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

That prompted me to think of Scissor Sisters, whose first album made them "a thing", albeit mostly in the UK. Their second album, Ta-Dah also topped the charts, and had a chart-topping single co-written by Elton John - it felt as if they had ascended to dance-pop royalty - but after that they seemed to fade away, although they did support Lady Gaga. They recorded their third album twice (the first version was scrapped) and after 2012 they went on hiatus. It has been years since I thought of them.

I have the impression they were displaced by Lady Gaga and Katy Perry, the former directly and the latter as a more-palatable-for-the-mainstream alternative. I have the impression that unlike e.g. Garbage or Florence + The Machine etc they didn't have a single central focal bandmember that the media could write about, and that limited them.

Scissor Sisters are a great shout for a NJ. The debut was 2004's biggest seller - even though it didn't manage a Top 10 hit in that year (one only came at the start of 2005 during possibly the worst month for single sales ever) - and so the launch of "Dancin'" was a big deal (I remember Channel 4 doing a video premiere of the unofficial video) and now that song has completely eclipsed all their earlier singles (of which I now only hear "Take Your Mama" in public/radio), and Ta Dah likewise.

Maybe the writing was on the wall when I bought it maybe a month after it was released second hand, having been sold back to Pink Planet Games Exchange (although they charged me slightly extra for it when they realised it was the new one, boo). I can't even remember second single "Land of a Thousand Words" - and the next two I mostly remember from giving the album infrequent listens ("I Can't Decide" was in a famous Doctor Who scene though but to some degree that's me showing my age).

Ta-Dah likewise for seeming like an Event, I mean.

I think there's symmetries between "Dancin'" and "Ruby", that other lead single from a second album of the period that has mostly eclipsed the earlier hits (maybe not quite as much with Ruby, but its still ahead) but which was succeeded by forgotten follow-ups. Having said that I don't know if Yours Truly sold well enough to be an NJ.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6DSb68Sumo

Wow - #1 in ten countries, and I don't think I've ever heard it mentioned. Was it a case of big first-week sales, was it just not an event in the US, or has it just vanished *that* much?

xp I was thinking, again in UK terms, George Michael's just-reissued Older meets some of the criteria outlined by others numerous times upthread, but not all. But broken down:

- Event: Absolutely an event, yes. It was his big, ever-prolonged but victorious comeback after the Sony battle and he was welcomed like loyalty. Both lead singles went straight to number one and when the album arrived in May 96, it not only sailed straight to the top but became one of the fastest-selling albums in British history, and remains so to this day. Ultimately the album went 6x Platinum, meaning it outsold his earlier albums, and Wikpedia lists it as the 97th best selling album ever. But as an event album, it is quite forgotten, no? It doesn't make best albums of the decade/all time/etc. lists. People don't immediately think about George Michael's commercial imperial phase of 1996/97 when they think of those years.

- The singles kept going: Again, absolutely. There were six singles from the album, released over a very long 21 months, and all of them entered the top three, five of them going to number one or two. But how many do you still hear now? "Jesus to a Child" (seldom played because so long) and "Fastlove" are the ones which survive, I would say. "Spinning the Wheel", "Star People", "Older" and "You Have Been Loved" I think are a lot more obscure now despite their strong sales at the time. Every time one of the post-album release singles was released, the album itself would climb back up the charts.

- Some sense the game is up? This is where I think it falls a bit. Was there any sense that drastic diminishing returns would occur next time? George was very lucky to have even been selling records so strongly in this period after many of his early-mid 80s peers had definitely long since passed their heyday. Not even Annie Lennox's Medusa, to pick something roughly parallel, came close to Older's figures. In the event, George's next 'proper' album would not arrive for eight years, in the meantime releasing an enormous greatest hits (which he self-deprecatingly said was aided by the 98 scandal, but it would have been massive anyway) and a not-nearly-as-big covers album, so hard to tell.

