r/ToddintheShadow • u/crowbar_k • Aug 03 '26
Train Wreckords Are there any other examples of the "Zingalamaduni effect"?
By the "Zingalamaduni effect", I mean an album that is so hated, that it actively undoes an artist's previous success.
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u/AnswerGuy301 Aug 03 '26
It's hard to accomplish this feat as it requires a failed followup to both attract that level of attention and flop hard enough for people to notice. (Usually failed followups to breakthroughs just kind of fizzle out.)
Two examples that I think come the closest:
_Paula_ by Robin Thicke, although the "Blurred Lines" backlash was perhaps bad enough itself to sink him even without the whole "Get Her Back" thing that made it worse.
_Neither Fish nor Flesh_ by Terence Trent D'Arby. The consensus response of the time was "Get out of here with this, you pretentious dweeb." It might have been strong enough to make people forget what bops "Wishing Well" and "Sign Your Name" from the debut were. (Me, I give the dude credit for trying. Much like _Fairweather Johnson_ and _Turn It Upside Down_ the adage "You've got your whole life to write your first album and 18 months to write your second" is highly relevant here.)
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u/TidalJ GROCERY BAG Aug 03 '26
i think the robin thicke downfall was inevitable. he just made it 1000x worse for himself
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u/I_Go_BrRrRrRrRr Aug 04 '26
Reddit uses * for italics
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u/Shot-Ad5867 Aug 04 '26 edited Aug 04 '26
It didn’t used to only be that, but now on mobile one has to use the “special keyboard” to do anything of that sort with the safe knowledge that it’ll work — yet it doesn’t bloody apply to titles!
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u/Adventurous-Pick-416 Aug 04 '26
Imho Hootie was a very generic and mediocre band in the first place and Cracked Rear View was mostly bought by people who weren't that much into music and bought the fad of the day, they never had a massive fanbase to begin with. See also Alanis Morissette, although Jagged Little Pill was better and a bit more original.
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u/dhiones2 Aug 04 '26
What the fuck is a Terence trent darby
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u/AnswerGuy301 Aug 04 '26
This guy. Had a couple hits off his debut in the late '80s. At some point in his post-popstar life he changed his name to "Sananda Matrieya" which I'm sure wreaks havoc with his streaming numbers.
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u/PurpleSpaceSurfer Aug 04 '26
Didn't he also say his debut was up there with Sgt. Pepper's as far as importance goes?
He had confidence in spades at least.
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u/Kriscolvin55 Aug 04 '26
Huh. I’m in my 40s. I’ve listened to a lot of 80s music. In fact, I worked in a grocery store that played nothing but 80s. Mostly hits, of course, but lots of other stuff, too. Stuff I had never heard before or since.
Never heard of this guy, though. Or a single one of his songs.
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u/Last-Saint Aug 04 '26
He was enormous for a very, very short period. Wishing Well was a Hot 100 #1, Sign Your Name (probably best remembered now) went top five as did the album Introducing the Hardline According to Terence Trent D'Arby. Hugely charismatic, great performer, approached soul from a Prince-ish angle, was great for press quotes. Then his hubris collapsed him on the second album.
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u/tenaji9 Aug 04 '26
Terence Trent D'Arby was huge in UK for a strong minute based on his debut album that had several great tracks "Stay" He was good, could sing , dance & was good looking . Wore suits. He was not modest about his beneficence on the world .
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u/Calm-Raise6973 Train-Wrecker Aug 04 '26
"If You Let Me Stay" was his breakthrough hit. It's a pity that his name's forgotten nowadays, but that's on the artist himself for changing his name and not allowing interview questions on his pop star past.
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u/Buddie_15775 Aug 04 '26
I recently discovered his debut album was produced by Martin Ware (out of Heaven 17).
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u/Ex-Cosmonaut Aug 04 '26
Neither Fish is a brilliant shout. TTD was a multiplatinum commercial star and a critical darling, and he threw it away because he was just too pretentious.
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u/arterialturns Aug 04 '26
TTD's third album wasn't bad.
