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

kilroy is a good un

Can a NJ be someone’s best album? Could Blackout be Britney’s NJ? Or had she already slipped into cult-ish territory by then?

― licorice oratorio (baaderonixx), Thursday, August 30, 2018 4:20 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I have days when I think New Jersey is Bon Jovi's best album.

I was gonna say Boston - Don't Look Back, which came hot on the heels of their mega-popular s/t and outsold it by some margin (4 million sold in the first month), and yet, while the singles from the s/t STILL get played on classic rock radio ("More Than...", "Piece of Mind", "Long Time"), Don't Look Back, idk, people usually remember the title track and that's it? Felt like wheel-spinning. and then they disappeared for 8 years.

but given that Third Stage was mega successful commercially many years later and the song "Amanda" is still well-remembered, I don't think it counts.

― fuck the NRA (Neanderthal), Thursday, August 30, 2018 4:41 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ha, iirc, we spent quite a while debating whether Don't Look Back or Third Stage should get this nod back in the day.

Is you is or is you ain't
A New Jersey

AMANDA

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

oh, they absolutely did - it's a good record with many great songs/tracks, but it's audibly the work of a completely different band than the first three. even the songs credited to The Bomb Squad on the next two don't have the original lineup, and Bedlam (on Muse) and He Got Game (the track) are the only two that really sound confident about what they're doing. from Muse-Sick on, every record is effectively made by interns*, and by 2000 Chuck was soliciting beats from white fanboys over the internet.

*OK, I haven't heard the Paris collab (or anything past Beats & Places)

third stage is weird because of the time jump but as noted upthread it was a huge event, in part *because* they'd been away. and the album had multiple at-the-time hits, not just "amanda." (i rep for "cool the engines.") point is at the time, I think, it seemed plausible that boston would keep being huge, firmly planted in rock's firmament. but in fact, it ultimately felt a bit hollow and signaled a career decline.

'Culture II' is 100% feeling like a 'New Jersey'.

Coming off "Bad and Boujee" and "T-Shirt" (and peripheral huge tracks like "I Get the Bag"), the success of 'CII' and its singles felt pre-destined
in a way that I'm not feeling about whatever the next album might be. For Atlanta in general, in retrospect, it feels like 2016 was the breakthrough, 2017 the victory lap, then 2018 is where momentum still delivered a bunch of "hits", but it seems like few people would go to bat for "Motorsport" or "Walk It Talk It" in the same way they would for "Bad and Boujee" or "T-Shirt" (see "Living on a Prayer" and "You Give Love a Bad Name" vs "Bad Medicine" and "Lay Your Hands on Me"). It also feels like the oversaturation of their style in the past couple years has removed any feeling of a new project being an EVENT (how can we miss you if you haven't gone away).

As if on cue, it even looks like they're doing the post-New Jersey move of taking a breath to reframe/control expectations/see if solo stardom beckons, with the most visible member releasing their first solo album. Call Quavo "young gun"?

Was just thinking about Metallica's Load and Reload today - Load actually sold more copies in its first week than the Black Album did, but those albums are now seen as the beginning of a long creative slump that either ended with Death Magnetic or their newest album, or never ended at all.

xpost def agree with culture ii

load is interesting, could make the argument but also the times had definitely changed

Load was hated pretty roundly right off the bat

Load/Reload might be the biggest New Jersey of all-time! “Until It Sleeps” and “Hero of the Day” were on the radio and MTV constantly, MTV had a big Metallica promo contest. And then just one year later they did it all over again. “Unforgiven II” was horrid!

Some fans might say The Black Album is their true New Jersey, but I don’t think an album can be a New Jersey if it has their biggest hit/signature song on it.

Load was hated pretty roundly right off the bat

By old-school Metallica heads, yeah. But for a lot of people, Load was their first Metallica album. And it was the big schism where you could be a Metallica fan without being asked whether you owned the "No Life 'Til Leather" demo on cassette. I guarantee there were a shit-ton of people packing arenas on the Load tour who'd never heard a Slayer song.