- Album itself is a hollow version of previous efforts? It isn't imo, it's a strong album. The fact it is ignored in best album lists seems irrelevant to this imo - it's hard to imagine such lists ever wishing to deal with more than Faith or, on occasion, LWP. It's a pop thing perhaps. But it is permanent charity shop fodder, so perhaps the 'hindsight hollowness' is something others feel about it?

On Every Street was definitely an event album that is now forgotten (although many of its songs seem to have good YouTube numbers). I dunno if its a New Jersey though - I know sales aren't everything but Brothers in Arms was 14xP in the UK and 9xP in the US. On Every Street was 2xP in the UK and 1xP in the US. It looks like early sales count for everything. (A good album, for what it's worth, and I don't even like the Straits that much).

IMO it's not exactly a Fairweather Johnson but that late 80s/early 90s thing of well-promoted, very prolonged but now rather eclipsed follow-ups to still well-loved mid-80s albums, cf. The Seeds of Love, The Sensual World, Us, The Rhythm of the Saints et al.

One things that makes On Every Street hard to judge is that the only follow-up was a live album and then they broke up, with Knopfler releasing a series of modestly promoted and received solo albums afterward.

Dire Straits is mentioned early in the thread - I was thinking about this exact possible New Jerseyness the other day and had to search if they even followed up Brothers in Arms. The followup was later enough that the hype didn't feel at all like a New Jersey, nor was it teased and anticipated like a Chinese Democracy. It came and went, with the attention warranted say Love over Gold. Since there was nothing else after it, no licking of the wounds or re-calibration, I'd say Dire Straits is a strong example of avoiding an inevitable New Jersey. But it's strange that Pinefox had the same instinct as I did this week - are Dire Straits creeping into the headlines again? Maybe it's just Running up the Hill '85 zeitgeist spillover.

Though even when Brothers in Arms felt like the biggest album in the world, they didn't feel like the biggest band in the world.

Older tanked here, but b/c it was a phenomenon everywhere else in the world, as you point out, when Faith did opposite numbers (i.e. a phenomenon in the U.S., just fine elsewhere). I'm not sure I'd call it a New Jersey based on its performance.

Plus, unlike many artists on this list, George Michael didn't give a shit about career momentum.

the studio in Montserrat where brothers in arms was recorded is the New Jersey of recording studios.

Yeah Older is really its own thing, borrowing only elements of New Jersey - and (why I wanted to mention it) not really the usual ones (i.e. it wasn't in the shadow of a predecessor).

that late 80s/early 90s thing of well-promoted, very prolonged but now rather eclipsed follow-ups to still well-loved mid-80s albums, cf. The Seeds of Love, The Sensual World, Us, The Rhythm of the Saints et al

well said, white horse - RHYTHM OF THE SAINTS is a classic case here! Good LP, may have sold well, had an outstanding lead 45, yet still somehow can't compare to the predecessor.

is adele's 30 a good candidate? I know I heard a kinda lachrymose single when the record came out, but I don't remember anything else about it and have never heard anything else from that record, whereas "hello" and "send my love" (the only adele song I've ever liked) were EVERYWHERE for many months seven years ago…

I was writing aloud about 30 upthread, my thinking is that it essentially is her NJ but already the sales are very much a step-down for her, even if that's more indicative of how well albums sell now (it is afaik the biggest-selling album of the last year, in the UK, US and worldwide).

I prefer Rhythm of the Saints to Graceland but I really love batucada. In the UK/Europe it was actually an unlikely (and obviously unrelated) false start to many batucada-house type tracks which were mainstream hits in their own right for the remainder of the 90s. If only he had a dance/downtempo/whatever remix of The Obvious Child made (it's 1990 Paul!) and stuck on a 12" he'd have been ahead of the curve.

Certainly looks like it: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=%2Fm%2F02z4b_8

Two peaks for her career-defining albums, then a slow descent.