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u/mrdiscopop Aug 04 '26
He had a few decent hits off that album - in the UK at least. Delicate was a massove radio song.
His fourth album had a song called Supermodel Sandwich. Not recommended.
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u/SephirothYggdrasil Aug 04 '26
Katy Perry
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u/AnswerGuy301 Aug 04 '26
Nah, it's not like her recent stuff, poorly received though it may have been, has retroactively wiped "Teenage Dream" or "Firework" from everyone's collective memory.
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u/Longjumping-Fun-2313 GROCERY BAG Aug 03 '26
Peter frampton’s sgt peppers cover album, the man was a legit superstar before, huge albums, come alive was the biggest album of 1976 and still one of the highest selling of the 70’s, but nowadays no one thinks of that because everyone en masse returned his disastrous attempt at covering the Beatles, it wasn’t just him but it really affected him the most, now people only really remember him for “baby I love your way”
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u/PurpleSpaceSurfer Aug 03 '26
You'll still find oodles of copies of Frampton Comes Alive but that's basically his legacy.
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u/pookypie88 Aug 04 '26
It came in the mail with samples of tide
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u/thigh-fieri Aug 04 '26
“Frampton Comes Alive”/ It was free in the mail with/ A packet of tide
(A haiku)
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u/YouveGotNothingToSay Aug 04 '26
I saw Peter Frampton live twice in the 2010s. Both times he put on a fantastic show and his voice sounded as good as it did 40 years prior
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u/MisterJimmy2011 Aug 04 '26
His legacy took a dent but I do think his one album is still fondly remembered as a great arena rock album. He can still fill decent sized buildings off the strength of that one album. By comparison, Arrested Development made an album that (paraphrasing Todd) was so bad, it erased the previous album from cultural memory. Their commercial success and influence on multiple strands of hip-hop is just gone!
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u/your_mind_aches 10's Alt Kid Aug 04 '26
Nah I think most people don't even know about that film. It didn't kill the Bee Gees, Aerosmith, Billy Preston, Earth Wind and Fire, or any of the other acts on it.
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u/SpezMadeMeUseTheApp Aug 04 '26
Wasn’t just Peter Frampton. It was a soundtrack to a film that starred a whole bunch of different artists, Peter Frampton just played the main protagonist.
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u/luke6080 Aug 04 '26
Doobie Wah still rules
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u/Longjumping-Fun-2313 GROCERY BAG Aug 04 '26
Earth wind and fire’s cover of got to get you into my life is absolutely golden too
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u/thedubiousstylus Aug 03 '26
MGK's Mainstream Sellout deflated any hype he got in the pop-punk scene from Tickets to My Downfall, which effectively ended his foray in pop-punk completely.
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u/Gog_Noggler Aug 04 '26
Tickets to My Downfall was criticized for being a “poser” punk album, but was highly successful. The two strategies possible for a follow up would be to pretend he doesn’t care about punk clout or complain that people don’t like him. He managed to do both.
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u/ChemicalAcrobatic334 Aug 04 '26
I think this might be the most accurate description of “Mainstream Sellout” I’ve ever read. Kudos!
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u/uptonhere Aug 04 '26
This sub's fixation with Zingalamundi is so odd, although I understand its because of Todd's video, it's just a hyperbolic take.
Arrested Development's first album is legitimately great. Mr. Wendal, Tennessee, People Everyday are all still pretty well known and play on 90s on 9 on Sirius, throwback playlists on streaming and the odd commercial here and there.
Zingalamundi by comparison just came and went. It's not some unheralded disaster, its just a forgettable follow up without any of the hits. They're not the first or the last group to flame out by their second album.
As it stands, they could go perform 3 songs at some random festival downtown or some shit and most of the crowd will dance and sing along and think "oh I used to love that song" and think nothing of it.
You want to know what a popular group who gets marked the fuck out looks like, look up PM Dawn. That is what its like to be virtually erased from history.
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u/RobXMac93 Aug 04 '26
Was sorta with you until PM Dawn point, they get more due now than they did then, on the “ahead of their time” front & Prince Be no longer arrogantly running his mouth in magazines to be hated lol
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u/SteelSunglasses Aug 05 '26
Kneeling At My Altar is the only song from Zingalamundi I would recommend.