I wrote about the 20th anniversary of Reload for Stereogum last year, and said this:

Similarly, Metallica were now subject to consideration from critics who hadn’t been paying attention during the early years. They were a multiplatinum stadium act that had headlined both Woodstock ’94 and the Lollapalooza tour, which meant it was time for generalist pop/rock writers to take notice. And generalists never go anywhere without pretending to have been there all along. For example, the Rolling Stone review of Reload ended, “Metal fans should still be grateful for Metallica: Wherever the band may roam musically, it presents hard-rock fortification against SoCal ska lite and scary pop phenomena such as the Spice Girls. But if the foursome is not capable of making a truly bad record anymore, Re-Load is not one of their greats. Like the transitional albums that moved the band from the pure aggression of Kill ‘Em All to the flawless “Black Album,” Load and Re-Load are just steppingstones in the ongoing Metallica legacy.” Yes, you read that right: Metallica was flawless and Ride The Lightning, Master Of Puppets and …And Justice For All were “transitional albums.”

it presents hard-rock fortification against SoCal ska lite and scary pop phenomena such as the Spice Girls.

Ah, 1997.

Also I saw somewhere on FB that today is the 30th Anniversary of the release of "Bad Medicine" in advance of New Jersey.

yeah Black Album can’t be a Jersey bc its success was due entirely to its own hits, it wasn’t exactly moving units bc of people who got onboard with “nothing but singles” opus And Justice For All and were hoping for more of the same.

black album was one of the more absurd NJ suggestions when it was first pitched itt (or maybe the poll thread?) but Load has always been an interesting one. it definitely fits the huge event status, it sold well, it had several successful and ubiquitous singles, but surely doesn't have the same status in their legend as the s/t and "feels a bit hollow."

the weird thing is that a "career decline" is hard to exactly chart out for this band. in terms of quality most fans would probably not rate Reload or St. Anger as high as what came before - but probably the more you get into metallica, the more you start downgrading the s/t along with them! and meanwhile though they stayed commercially HUGE for years after Load, selling well with Reload and the symphonic album, mustering airplay hits with Garage Inc., doing the Mission Impossible 2 song... they were about as huge and reliably stadium-filling act as they were right when Load dropped, I think. OTOH if you try to make Reload the NJ it just doesn't feel event-like enough, having come out so quickly on the heels of Load and even being given a title that says "this is not an event, we just have some more music for the fans." casual rock radio listeners may not have even realized it was a separate album.

Also I saw somewhere on FB that today is the 30th Anniversary of the release of "Bad Medicine" in advance of New Jersey.

I was starting college 30 years ago this month, and there was a student who would sing "Thoreau is like Ralph Emerson" to the tune of this song.

and "Ralph Emerson is what I read"

hahahahha

the weird thing is that a "career decline" is hard to exactly chart out for this band.

Yeah, from a ticket sales standpoint they're still a commercial juggernaut. Their records don't sell as much as they did, but nobody's records do, and adjusted for deflation (of the overall music industry bubble) they're probably as popular as they've ever been.

I mean people buy their 3k VIP packages

They played for about 45000 in Orlando last year i think

Am I the only one that cites this thread irl as an example of how amazing ILX can be?

i don't irl but this thread is all-time great, no doubt

by "i don't irl" i just mean i don't talk about ilx to anyone irl

yeah, Culture II definitely feels like a NJ.
We'll have to see what happens with their next album though.

