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

dunno if it came up on this thread -- so many 1986 superstar albums qualify -- but Break Every Rule, yes?

honestly, the drop in sales and success is so extreme (5x platinum to one, one top 10 hit rather than 3) it probably classifies more as a fairweather johnson

apparently in the uk it's album AFTER break every rule thats huge

George Harrison - Living in the Material World.

one good one I thought of recently (re-reading Shakey the Neil Young book) is Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - Deja Vu

follow up to the mega debut CSN album, according to the book shipped 4 mil out the gate, spawned huge overblown stadium tour, but isn't very well regarded now

but no one thought Deja Vu triggered a decline, especially when the solo projects still sold pretty well.

Isn't well regarded now by whom?

crosby stills nash & young to start

That album is fire

Who cares what they think

also it's the decline of the GROUP - they didn't do another album for years & neil got big but he was kinda his own thing to begin with

I will just say that Deja Vu is viewed as one of the two great CSN/Y records, which invalidates it as a New Jersey.

Isn't Deja Vu considered the best CSN(Y) record? And it's not like "Our House," "Woodstock," or "Teach Your Children" have gone the way of "Born to Be My Baby" or "Lay Your Hands on Me."

Not to mention "Helpless" or "Almost Cut My Hair"

Alright rescinded!

too early to call but this new macklemore video seems pretty classically new jersey

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGhoLcsr8GA#t=47

tbh i could see it as a total free-fall bomb, but yeah it does have the attempted BIGNESS.

yeah it could just be bomb but that video is like man....10 pounds of shit in a 5 pound sock

wuuuuuuuuuuuuuut

rolling gtfo worst songs for sure

-100,000 pts too for the line about macklemore's scrotum so gross

wow. the shifts in genre and tone from section to section are like shitty k-pop (and the amount of time it takes to get to the chorus is absurd even by those standards). can't imagine why anyone involved thought it would work in the western market in 2015...

and xxxxxxxps lol deja vu is not a new jersey!! that album is pretty universally regarded (among csny fans at least) as a classic! if anything four way street is the new jersey

also i love yeezus but i do wonder if yeezus will be kanye's new jersey

haha okay.

Dear ILX, #CROZ, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash, and Neil Young

Earlier this year I made some unfortunate comments about your classic album Deja Vu, referring to it as a "New Jersey."

In retrospect, this statement was ill-considered and offensive, and do not reflect what is in my heart.

I've recently entered treatment to deal with some personal issues, and I'd ask that the public respect my privacy at this time.

I sincerely apologize for any hurt my comments have caused.

Sincerely,
Upper Mississipi Sh@kedown

rolling gtfo worst songs for sure

― marcos, Thursday, September 3, 2015 10:13 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is where i first encountered this song. actually besides this thread here it's the only place i've encountered this song. keep bracing myself to hear it at the grocery store or something, so far so good

i've heard it(s first few bars before quickly shutting it off) on pop radio a few times already

lol ums

i can't play "new jersey" with macklemore - or anybody today - until he 1) has an album several big but hollow hits and 2) the album after THAT does considerably worse. like, NOW, I might say Lady Gaga's Born This Way was New Jersey-ish, as Artpop has suggested itself as her Keep The faith. it's also hard because music sales themselves are cratering so there are fewer statistics to play with. i mean, you don't wanna be some putz throwing the term around based on personal distaste for the artist.

that vid seems more like an internet thing meant to go viral than a radio single, probably using it to hype the album before releasing whatever the "single" is (probably a song about extreme couponing or some such).

followed by a tribute to Caitlyn Jenner that samples "She's a Lady" and mentions how once he tried on his mom's bra and high heels.

yeah at this point album sales are virtually useless for new jersey calculations, at best you could try to approximate based on singles and stuff. the funny thing is that the ARTPOP singles actually did kinda okay? even though it was obvious the crest had passed and she wasn't a phenomenon anymore. but you need more time to tell - - maybe the next one is this big comeback. who knows.

setting aside the "too soon to tell" factor, i dunno - - - back during the great new jersey debates i gradually came to believe the entire thing really only made sense as an artifact of the soundscan era, for various reasons relating to how albums were marketed and bought, and any attempts to transpose it to earlier or later periods always felt like something didn't match up right. the dumb massiveness of an ultimately pointless 'event' album just doesn't happen in the same way now i think. before thriller most albums weren't built up enough as 'events' and after the death of physical media nothing feels massive in the same way.

yeah there's really no contemporary equivalent of people actually lining up outside a Sam Goody to buy Use Your Illusions or whatever, and it was really only a thing for a fleeting moment in time.

