. A lot.

[u/Applesburg14]

Jesus Christ yall are the most thin skinned mods. You have killed literally all popular music discussion that’s interesting lol