Total System Failure (2000)

Juliana rocks out.

Released simultaneously with Beautiful Creature, Total System Failure is the guitar rock one.

Borne out of a desire to express the darker side of her lyrics with equally representative dark music, and perhaps a reaction to her return to Boston reflecting on the experiences of L.A.

"Metal fume fever is the name of an actual illness. When I first heard the term, in passing, I thought, “I have to use that as a song title. It rocks!” I knew next to nothing about the illness, then. All I knew was that hearing those words conjured up nightmarish images in my head, and those images were what I wrote about. In protest. It’s a protest song." (excerpt from Juliana's blog on "Metal Fume Fever" - July 2008)

Title

The album is also known as "Juliana's Pony: Total System Failure" with the artist as Juliana Hatfield, rather than Juliana's Pony.

Juilana has also said that the working title for the album was originally "The Horses".

Personnel

Juliana Hatfield – guitar, vocals
Zephan Courtney – drums
Mikey Welsh – bass, backing vocals

Retrospectives

Juliana, writing for a career retrospective article in Uncut Magazine, published in February 2026:

... with Juliana's Pony, I was indulging my disgust, frustration, rage, but also humour. I think some of it's funny - I don't know if other people do. It was a total indulgence project. I just wanted to do a loud, abrasive thing and rant about some things that frustrated me, like industrial pollution and bad drivers and people who get pregnant by accident, over and over and over again. Trying not to be too judgemental, just being obnoxious. Actually, it's really judgemental! I had to go back and listen to it because we were gonna talk about it, and it was pretty fun - I was dancing.

Artwork

Demos and Mixes

In 2013, Juliana made tape reels of early mixes and demos from the Juliana's Pony sesssions available to purchase as incentives as part of her Wild Animals PledgeMusic campaign.