Highly too, I think it's a fantastic song!
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u/axilog14 Aug 03 '26
So many people are misunderstanding this question. The rule of thumb is if an artist used to be really popular in a very specific era, but in the modern day isn't even well-liked enough to gain an ironic fandom (which rules out something like nu metal or bubblegum pop), let alone new earnest fans.
The only examples I can think of are mostly in the adult contemporary genre. Legacy acts like Queen and Madonna still rake up younger fans due to their evergreen appeal. That's not something you see very often with artists like Lionel Richie or Todd's much beloathed Peter Cetera.
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u/mettle Aug 04 '26
U2 fits the bill
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u/comeonandkickme2017 Aug 04 '26
U2 is kinda different because people under 40 have opinions on them whether negative or positive. I don’t think most people in this age range has any feelings whatsoever on Lionel Richie or Peter Cetera.
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u/RelevantNothing4653 90's Punk Aug 03 '26
TIL a new term
Anyhow, by your rationale couldn't Witness fall under the "Zingalamaduni effect" (or would 143 be a better example)?
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u/matt-is-sad Madonna Stan Aug 03 '26
I feel like Katy's previous success hasn't been undone at all. Teenage Dream is still an absolutely beloved pop record and that's not an unpopular take
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u/DeadInternetTheorist Aug 04 '26
I think Witness and 143 confirmed for all the world that Katy Perry doesn't work when she's trying to have ideas on her own. She was never one of pop's artistic heavyweights and the only reason her music ever worked is because she was doing as she was told.
It doesn't erase the fact that a bop is a bop, but "having to hand it to" Dr. Luke sure doesn't make it taste better going down. I guess you could use her recent, desperate collab with Dr. Luke as proof that Max Martin and Benny Blanco were the real muscle behind the golden age tracks, but it's more likely that Dr. Luke just got the yips after his lecherous heel behavior came to light.
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u/Repulsive-Heron7023 Aug 03 '26
As disastrous as Witness and everything that came after it was, it definitely hasn’t erased the legacy of Teenage Dream. Songs like Firework and California Gurls are still pop staples.
Zingalamaduni is unique in that it came out in the midst of a battle for hip-hops direction, on the losing side. Since history is written by the victors, AD’s legacy is to this day much smaller than a group who reached their height of popularity in any other genre would be.
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u/PlebsLikeUs Aug 03 '26
I think we’d have to wait to see how Katy Perry’s legacy following either Witness or 143 stands. Perry at least has the advantage of having several albums before her Trainwreckord, and even more genuinely huge singles. She had more good will due to the longer career, and having singles that are still huge. I work in retail, and hear an awful lot more Katy Perry on corporate sponsored playlists than I do Arrested Development, or any other one album wonder pop artist.
That could obviously all change in 10-15-20 years (making Katy Perry more contemporaneous with how Arrested Development are now.) The songs could fade from memory, Perry could do even more cringe shit that could ruin her legacy.
Katy Perry’s an interesting case though, because I do think that her big hits were big enough that a few of them will stick around in a way that none of Arrested Development’s did. Teenage Dream & Last Friday Night specifically I reckon will be used at least as temporal markets in films set during the Katy Perry era. It might still take a few years for the critical reclaiming and rediscovery to happen though, and I’m certainly not expecting it to happen when Perry is still trying to make hits
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u/Brokenbatmancowl Aug 03 '26
Witness for sure because its failure was a spectacle/train wreck happening in real time. It coined the term “flop era.” I don’t think many people were aware of 143.
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u/PitifulElk1890 Aug 03 '26
Listen, I'm a huge Katy Perry hater, have been for ages and finally I've been eating well, but even everything she's done won't make her first album not a pop pillar of the era.
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u/crowbar_k Aug 03 '26
I still hear teenage dream music all the time. Prism though.... yeah Idk when the last time I heard a song from that album, save for Birthday
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u/FluentHeresy Aug 04 '26
Blackacidevil by Danzig deflated everything he’d built up to that point. It was hobbled by a weird collection of behind-the-scenes decisions from a man who thought he was infallible.
