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

from the Lady Gaga ARTPOP thread:

i have a theory that every super popular artist has a "New Jersey" - like Bon Jovi's album New Jersey -- where it's still super popular and even more popular than the albums that preceded it but there's some sense that the gig is up.

― Elrond Hubbard (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, August 7, 2012 11:21 AM (41 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^
that'd be a nice thread (if it doesn't already exist)!

― mr.raffles, Tuesday, August 7, 2012 11:24 AM (38 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

btw dudes i was like a kid when New Jersey came out...but even me as just a fan, i kinda *wanted* to like New Jersey as much, and there was some sense that it was a "big deal" and i should like it and i bought the cassette but i think we all could sense it just wasn't *as good*...i'm not sure what critics thought but i bet they did, i didn't read reviews or have access to them.

so i wasn't talking critically.

but anyway like as time goes by you'll find that people going to gaga show would be way more jazzed about like "bad romance" than "edge of glory"...

like I'm trying to think of another example....Graduation is Kanye's New Jersey.....that's another example....

― Elrond Hubbard (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, August 7, 2012 11:40 AM (22 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

You're black, white, beige, POLLa descent: Lady Gaga - Born This Way (poll)

― lex pretend, Tuesday, August 7, 2012 11:46 AM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

and people get on me about MY poll titles!

(j/k, i am curious to see how this one turns out...)

― Doctor Casino, Tuesday, August 7, 2012 11:49 AM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Graduation is Kanye's New Jersey.....that's another example....

I think it's a stronger case to say 808s was his New Jersey

― keeping things contextual (DJP), Tuesday, August 7, 2012 11:50 AM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think of a band's New Jersey as their bigger but hollower victory lap album so def Graduation not 808s

― da croupier, Tuesday, August 7, 2012 11:54 AM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"bigger" meaning bombast not necessarily sales

― da croupier, Tuesday, August 7, 2012 11:55 AM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

NJ had five top tens including two #1's and except for "Bad Medicine" they've all vanished from the face of the earth

― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, August 7, 2012 11:55 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

fuck that noise "I'll Be There For You" will always be there for me

― da croupier, Tuesday, August 7, 2012 11:56 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"Born To Be My Baby" and "Lay Your Hands On Me" are definitely arena filler though

― da croupier, Tuesday, August 7, 2012 11:56 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

all i remember about "living in sin" is that the video seemed risque when i last saw it in elementary school

― da croupier, Tuesday, August 7, 2012 11:57 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

omg I had completely blocked "Living In Sin" from my memory

― keeping things contextual (DJP), Tuesday, August 7, 2012 11:57 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

parents got upset when "Living in Sin" showed two mulleted youths defying society and good fashion taste and I think MTV banned it from playing during daylight hours or something

― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, August 7, 2012 11:57 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

seriously mad at all of you right now, gah

you are ruining my JAMC because all I can hear over "Catchfire" is the chorus to "Living In Sin"

― keeping things contextual (DJP), Tuesday, August 7, 2012 11:58 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

To be a New Jersey:
- follow-up to a huge, (possibly) defining record
- has less and/or smaller hits than prev album - or - hits based more on momentum than appeal
- brings with it the feeling that the NEXT record (if there is one) will see the bottom fall out (relatively speaking)

Sound about right?

I'll go ahead and nominate 'Here's to Future Days.'

― mr.raffles, Tuesday, August 7, 2012 12:00 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

then I nominate Huey Lewis and the News' Fore!.

― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, August 7, 2012 12:01 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^ SO otm

― mr.raffles, Tuesday, August 7, 2012 12:01 PM (38 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Did Around the World in a Day feel that way in '85?

― Eric H., Tuesday, August 7, 2012 12:02 PM (28 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Fore! is the fourth album by American rock band Huey Lewis and the News, released in 1986 (see 1986 in music). The album hit number one on the Billboard 200 album chart and contained five top-ten Billboard Hot 100 singles, including the number-one hits: "Stuck with You" and "Jacob's Ladder."

this is American Life in a nutshell

or wait, is it Music? I think actually Music is the album that qualifies

I'm so bad at this

ZZ TOP - Afterburner

are we conflating "victory lap" albums with Huge Event Albums That Ultimately Feel Shallow?

cuz Music feels like both!

