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

It's a lot less consistent than you'd think. I can think of a few huge plummets from albums one to two, like Duffy and Emeli Sandé, that go beyond even Fairweather Johnson territory. Whereas, say, Dido's earlier plummet was after her second album (her second album is very NJ-ish, not incidentally).

I do feel In Blue is more a NJ than a Fairweather Johnson though. If engendered in New Jersey is the feeling it would be The One or at least the crest of a moment, even if in the cold light of day nothing could quite scale those Slippery sales heights, then that seems pretty much like what happened with the Corrs. I guess it's the difference between a Bad Medicine and an Old Man & Me and I'm not totally sure what the Hootie situation is like (as we didn't really get them here) but Breathless aligns closely to a Bad Medicine imo.

Does Lana Del Rey have a New Jersey? Ever since NFM! it’s felt like the excitement over her has waned, at least in terms of critical hype and everyone lining up to award her. Not that her subsequent albums aren’t well-received, it just feels like NFM was the one where everyone got the LDR they always wanted and they don’t need anything else from her, at least as far as the discourse goes. NFM doesn’t feel like a NJ and I’m not sure Blue Banisters or Chemtrails qualify. Was NFM perceived as a big ol Statement and everything since has felt like just another good album?

It’s hard to argue against the moves artists make in terms of prolificacy in this economy and weird moment for the music industry, but … the excitement probably waned in part because Lana Del Rey doesn’t take a break. There’s too much. There’s always more about to come! It’s kind of exhausting.

(Obviously Taylor Swift gets away with this somehow and most seem cool with it, IDK)

probably something to do w LDR’s music maybe not being especially dynamic and changing in the same way and maybe the perception that she’s just doing more of the same moody slower paced stuff. I don’t know how accurate this is but NFM was received like a major step forward, compared to the big singer songwriter classics of yore, and the several since seem to haven’t been analyzed w the same depth (and I don’t get the sense it’s because the albums are considered poor or even much lesser.)

I’m a big Lana fan but after NFR I stopped getting the new ones. Kinda like Mac Demarco but without the drop in quality. I know what a new Lana album is going to entail and I’m well stocked up.

My theory is that people are finally starting to agree with me that LDR fukkin sux

Norman Fucking Mockwell!

shit!

DJP OTMFM

Good points upthread: the last two LDR albums were too much like what she had just done, and came out too soon together, to really garner much acclaim. There's one good album split between the two.
It's the upcoming album that will really point to what's to come for her.

last two albums were really good, stragglers just moved on

Will be interesting to see if she can keep the faith, or will go out in a blaze of glory.

I'm sure we'll find out one of these days

ITT I learned that Bon Jovi has a whole bunch of albums in the 21st Century I've never heard of

Every band has a "This House is Not for Sale"

I think there was definitely a huge shift in how Lana was perceived after she made her "Question for the culture" Instagram posts, which came a few months after NFR.

Every band has a "This House is Not for Sale"

Celine Dion - Courage
Brand New - Science Fiction
Brockhampton - Iridesence
Madonna - Madame X
Jack White - Boarding House Reach
The Killers - Wonderful Wonderful
LCD Soundsystem - American Dream
The Raconteurs - Help Us Stranger
Cake - Showroom of Compassion
Incubus - Light Grenades

(Thanks to whoever posted https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard_200#Largest_drops_from_number_one in the Odelay thread)

ITT I learned that Bon Jovi has a whole bunch of albums in the 21st Century I've never heard of

― Lord Pickles (Boring, Maryland), Sunday, January 22, 2023 7:25 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

"It's My Life" is their 3rd biggest song on Spotify

Well, it seems that "Sgt Peppers" itself was being perceived as The Beatles' "New Jersey" according to this review on its release. ...Not quite altogether wrong?

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/01/arts/music/archives-beatles-sgt-peppers-lonely-hearts-club-band-review.html

that definitely feels like the last album where everyone is aligned on a unified vision of the ban

Another partial UK example: Biffy Clyro's Opposites. Their BPI certifications (2x Platinum at best) seem to underplay how ubiquitous this band was during the Only Revolutions era. That album alone had a string of hits and was in the charts for two years straight (and only peaking in its 43rd week). Follow-up double (!) album Opposites inevitably claimed them their first UK No. 1 album and stayed in the charts fine enough for 41 weeks but the only song I remember, the one with the promotional weight behind it, was the (shite) lead single Black Chandelier. Their subsequent chart-topping albums are fanbase-only affairs.

