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

here's another billboard review (by Steve Gett)

BOYS ARE BACK: Will Bon Jovi repeat the multiplatinum success of 1986's "Slippery When Wet" album with its upcoming Mercury/PolyGram release, "New Jersey "? You bet.
Due in stores Sept. 19, the new album has S- M -A-S -H written all over it, boasting all the key ingredients to satisfy top 40 listeners as well as the group's harder, metal - edged audience.
Following an atmospheric, rhythmic intro passage, "New Jersey" kicks off with "Lay Your Hands On Me," a hard - driving rocker that would make a perfect set opener for the band's upcoming live dates. Track two is the album's leadoff single, "Bad Medicine," which boogies with hints of ZZ Top and Dire Straits' "Money Far Nothing." Guitarist Richie Sambora contributes hot licks, as indeed he does throughout the entire album.
Next up is "Born To Be My Baby," an obvious contender for follow-up single release that could easily top the Hot 100 chart. Though very much in the commercial vein of "Slippery" hits like "Living On A Prayer" and "You Give Love A Bad Name," the song is by no means a cheap copy of either of those. Suffice is to say, the mo- ment you hear it, you know it's Bon Jovi.
The pace slows for the power ballad "Living In Sin" (minor hints of George Michael's "Father Figure" here and there), but we're rockin'-and-a-rollin' again on the six-minute-plus "Blood On Blood." Unquestionably the album's standout number, "Blood" has the dynamics of-dare it be said ? -a Bruce Springsteen epic. Check this one out ASAP.
For LP and cassette buyers, side two kicks off with "Home Bound Train," a dirty, gutsy, ballsy little rocker that features Jon Bon Jovi on harmonica solo.
Another likely candidate for future single release is the five -minute "Wild Is The Wind." This is followed by "Ride Cowboy Ride," a short'n'sweet little ditty that bears the sound of an old, scratched-up 78 rpm platter. "Ride" sets the Wild West / "Wanted Dead Or Alive" tone that continues on "Stick To Your Guns," arguably the album's weakest cut. To be blunt, one could live without the whole cowboy trip.
Bon Jovi scores, though, with the slower "I'll Be There For You," which also has hit -single potential. JBJ and his Garden State gang rock out in style on "99 In The Shade" before closing the album with the slightly offbeat, tongue -in -cheek "Love For Sale."
Advance copies of "New Jersey" are being kept under wraps, though a number of industryites were scheduled to hear a playback of the album during PolyGram's Aug. 18 satellite press conference. Judge for yourself, but The Beat's verdict on this one is a definite two thumbs up.

(it's called "boys are back" because they covered "the boys are back in town" for the STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN/HIGHWAY TO HELL comp)

Btw, Beyonce's NJ has been discussed at some point, surely ?
I'm not sure she's had one yet, though.

also i think born to be my baby is the best bon jovi song. also probably worth noting that the move of theirs that had the biggest impact in the year or so after NEW JERSEY came out was this :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_Cvi_-_wJg

xxpost
Yeah but what about "the feeling that starts fading at the time the NJ." then ?

@ dog latin - it's hard for me to judge as an american how event-y any blur album was in the UK. maybe they all felt incredibly massive at the time. but it may be that what you're describing is more of a fairweather johnson? if it only has one big hyped single and people turn on it pretty quickly, it doesn't fit with the sense, at the time, that the band is just as big as ever. or if they've already descended a bit from their career peak then it also kinda falls at the wrong place in their narrative to count (one of the reasons we've always struggled with U2).