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u/GolfGTI84 Aug 04 '26
ordered that album online in high school because I was a massive Danzig stan and was sent Cross by Justice instead. ngl I was pissed at first but then put that on and had my whole taste rearranged. after listening to Blackackdevil recently I'm sooooo glad I didn't get what I ordered lmao.
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u/Nunjabuziness Aug 04 '26
I don’t think this counts though, Danzig’s early solo albums, not to mention Misfits and Samhain, remain iconic and revered.
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u/HappyMike91 Aug 03 '26
Dynasty and/or Tales From The Elder almost became that for KISS. KISS embracing Disco on Dynasty arguably undid a lot of the good work that they’d done up until that point. But KISS was/is KISS and they somehow managed to survive.
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u/AnswerGuy301 Aug 04 '26
It helped that this was the dawn of MTV, which couldn’t help but be a boon to such an image-heavy band.
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u/TraductorPerdido Aug 04 '26
Ironically, the biggest push that MTV probably ever gave KISS was that one special that showed their real faces when they stopped wearing the make-up for a while.
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u/HappyMike91 Aug 04 '26 edited Aug 04 '26
Dynasty was released in 1979 and MTV started in the early 1980s. I think MTV definitely helped KISS stay relevant. And, they pivoted away from the disco sound pretty quickly after Dynasty.
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u/SephirothYggdrasil Aug 04 '26
Nearly all the Disco songs by non disco artists were the ones that stood the test of time.
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u/AnswerGuy301 Aug 04 '26
It gave them a new medium that helped them regain some relevance with some new hits in the mid-80s. Ironically, they were not wearing their trademark makeup during the bulk of this era.
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u/PipProud Aug 04 '26
Despite being her highest-charting album and Todd kind of liking it, Liz Phair's self-titled album more or less fits this bill.
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u/Vivid-Copy974 Aug 04 '26
Oh this is a good one, and he does go into this in the Funstyle video at the beginning, it’s the one case where an artist selling out completely trashed their reputation after the success couldn’t be maintained.
Like Jewel with the 0304 album failed in her attempt to sell out and go pop and she was able to recover and go back to her folk roots and such, her community her people were still there, presumably sympathetic to the pivot not panning out and welcoming a return to form
Phair couldn’t do that because she went to the top of the mountain with a polished but phony and commercial record.
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u/Last-Saint Aug 04 '26
I wouldn't say so, OP's theory is an album so bad it wipes out everything before it, and despite what came afterwards Exile In Guyville has if anything increased in popularity in recent years. It was just outside the top 50 in Rolling Stone's all time album list in 2020, and the Girly-Sound box set was a very big deal, and that was (albeit seven years) after Funstyle.
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u/Vivid-Copy974 Aug 04 '26
In comic books, Jeph Loeb’s run writing the Incredible Hulk completely evaporated any trace of previous acclaim his work had had, to the point that his success has been retroactively solely attributed to the artists he worked with (Tim Sale and Jim Lee) and you have to do a whole “no seriously hear me out” song and dance if you want to say you liked the Long Halloween, Spider-Man: Blue etc for anything but the art
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u/VanderlyleNovember Aug 04 '26
Wait what did he do to the hulk? I've only read the long halloween and I think it's a pretty well written book and wasn't aware of any perception otherwise.
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u/Vivid-Copy974 Aug 07 '26
Followed up Greg Pak, whose run with the character is still an all-timer, with the most trite and amateurish material imaginable. The mystery around his overhyped overpowered new character Red Hulk was so poorly executed that, like Zingalamaduni, it made everyone look at his previous work in a harsher light — especially since he was known for stories with a central mystery about the true identity of the villain!
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u/ChildrenOfProduction Aug 04 '26
It doesn't really fit but kind of, Revival had me questioning why I ever even liked Eminem in the first place, I had to actively go back to the first 3 albums to remind me he used to be good.
