Every huge artist has their "New Jersey" - a huge event album that ultimately feels a bit hollow & signals a career decline

that reminds me, This Timeless Turning was totally Sky Cries Mary's New Jersey

no way, everybody at my college radio station was mad excited about Exit At The Axis and I always knew that was poopie and nobody talk about it now, totally their new jersey

isn't Beck kinda huger than whatever weirdo bands you guys are joking about?

"Fugue in D minor" was totally Bach's New Jersey. It was all downhill after that.

Hey now, I am just encouraging what I think is a specifically hilarious fit of pique, no need to get defensive.

haha i realize i'm being ridiculous, believe me. but i'm still going to wail on anybody who either can't grasp the concept, can't bother to read the thread, or check wikipedia to verify their hunches about which albums sold how much. if a chart nerd can't police a chart nerd thread then what's the point in being a chart nerd.

chart groupies

no i'm like creed, i spurn them on route to the stage and then float above the throng

and this thread is the hotel bar where i wait for 311 to walk by

Were there New Jersey's prior to the '80s?

there was definitely a thread prior to today

oh yes, i see a couple listed now. 95% of these are after the mid 80s

well that's partially a factor of poster age and comfort zone mixed in with the context of calling it a "New Jersey"; clearly the phenomenon has existed since people started buying music

also the fact that gauging multiplatinum success is easier after the riaa starting giving out the multi-platinum awards

In 1976, RIAA introduced the platinum certification, first awarded to Johnnie Taylor's single, "Disco Lady", and to the Eagles album, Their Greatest Hits (1971–1975). As music sales increased with the introduction of compact discs, the RIAA created the Multi-Platinum award in 1984. Diamond awards, honoring those artists whose sales of singles or albums reached 10,000,000 copies, were introduced in 1999.

so basically, the only pre-80s albums to have multi-platinum certification are the ones who bother to get it

pretty sure yo la tengo's 3x platinum 'summer sun' has the whiff of new jersey, and i'm not talking about hoboken

I stand by my theory that New Jerseys depend on a certain way of marketing albums over a long period of time, and effectively only existed between Thriller and MP3s, although outliers can be found.

Is it too early to declare Katy Perry's Prism a New Jersey?

hüsker dü - candy apple grey, yea?

katy perry otm

da croupier getting hella salty as this thread ages, i love it

90's US underground version of this is Jesus Lizard's Down

Candy Apple Grey for me works.....at least sonically. Real sense that it is Flip Your Wig mk2

Would be easier to say had the latter album been released, as originally planned, on Warners

remember when Flip Your Wig sold 5 million copies?

lol still

guys "event albums"

arcade fire - reflektor

Even if we say Reflektor is big enough as a record, I think it's too much of an "artistic change-up," which may disqualify it from New Jersey status. My read is that the most universally agreed-upon New Jerseys in this thread (like Afterburner), have a "more of the same" feel.

true
hate to say it but could Animal Collective's Centipede Hz be their New Jersey?

feel like you're maybe trolling the originators of this theory

ahhh ok, even though i LOVE this record, …. Gaucho by Steely Dan?

wut? they basically broke up after thet album

The Cult - Sonic Temple

last records cant be a new jersey?

i would call a 20 year break up a 'career decline'

90's US underground version of this is Jesus Lizard's Down

― Master of Treacle, viernes 23 de mayo de 2014 00:38 (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

mmmm, Girls Against Boys' House of GVSB maybe?

Wouldn't it be Freak*on*ica?

Actually, you're probably right. Freak*on*ica was the long career decline one.

no, Freak*on*ica was a gigantic misfire. New Jersey's are popular-at-the moment records that, on the surface, seem to be continuing the artist's success, but in reality are a mirage of sorts. A New Jersey is a record whose success masks that the bottom has already fallen out. Very often the big, successful singles from a New Jersey disappear from the culture at large.

Also Freak*on*ica didn't even make the top 100. It's the record where GVSB fell off, but that isn't synonymous with a New Jersey as defined throughout this thread.

Ha, yes! I figured that out though. Just posted too fast.

Freak*on*ica was really awful.

totally with you on that, such an embarrassment.

Was Sonic Youth discussed itt? I guess purist stans would say Goo was their New Jersey. I don't buy it myself (it lead off to Dirty, my fave record of theirs during the 90s) but I can see how an argument could be made for Goo as the start of SY's long creative decline.

I thought of this concept when I was listening to the actual New Jersey the other day, and you don't even have to go further than Bad Medicine to know it was all over.

Sum 41 - Chuck

I bet slightly different eras of Sonic Youth fans would argue that Goo or Dirty or Experimental Jet Set were their New Jerseys. And the people in those eras would have aged about 2 years. (I like all those records though.)

Except that they kept getting more popular during that time. Washing Machine?

Yeah, it feels like to me that SY were at peak popularity around Washing Machine/SYR eps/A Thousand Leaves, even if none of those are among their best albums.

I really need to start thinking through these things before I post. Dirty was big, and Experimental Jet Set was very much looked forward to, and they got to be on the Simpsons from that, but people didn't love it, and their popularity went down after that. So I think it's that one.