*Illusion

Yeezus in no way qualifies as a New Jersey. Maybe if mbdtf was considered a flop it could have been but then he had mercy dominating the summer 2 years later so... Nah

I don't know about the Illusions fitting into this category. I doubt too many folks are actively seeking out New Jersey (pun intended) these days, but I bet the GN'R back catalog still gets plenty of sales. I don't think November Rain, You Could Be Mine etc were hits because of left over good feelings from Appetite and Lies. Then again I love Chinese Democracy so what the hell do I know.

Skyscraper was probably your New Jersey

Covered upthread and basically a consensus pick. But I was more just citing it as an album I strongly remember people lining up for

the funny thing is that the ARTPOP singles actually did kinda okay?

The Fame/Fame Monster: "Just Dance" (#1), "Poker Face" (#1), "Love Game" (#5), "Bad Romance" (#2), "Telephone" (#3), "Alejandro" (#5)

Born This Way: "Born This Way" (#1), "Judas" (#10), "Edge Of Glory" (#3), "You And I" (#6)

Artpop: "Applause" (#4), "Do What U Want" (13)

--

Keep in mind that Keep The Faith had a top ten hit too.

"Judas" (#10) being her "Living In Sin" (#9), imo

With art pop those are just peaks, how long was applause even on the charts

d-40 you realize i'm saying the success of the artpop singles pale in comparison to the previous, right?

like Yeezus in no way qualifies as a New Jersey. Maybe if mbdtf was considered a flop it could have been makes no sense

granted the title throws people off who come into this nerdery late in the game - there's more to it than just "a huge event album that ultimately feels a bit hollow & signals a career decline". a new jersey is never a comeback album - which is the implication if mbdtf had flopped - but rather than bloated overappreciated sequel to the true success

imo between kanye being a career artist and that career happening over the industry's overall decline you can't really pin a new jersey on him. a platinum album in 2013 isn't far from a 3xplatinum album in 2004.

just remembered what a brazen and empty rewrite of "bad romance" "judas" was. wonder if blatant self-plagiarism of a hit single off the preceding album is something of a sub-theme of NJs

So the Yeezy/Adidas line may be the New Jersey.

d-40 you realize i'm saying the success of the artpop singles pale in comparison to the previous, right?

― da croupier, Thursday, September 3, 2015 10:57 AM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I was reinforcing your argument

granted the title throws people off who come into this nerdery late in the game - there's more to it than just "a huge event album that ultimately feels a bit hollow & signals a career decline". a new jersey is never a comeback album - which is the implication if mbdtf had flopped - but rather than bloated overappreciated sequel to the true success

― da croupier, Thursday, September 3, 2015 11:02 AM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Confused pronouns - I meant mbdtf would have been the new jersey

Had it flopped. Agreed he hasn't had one, probably won't since he's got such longevity

I don't know about the Illusions fitting into this category. I doubt too many folks are actively seeking out New Jersey (pun intended) these days, but I bet the GN'R back catalog still gets plenty of sales. I don't think November Rain, You Could Be Mine etc were hits because of left over good feelings from Appetite and Lies. Then again I love Chinese Democracy so what the hell do I know.

― DavidLeeRoth, Thursday, September 3, 2015 11:31 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

New Jersey-ism doesn't really require that the hits are only hits off momentum though, and it's almost a given that they have one or two songs that get cherry-picked for greatest hits albums. They can be major songs in their own right, it's just more typical for them to decline in rank over time. "November Rain" is IMO the only thing that feels remotely out of the pattern for UYI, and nobody is buying both of those discs for that one song in 2015. "You Could Be Mine"? "Yesterdays"? "Civil War"? "Estranged"? No idea what those even are tbh. New Jersey itself has "Bad Medicine" which one hears from time to time.

Or, as I was saying in August 2012:

I also buy Use Your Illusion - those records both have gone, what, six times platinum, with seven Mainstream Rock top-ten hits, including two number ones.... and I would venture to say that MR #7 "November Rain" is the only one still in regular rotation anywhere. Maybe "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" a bit? It's a monster hit album that just had no long-term constituency, no traction in people's hearts, and no hope of making the "best of decade" countdown circuit.

So, the key here is the bloated hugeness of the BIGGEST BAND IN THE WORLD dropping THE BIGGEST ALBUM OF THE YEAR, only to find within a short time that whatever they did next it wasn't going to be very interesting to anybody, and that meanwhile nobody really stanned for the album(s) as essential. At this point I think anybody getting on board would understand them to basically be a one-album band.

UYI also won the New Jersey poll, for what that's worth.