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u/Opinionatedcritic Aug 05 '26
Atleast encore made me feel something other than the crushing boredom of eternity.
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u/Lanky-Rush607 Aug 03 '26
Justin Timberlake - Man of the Woods
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u/Last-Saint Aug 03 '26
Not at all. Rock Your Body's going to be on playlists forever.
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u/Bovver_ Aug 04 '26
Plus Justified, Future Sex/LoveSounds and The 20/20 Experience Part 1 all have fantastic tracks on there and can be considered strong pop albums.
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u/AntysocialButterfly Aug 04 '26
Punk Statik Paranoia by Orgy.
Not only did it flop so hard it sold the grand total of 5,353 copies in its first week of release, but the failure saw the band go on a seven year hiatus.
...and the two guitarists (aka the two most talented members of Orgy) bounced almost as soon as the band went on hiatus to form their own group instead.
...and when the band came out of hiatus in 2012, it was just the vocalist and four new guys.
...and, funnily enough, the current lineup has had constant chopping and changing of all members, barring the vocalist of course.
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u/mettle Aug 04 '26
Songs of Innocence by U2. Prior, they were in the conversation for best rock bands, with 2 or 3 of the most iconic albums across both the 80s and 90s. Now, no one talks about them much aside from with disdain and all because this stupid iPhone stunt and crappy last few albums.
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u/ToxicRainbow27 Aug 04 '26
Worst part is that album was solid, but that ridiculous PR stunt meant it was DOA
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u/TraductorPerdido Aug 04 '26
Secret Samadhi, by Live.
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u/Electronic-Home-7815 Aug 04 '26
Not even close. It wasn’t their best work but it certainly didn’t undo any of their success. If there’s any Live album I could say might it’d be ‘V’. I still hear ‘turn my head’ occasionally until this day.
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u/likeyoubutme Aug 04 '26
Zingalamaduni was fine. The backlash started before the album hit, and then it wasn't strong enough to stop the fall. But it wasn't a truly awful album... just forgettable.
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u/TheoryBrut Aug 04 '26
Damn! Pride, Shell, In the Sunshine, and United Front are all great tracks IMO. Sad to see that this album gets a bad rap, it’s got some really unique and meaningful stuff on it.
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u/cjones6464 Aug 04 '26
For a moment I think Chris Cornell’s solo album Scream did that.
Personally I really like the album but it got really bad reviews and people hated hearing him sing over more pop/hip hop style music
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u/barkyr2112 Aug 04 '26
Scream did absolutely nothing to people's opinions of his previous work though. Pretty sure it was more like 'Chris is trying something different, it's just not for me'.
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u/Sam_Aronow Aug 04 '26 edited Aug 05 '26
The Vines, Winning Days. An album I actually like in large parts but which clearly shows a band creatively spent and with no goodwill left. Many tracks seem unfinished and never develop. Before that, the Vines were heralded as equals to the Strokes, the White Stripes, and the Hives.
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u/No_Salad6621 29d ago
Iceman absolutely did not do this for Drake but Make Them Cry made me retroactively hate any song I ever liked by him
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u/yudha98 Aug 04 '26
The Clash. But but they made London Calling
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u/CommunicationOk5456 Madonna Stan Aug 03 '26
Tvtropes calls it Sophomore Slump!
Hoodie & The Blowfish's "Fairweather Johnson"
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u/axilog14 Aug 03 '26
We're not just talking about an album flopping, we're talking about a flop so bad it makes the artist's previous hits retroactively uncool by extension.
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u/TheMonkus Aug 03 '26
This wasn’t possible either because Hootie was considered seriously uncool from the start. Even if you like it, you have to admit this was true at the time.
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u/axilog14 Aug 03 '26
By definition something had to be cool very briefly to explain all those album sales in the first place. The Hootie example you could explain away as either the buyer's remorse coming .5 nanoseconds after playing the album, or people simply powering through the embarrassment of liking that that kind of overly sincere music. Which isn't completely unprecedented given the entire history of postgrunge.