― got the scuba tube blowin' like a snork (Doctor Casino), Thursday, August 30, 2018 4:01 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

They were always huge in the UK from Parklife onwards. There was a bit of a critical backlash/reassessment after TGE and some of Damon's comments in the press but nothing significant, and as Brad says the S/T kind of reinvented them. But 13 came out on a big wave of hype, they were still hugely successful and were kind of everywhere, but I'd say the album is half great and half filler, and it really did feel like it was going to be hard for them to reinvent themselves after that.

does it make sense for a genre to have a new jersey? does britpop have a collective new jersey

or just regular jersey, I guess it woul dbe

maura otm and thanks for those in media res reviews, fascinating

Every huge artist has their "Isle of Jersey"...

arcade fire - reflektor

― i also enjoy in line skateing (spazzmatazz), Thursday, May 22, 2014 8:40 PM (four years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this turned out to be pretty otm

Britpop's new jersey

https://theweekendpollution.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/sultans-of-ping-wheres-me-jumper.jpeg

the albums are overstuffed and overlong. the songs are overstuffed and overlong. the production is overstuffed and exhausting.

i guess i don't think any of these are fair descriptions of 13, a record that i think is mostly them getting introvertedly weird, choral bloat of "tender" aside. it subverts the new jersey narrative in the same way the s/t does and in a way i think it kinda subverts itself

thinking the record is "half filler" is immaterial in its new jersey status to me

i was going to suggestion be here now as the obvious britpop new jersey but six years ago in this very thread it seemed to loosen into its own definition (which i agree with, thx doc casino)

A Be Here Now is probably its own shorthand already, right? For a massively anticipated album that just disappoints everyone from the word go, incredibly negative critical consensus, sense that success has gone to the band's heads. Fairweather Johnsons just miss the moment and fade into the night, Be Here Nows suck and everybody knows it.

lol actually, apologies to dog latin, i think *i'm* getting to deep into notions of quality influencing the new jersey-ness of a record, just from the other end. i also live in the us so i never experienced "tender" as a huge hit

fwiw i was not among those submitting 13, or any blur album, for NJ status.

xp Blur is a bad choice. They don't have a New Jersey. 13 is a perfect album btw.

xp Rihanna doesn't have a New Jersey and I will lose my shit if anyone on here calls Anti a New Jersey.

Part of this discussion that I wish newer posters would get is that the aesthetic merit of the New Jersey contender is irrelevant.

fwiw i was not among those submitting 13, or any blur album, for NJ status.

― got the scuba tube blowin' like a snork (Doctor Casino), Thursday, August 30, 2018 8:39 AM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh yeah i totally know, i was just trying to square the very otm assessment you made with dog latin's claim

13 was huge and hyped (not in the least because of the much-reported 'break up with Justine Frischmann'-angle), Tender was also huge. It's not a NJ though, nor a career killer like Fairweather Johnson.

And indeed, aesthetic merit doesn't matter.

to be fair a very slight amount of quality decline is implied in the title of this thread ("feels a bit hollow")

i agree that aesthetic merit is irrelevant to an album's qualifications NJ status - see all the DANGEROUS stans who voted for it in the poll. but the way that the factors that generate a NJ interface with aesthetics is interesting imho!

not all bloated indulgent albums are NJs, but nearly every NJ is bloated and indulgent, and once something DOES qualify as a NJ, it can be *more or less of one* based on bloat and indulgence, because "new jersey is a feeling."

i think "bad" is MJ's new jersey

shd be "mostly irrelevant" in my first line there - yes. "feels a bit hollow" matters, tho this can be located as much in the artist's star-text as in the music. what's key is to not treat this as *central* or you end up with just "album where they faltered creatively." combine that with not thinking much about "huge" and "event" and you end up with the worst kind of NJ newbie submission, "first album i didn't like as much by some act that sold 50,000 copies at their peak."

"dangerous" won the poll!

or no wait it was UYI. but dangerous was #2.

WHO IS IT

(breaks a glass)

I agree MJ’s NJ is Bad. But it’s still loved, influential and respected, isn’t it ?

That said, Dangerous too...

Blur's New Jersey is clearly The Great Escape fwiw.

a new jersey has to be an album of comparable success to its predecessor, but it can't be followed by an album of equal or greater success, because then it doesn't signal a career decline. check the stats on the great escape and blur versus new jersey and keep the faith. blur don't have one.

nah i think a NJ is kind of pored-over, overthought... The Great Escape seems opposite of that. I think Blur were focused more on the pub and pills during that recording xp

If Damon Albarn has a New Jersey, it's probably that The Good The Bad And The Queen album or maybe the 2nd Gorillaz album.