I've never heard a note by Biffy Clyro, who remain inexplicably unmentioned in the "worst rock band name ever" thread. Name aside, are they any good?

no

They are the worst band in Scotland by a cuntry mile

For a while, I used to confuse Biffy Clyro with Rilo Kiley.

Now I just confuse Rilo Kiley with Riley Keough.

I confuse them with Buffy the Cyclone Slayer

Biffy Ray Clyrus

Excuse me Clyro, I have to use the Biffy.

I too have never ever ever heard of this apparently very popular band, to the point that I thought the post was kind of a meta "make up a New Jersey" prank until I looked it up. Does this act have no US presence at all?

They had their moments - mostly on the two really big 00s albums. But being as I am no stickler for pretty much any band with roots in post-hardcore or emo (which those two albums largely jettison) I largely avoid them.

Which are their two big albums? Their first three albums I’ve looked up never even had had a US release.

A search of Pitchfork shows no reviews, and one entry in “the worst album covers of 2007”.

SonI think the answer is, they probably had little US presence, although they toured this continent in 2022.

I think a rule for New Jerseys should that you were able to buy them in New Jersey.

Not sure if we talked about this one, retrospectively reviewed this weekend:

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/sheryl-crow-sheryl-crow/

It did go 3x Platinum--after 7x for Tuesday Night Music Club. And her next three were single platinum.

Which are their two big albums?

Puzzle and Only Revolutions - particularly the latter. As I said this is a UK-only thing.

As in not even a Europe thing.

Apparently their biggest albums on the continent were the later ones.

Sheryl Crow is interesting; its chart/arc status got some discussion here: [MODERATOR REDACTION OF BAD LINK]

It's interesting in that it sold less than the predecessor, but had three singles that were very big on rock radio and MTV, versus the predecessor having one gigantic crossover hit. Those three singles have also stuck around, to varying degrees. I think she sort of wasn't huge enough to have something land like a New Jersey in 1996 --- even though the s/t underperformed, relatively, it helped cement her as a headline artist, whereas a true NJ should really play like the inverse of that.

Discussed in a very specific place

yeah, was gonna say re: sheryl crow- i still occasionally hear songs from that second album out and about, whereas i can't remember the last time i heard "all i wanna do" or "leaving las vegas."

I heard both those songs in the last month, "All I Wanna Do" specifically last week on an oldies station during a road trip

It's interesting in that it sold less than the predecessor, but had three singles that were very big on rock radio and MTV, versus the predecessor having one gigantic crossover hit. Those three singles have also stuck around, to varying degrees. I think she sort of wasn't huge enough to have something land like a New Jersey in 1996 --- even though the s/t underperformed, relatively, it helped cement her as a headline artist, whereas a true NJ should really play like the inverse of that.

― got it in the blood, the kid's a pelican (Doctor Casino),

Also important to mention: her firstself-produced album, and listening to it again yesterday after Sodomsky's Sunday piece I remembered that while it's of a piece with a certain mid '90s Tchad Blake/Latin Playboys ear for arrangements, the organ fills and guitar parts are her own.

For some reason, anytime I've been in a casino in the past 15 years I've heard "Soak Up The Sun."

Whoops, that was from her next album after the s/t.

they played “if it makes you happy” over the PA before a MUNA show I saw recently and TONS of ppl were singing along

to the chorus

OOOPS at the bum link. Should have been this permalink: commercially disappointing major label rock/alternative albums of 1996

For some reason, anytime I've been in a casino in the past 15 years I've heard "Soak Up The Sun."

Whoops, that was from her next album after the s/t.

Actually it was from two albums after s/t. There was also The Globe Sessions with "My Favorite Mistake", which followed s/t.

> For some reason, anytime I've been in a casino in the past 15 years I've heard "Soak Up The Sun."

Compensating for the lack of windows?