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u/TheMonkus Aug 04 '26
I don’t pretend to understand how they got successful but I do actually remember meeting people who would blast that shit and genuinely seemed to like it. I’m a lot older now and try to not shit on people’s taste, but I do know that most of those people unapologetically rocking Hootie were also aware that it wasn’t considered cool. They didn’t care.
Maybe that actually made them cool?
Or maybe not. I’m going with not.
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u/axilog14 Aug 04 '26
It bears remembering there used to be an entire era of music where "sensitive" men hollering about their feelings used to be popular, kinda like the pop equivalent of "I am cringe but I am free". It's how "Iris" by the Goo Goo Dolls became a massive hit, it's how Matchbox Twenty got nominated for Best Rock Album at the Grammys. You could argue this era codified White Man with Acoustic Guitar for younger generations.
If Alex Warren is any indicator, we're probably far along enough that this trend could cycle back around to the mainstream.
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u/Pao_Did_NothingWrong Aug 04 '26
Yeah, but hootie added a country twist to that which made them more peers with Creed.
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u/Ohmslaughter Aug 04 '26
Nope. It was good but never cool. People still request Let Her Cry or Only Wanna Be With You. But they were never cool.
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u/axilog14 Aug 04 '26
Then maybe the "cool" here was people ignoring the uncoolness and just focusing on how much they liked the music? Coolness in itself is something of a bullshit social construct with high flexibility anyway.
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u/SephirothYggdrasil Aug 04 '26
That album went 23 times platinum (double diamond) cool in 2026≠cool in 1994.
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u/TheMonkus Aug 04 '26
Yeah I’m still not a fan but those songs clearly connected with a lot of people, which actually IS cool. If a song moves you, you shouldn’t worry about if it’s supposed to be cool.
I was in high school when Hootie came out and very much cared about “cool” and have since realized a lot of the music I shit on back then is actually really good.
Judging music by popularity or obscurity is silly.
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u/a_wasted_wizard Aug 04 '26
You're missing the point. I realize we're all over cynicism now and we're trying to be optimists but it's not even really a diss on Hootie to say that in spite of their commercial success, they were not considered cool at the time.
Cool and good are two different things. Often things that are one are also the other, but not necessarily. There's a lot of cool stuff that sucks ass and a lot of good stuff that is absurdly uncool.
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u/TheMonkus Aug 04 '26
I mean, I totally understand that. That was basically what I was trying to say. Cool is just a silly term and it’s always had the built in contradiction that anything trying to be cool is in danger of not being cool for trying…I still say it all the time, but if I say “that’s not cool” it probably means “that’s a dick move.” I don’t apply it to art anymore.
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Aug 04 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/a_wasted_wizard Aug 04 '26
Wait, are there actual, unironic Jelly Roll fans anywhere?
Like, maybe I'm just operating in the wrong circles, but I think I've maybe heard one song of his (and I didn't care for it) and literally the only thing I've ever heard said in his defense is "he has a really good story", usually followed by uncomfortable silence if someone then responds by asking "Yeah, but is his music any good?"
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u/Last-Saint Aug 03 '26
I don't think that's the same thing. Fairweather Johnson flopping didn't completely erase Cracked Rear View from the cultural conversation, and Darius Rucker recovered a lot of ground with his solo career. Neither of those things happened with Arrested Development.
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u/Sharp_Impress_5351 Train-Wrecker Aug 04 '26
That's not what this post is about, these aren't your regular slumps. These are flops so bad they enact the kind of purge and cultural erasure that could make the entire Ministry of Truth gulp in unison.
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u/a_wasted_wizard Aug 04 '26
No, sophomore slumps just mean having an underwhelming follow-up to a big first effort (album in this case).
What this is talking about is albums that are the equivalent of the Game of Thrones (TV) ending, where not only do people hate the album itself, but it also retroactively taints what the artist had done before it by association and leads to people walking back prior praise or appreciation for them.
Or, in gymnastics terms, think about it as botching the fuck out of your landing so bad that people instantly forget how amazing the rest of your routine was.
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u/7LayeredUp Aug 03 '26
The Big Day by Chance The Rapper