How to survive a flop

August 30, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

How to survive a flop

Katy Perry's latest musical era has been a flop. Lizzo's most recent album made no noise. And it's not just them—"Nothing was the same since Kendrick knocked out Drake," as the episode puts it. The question driving this episode of Today, Explained is straightforward: What can we all learn from these failures, and why is it so hard to strike gold twice?

What makes a flop

Spencer Kornhaber, who writes about music and pop culture at The Atlantic, defines a flop as a disconnect between ambition and reality. "It's when someone sets out to do something with sort of grand goals," he says, "whether that's have hits like a popster is supposed to have, or even connect with the same fan base that listened to your last album as an indie artist." When those goals aren't met—especially if the artist was open about them—the public notices, and the F word starts circulating.

The concept isn't new. Kornhaber points out that the idea of a flop is one of the oldest storylines in entertainment history. Silent movie stars faced it when Hollywood turned to talkies. The Bee Gees faced it. But something has shifted in how we experience and judge these failures now. "The machinery of popularity has changed under our feet," Kornhaber says, "and we don't really know why or what it means."

The TikTok disruption

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What you'll learn

1 (00:39) **The Flop Phenomenon Defined** - The episode opens with a montage of artists (Lizzo, Katy Perry) being labeled "flops" and introduces the central question: why is it so hard to strike gold twice?
2 (02:09) **What Is a Flop?** - Spencer Kornhaber (The Atlantic) defines a flop as ambition not meeting reality, especially when artists are open about their grand goals.
3 (02:48) **Is the Flop Era New?** - The conversation shifts to whether the current obsession with calling things flops is unprecedented, tracing the concept back to silent film stars and the Bee Gees.
4 (03:49) **Why Everyone Is Flopping Now** - The episode argues that the machinery of popularity has fundamentally changed, driven by TikTok and the collapse of traditional metrics.
5 (05:50) **Why One Bad Album Can End a Career Now** - The discussion explores why there seems to be less room for failure today than in previous decades.
6 (07:10) **Can a Flop Be Good for an Artist?** - The episode pivots to the potential upside of failure, citing redemption arcs for Madonna and Slater.
7 (11:45) **What Makes a Song Not Succeed?** - Tom Breihan (Stereogum) joins to explain the mechanics of a flop for major artists, emphasizing expectations and relativity.

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

In the streaming era, success is public, failure is viral, and everyone's one release away from a flop era. How do you come back?

This episode was produced by Hady Mawajdeh, edited by Jenny Lawton and Miranda Kennedy, fact-checked by Melissa Hirsch, engineered by David Tatasciore, and hosted by Jonquilyn Hill.

Lizzo at the "Scary Movie" global premiere at the Paramount Theatre in Los Angeles, California. Photo by Michael Buckner/Variety via Getty Images.

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