Does it work that way? Can someone have a New Jersey in an entirely different project?

Does Phil Collins have a New Jersey?

and since i am now prepared to declare Born This Way a settled New Jersey, here are the final stats:

THE FAME (2008) + THE FAME MONSTER (2009) - 15,000,000 worldwide, combined. in the US, the original THE FAME is certified 3x platinum and the freestanding EP at 1x (though it's not super clear how the deluxe edition fits in). all seven singles are US top ten, with two #1s and a #2 that is massive in the zeitgeist ("bad romance") but has the bad luck to be up against "empire state of mind." as singles/DLs, those top performers sold 8, 10, and 11 million.

BORN THIS WAY (2011) - 6,000,000 sold worldwide, US is 2x platinum. four top-ten singles and one more at #29 (so definitely not a Fairweather Johnson - she was still clearly a major act), but the biggest of these is the first, which shot to #1 (supporting "event" status) and it sells 4x platinum. obviously by 2011 physical sales are in much deeper decline and itunes sales are taking a real hit from streaming, so we should make some allowances - but clearly this is a moment that might charitably be seen as around, i don't know, 1/2 to 2/3 as successful as the artist's previous phase.

ARTPOP (2013) - 2,500,000 sold worldwide, US is single platinum. first single peaks at #4, second at #13, third at a pathetic #76.

the next album after that is a collection of duets with tony bennett (certified gold). her return to mainstream pop in 2016 goes single-platinum with two singles peaking at #15 and #4, neither of which i've ever heard except when actively seeking them out. i think if there have been any New Jerseys in the 2010s, Born This Way is one of them.

A major act I don’t think has been mentioned here —

Public Enemy, Apocalypse 91... The Enemy Strikes Black

Does Phil Collins have a New Jersey?

― billstevejim,

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/f5/Phil_Collins-But_Seriously.jpg/220px-Phil_Collins-But_Seriously.jpg

A major act I don’t think has been mentioned here —

Public Enemy, Apocalypse 91... The Enemy Strikes Black

― stan in the place where you work (morrisp)

They weren't multiplatinum in '91.

Bon Jovi continued to have big hits throughout the '90s from albums like Keep The Faith. So I think an artist can still chart and have platinum albums post- New Jersey.

xxxxpost: yes, it's ...But Seriously, identified by chr1sb3singer upthread. We Can't Dance was also identified for Genesis, but controversially didn't make it to the poll.

xxp -- Why does it have to be multiplatinum to qualify?

The album peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 chart and at No. 1 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. On November 26, 1991, Apocalypse 91 was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America for shipments of one million copies in the United States.

At a glance, looks like it performed better than their previous album...

Public Enemy talk leads to thinking of how a massive soundtrack single ("Fight The Power", "You Could Be Mine") ends up overshadowing the album that follows.

That was one of the criteria several years ago. And I don't think anyone considered a hollow album that augured the decline of PE.

*considered it

Was wondering why politics thread was quiet, realized it's cos yall in here

And I don't think anyone considered a hollow album that augured the decline of PE.

I thought we just established that "New Jersey" wasn't considered to be that (at the time)! I thought that was the point... it's only definable in retrospect, after you see how the artist's next albums perform.

Apocalypse '91 semi-qualifies i think...like a lot of NJ type albums it's really extremely good but it also felt like their moment was passing as it was being released. It's maybe not a full NJ though.

i kinda do think MJ's NJ is Bad as well...it was a huge album but the songs just weren't as undeniable except for a couple, maybe arguably only one. I'm not sure if external factors contributed to the NJ thing, i mean this was the time when MJ took some giant irreversible steps from being the coolest pop superstar in the world to the strangest and least-appealing to likely a majority of the tens of millions who scooped up Thriller.