Also, interesting to see how her peers, the superstars-of-ten-years-ago are all converging: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=%2Fm%2F02z4b_8,%2Fm%2F06mt91,%2Fm%2F05mt_q,%2Fm%2F01mpq7s

I think "Freeek!" is the New Jersey of singles for GM, one of the most expensive music videos of all time, widely hyped, but no matter how much money they spent on advertising it just wasn't a great song

I've always been quite mystified by "Freeek!" and "Shoot the Dog", his only singles for Polydor/Universal, two years before the album itself arrived. I get the impression they were marketed or at least hyped more around their videos, which no doubt got big music TV exposure (Freeek! was an early - maybe the first? - Channel 4 video premiere) even though the singles themselves actually didn't chart amazingly well. It got to number 7 while STD reached number 12, both siding down the chart very quickly. Not bad business by any means but a relative step down for GM (no doubt the tabloid 'storm' around STD engulfed that song altogether). And then Amazing/Patience come out and it's like they'd never happened even though they're on the album??

That said, "Freeek!" does appear very high in the Now 52 track list a full four months after its release so maybe it did have some radio legs?

That said, "Freeek!" does appear very high in the Now 52 track list a full four months after its release so maybe it did have some radio legs?

You don't think labels paid for placement on those compilations? Or, at the very least, there were negotiations around what they wanted vs what they could get?

Well that's the thing, Now albums could often be messy, but it's still quite anomalous to have a song that fell out the top 40 over three months before as track 3, in as late as 2002 after a more coherent house style had gradually seeped in (and then Shoot the Dog never even appeared. Nor did Amazing, but Flawless did). (Now 52 FTR is a total mess anyway, cross-licensing meant a lot of the period's biggest hits couldn't appear so it's an edition with a lot of wholes.

All of which is a niche tangent obviously but yeah my point is a late appearance that high up a Now album may - or may not - suggest it lasted a while on the radio (IIRC the 19th most played song on UK radio in 2002 was Travis No. 18 smash Flowers in the Window so not inconceivable).

holes* (oh no am I about to have another half-conscious day of typos..)

From the most recent Breihan Number Ones column:

My friend and colleague Chris Molanphy has a thing that he calls the AC/DC rule. It’s based on the idea that Back In Black was the gigantic breakthrough AC/DC album, the one that sold an insane number of copies. But because Back In Black sold all those copies over a long stretch of time, the follow-up album For Those About To Rock We Salute You was the one that finally took AC/DC to #1 on the American album charts — mostly thanks to all the people who loved Back In Black.

Definitely a related phenomenon!

Molanphy and I have talked about this more than once. The New Jersey Rule is slightly different.

yeah, it seems a purely numbers things, whereas New Jerseys have the "feel a bit hollow" criteria

^ ^

Actually, For Those About to Rock We Salute You does have a hollow feel about it. It marks an inflection point of not only diminishing commercial returns, but diminishing inspiration. Back in Black is the last of their albums that I would listen to from beginning to end, and what's more, BiB in turn is not nearly as consistent as Highway to Hell. (Admittedly, I do say that as a diehard Bon loyalist.)

Back in Black gets points for being a strong showing after Bon's death, but I agree, Highway to Hell is a much stronger album. Bon was a much better songwriter than Brian Johnson.

"For Those About to Rock", the song, with the cannons and all, has one of the hallmarks of the NJ - a self-consciously anthemic anthem, with the formula starting to show through so it starts to feel hollow, even if it seemed inspired while the band were devising it.

Also, the album is probably little more listened to now than, say, Blow Up Your Video, and sales wise (at least in the US) the bottom really fell out for Flick of the Switch.

"For Those About to Rock" (the song) is like the ultimate victory lap, cannons and all. Like "Start Me Up," it's the rare late career definitive statement of purpose.