Have we talked about Prince and Stevie Wonder already ?
I'm not sure they had a NJ, actually, which is surprising for such major stars with such a long career and that many albums.

from a ticket sales standpoint they're still a commercial juggernaut

Tbf, this is also true of Bon Jovi:
https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/chart-beat/7784813/bon-jovi-hot-tours-31-million
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/dec/16/bon-jovi-highest-grossing-tour
https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackomalleygreenburg/2011/01/03/inside-bon-jovi-200-million-payday-music-business/#1a201ad67a78

I don't think most people would complain about that career decline.

prince's would be diamonds and pearls

hum. I don't think it qualifies for many reasons, one of them being that the follow-up was still one of Prince's highest selling albums (more than any of his 80s album except 1999, PR and Batman).
Actually Love Symbol would be his NJ on that aspect (his last album selling as much as his 80s output).

D&P : 6.8M (his biggest selling album after PR, of course with 21M, and close to Batman at 7M)
Love Symbol : 4.8M
Come : 1.3M

Diamonds and Pearls OTM

Mini slump of Graffiti Bridge before D&P tho.

prince was ruled out early on i thought - too many albums, decline too gradual, no one obvious NJ candidate.

if stevie had one it'd be SitKoL but as discussed, it's too well-regarded and he remained a superstar in the 80s, just minus the every-album-a-classic artistic cred he'd previously had. something similar applies to elton john - we settled on Rock Of The Westies but it's not "event" enough to really fit so you're left with GYBR which is definitely an "event" with at least a bit of hollowness to it... but it also feels like his iconic, top-of-the-world album, and the decline is spread over several following records such that you can't really point to that one and say "it started to go sour here, behind the fireworks." i think NJs are rare or nonexistent before Thriller... with people knocking out a record every six months to a year, very very few albums were marketed or landed as major, monumental Events, and the ones that did have largely remained canonical. so like a deep beatles revisionist might argue for Sgt. Pepper's or the White Album as a secret NJ but 99% of everybody would think you were crazy. The Wall might qualify on quality and "career decline" but it seems a little too much bigger than its predecessors to really fit the arc.

Yeah, Elton and Prince are out: too many singles, too many mild resurgences in popularity.

SitKoL sounds totally crazy to me !
Hotter than July, since it was the final "classic" album, maybe.

I don't think anyone listened to Key of Life even years later and thought, "Well, this sounds hollow and his popularity will start to sag." He won three Album of the Year Grammys; the dude was due for a fall.

if Wonder has one it's In Square Circle. Take a look at the underwhelming reception for Characters.

and was Hotter Than July a huge event? he'd sort of let things cool down by putting out Secret Life of Plants. i think he doesn't have one. Key of Life is like Mellon Collie, where there may be some who think it sounds a bit hollow but far more who consider it the crowning glory on a rich and productive period, and then the followup is so obviously NOT "here's more of the same" that by the time they come "back," the stakes are lower. stevie was obv way more successful post-SitKoL than billy pumpkin was post-MCIS but whatever route their career decline took, it wasn't down the New Jersey Turnpike.

Regarding The Wall:

Floyd's The Final Cut went platinum in the USA & was #1 in the UK, I'll put it forward

― Euler, Tuesday, August 7, 2012 7:40 PM (six years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ILM is one of the few places where Key of Life isn't beloved.

re: Prince, I mostly agree with you about a lack of NJ but he kept a good sales level from 1999 to Symbol.
After Symbol he was over as a relevant mainstream star, though.

Painting 'Slave' on one's face has a way of doing that.

(In terms of corporate support behind singles, making albums events, etc.)

third stage is weird because of the time jump but as noted upthread it was a huge event

My enduring memory of this record is of hearing "Amanda" on the radio for the first time. After the song ended, there were several seconds of dead air -- extremely unusual for the biggest FM rock station in Chicago. The DJ finally came on and said, "We waited eight years for that?!"

We waited eight years for that
Like we did for Pat

AMANDA

We waited eight years for that
And the album landed splat
AMANDA

ILM is one of the few places where Key of Life isn't beloved.

― The Silky Veils of Alfred (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, September 4, 2018 8:10 AM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

wait what? people on here don't like Songs in the Key of Life??

i think alfred's projecting on us