For Those About to Rock def seems like it has NJ credentials. See earlier discussion starting here: Every huge artist has their "New Jersey" - a huge event album that ultimately feels a bit hollow & signals a career decline

One of my big takeaways from the later points of the thread IIRC was that some in the US see Hello Nasty as an NJ. Major point of difference here because it was easily their biggest album and only the second hip hop album ever to top the charts (after the NJ-ish Wu-Tang Forever). In fact their choatic UK chart peaks for each album are:
7 (Licensed to Ill)
44 (Paul's Boutique)
106 (Check Your Head)
10 (Ill Communication)
1 (Hello Nasty)

i'm from the US and wouldn't consider HN a NJ

it was easily their biggest album

Not even close. Yes, it went #1 in the US, but so did Licensed To Ill, and LTI has sold over 10 million copies; HN has "only" sold 3 million.

I think Westbury is talking about the UK (where HN apparently sold 3x as many copies as LTI).

Shit, you only have to sell 300,000 albums to go platinum in the UK. Those are, like, Canada numbers.

how many Myrrh did it go

"IMO it's not exactly a Fairweather Johnson but that late 80s/early 90s thing of well-promoted, very prolonged but now rather eclipsed follow-ups to still well-loved mid-80s albums, cf. The Seeds of Love, The Sensual World, Us, The Rhythm of the Saints et al."

That put me in mind of Yes' Big Generator, which came out four years after 90125 but didn't sell nearly as well. I honestly have no idea how it was perceived at the time though.

I have the impression most of the people who bought 90125 were only vaguely aware that Yes had been releasing records for years, and from their point of view Generator was just one of many unpopular follow-ups to huge 80s hits. Just like On Every Street up the thread - I've always assumed that most of the people who bought Brothers in Arms were only vaguely aware that the band had released music before that.

I learn from Discogs.com that Generator was recorded at "Lark Recording Studios, Caramati, Italy; Sarm East & West Recording Studios, London; Air Recording Studio, London; Southcombe Recording Studio, Los Angeles; Westlake Audio, Los Angeles; Sunset Sound, Los Angeles" so it obviously wasn't cheap. I assume each bandmember used a different studio because they were sick of each other. It was one of those enormous and probably cocaine-fuelled productions from a time when record labels had a lot of spare money.

I remember that the next album, Union, had something like nine keyboard players on it, in addition to Rick Wakeman, whose contributions were mostly mixed out. Why did they hate each other? I've never read a bad word about Jon Anderson, although he's prone to flights of fancy, and Rick Wakeman can at least put on a matey act. Bill Bruford seemed to genuinely enjoy playing the drums. Were they scared Trevor Rabin was going to put them out of a job? Was Chris Squire really mean? Was it Trevor Horn, taking revenge for being kicked out - but the band fell apart before he got involved. I just don't know.

"Love Will Find a Way" earned a lot of MTV play.

Bruford has been critical of Jon Anderson's business practices in interviews, saying that he liked making big money deals with the record companies that had negative consequences when chart success wasn't forthcoming (to the effect of "Jon is now trapped on the music business treadmill"). He suggested that when they were recording Union that they all paid more attention to the catering than the music.
Admittedly, Bruford also said that his middle-class concept of money differed from Anderson's working-class approach.

Anderson reportedly dodgy as fuck
Squire reportedly irresponsible as fuck
Howe reportedly a miserable git
Bruford reportedly a pompous ass
Alan White reportedly a nice guy
Ditto Wakeman, but with added ego
Rabin I dunno but it sure beat his floundering solo career

In reply to GM’s Freeek being possibly the first Channel 4 video premiere;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8M-bxpuinMA

Ah I meant the specific Channel 4 strand, with its own listing in the TV guide and what not, but I'm not sure exactly when those started. The Tube went so far with premiering videos they sometimes went out of their way to help make them.

I’m sure ‘Thriller’ and ‘Blue Jean’ had separate premieres on Channel 4, not as part of The Tube. It was nearly 40 years ago so my memory is hazy.

YouTube uploads suggest those were both The Tube too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXMBBvQBIvI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8TvNWVRxc8

Yes, but they were a special show dedicated to the premier of them and not just a strand within the regular show. See Tube Show Extra for Bowie on 28th September 1984.

Fair enough :)