Cher - Heart of Stone

how i phrased it in the other thread:

it's just an album that survived mostly on zeitgeist and professionalism that in hindsight served as a stopgap before a major drop or left turn

not everyone has one!

This would technically have to be an album that really DID mark the end of an artist's era, right? Like, we're talking artists that only ascended to the apex once and then fell almost just as fast? If so, Madonna probably doesn't exactly qualify.

ZZ TOP - Afterburner

― mr.raffles, Tuesday, August 7, 2012 12:07 PM (49 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^bingo

Dan, for most people Madonna is an 80s artists or an early 90s artists at the very latest....she wasn't huge in pop culture by then, you could make a case for Erotica but i don't think she has a New Jersey.

but either way madonna was no where near her zeitgiest or sales peak on ray of light, which is what i think dan is suggesting?

R.E.M. - Monster

From Wikipedia:
Monster debuted #1 in the US and UK charts. "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" and "Bang and Blame" were the band's last American Top 40 hits. Their following album New Adventures in Hi-Fi debuted at number two in the US and number one in the UK. The five million copies of the album sold were a reversal of the group's commercial fortunes of the previous five years.

Mj's "bad"

Music doesn't count cuz "Don't Tell Me" is like one of her biggest late era hits and people love that album

Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness.

An element of buyer's remorse also factors in. The "I realized one album too late that he/she/they were never all that."

it's funny....Watch the Throne ISN'T one of these because of where it fits in their careers, but man does it FEEL like one.

Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness.

― skip, Tuesday, August 7, 2012 12:11 PM (34 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^great example

xpost I mean, that's the pulse reading everyone's giving Born This Way now.

Melon Collie has too many fans to count. Plus "1979"!

Smashing Pumpkins fans aren't saying "oh man I can't even remember those Melon Collie singles"

interesting though how some bands react to this: so I'd say Rattle & Hum is U2's New Jersey but their best albums came afterward; or am I f'ing this up?

Monster is probably a much better mid 90s example of this though... Mellon Collie certainly has its "hollow" moments but "The End Is The Beginning Is The End" is probably the real beginning of the end for SP.

This would technically have to be an album that really DID mark the end of an artist's era, right? Like, we're talking artists that only ascended to the apex once and then fell almost just as fast? If so, Madonna probably doesn't exactly qualify.

well, the thing about being the end of Bon Jovi's era is that it was the end of the era where they got automatic radio play; they still sell out practically every venue they play and every album they've released since Slippery When Wet has hit the top ten, most often #1

so, I feel a lot of this is based on perception rather than actual performance; Ray of Light has sold more copies than Like A Prayer, for example

I don't want to admit Monster counts cuz I love it but the sheer number of copies sold back probably defines "buyer's remorse"

Rattle & Hum probably counts in that it was definitely followed by a left turn and people today would be like "um, Angel In Harlem was a top 20 hit? Really?"

I get the sense artists don't recover from their New Jersey.

Dancing on the Ceiling - Lionel Richie

xpost - Monster is, in many ways, the iconic Used CD.

on an indie rock level:

The Shins - Chutes too Narrow

interesting though how some bands react to this: so I'd say Rattle & Hum is U2's New Jersey but their best albums came afterward; or am I f'ing this up?

― Euler, Tuesday, August 7, 2012 12:14 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah but Rattle & Hum is a New Jersey...U2 just did the trick of pulling a Kid A after a New Jersey

haha raffles is good at this

Bon Jovi has certainly had a ton of hits and made a ton of cash since but it was definitely a game changer. Madonna doesn't quite work because basically she was Queen Shit and aging gracefully (with a mild mis-step around Erotica) and then made American Life.

Human touch/Lucky town

well, the thing about being the end of Bon Jovi's era is that it was the end of the era where they got automatic radio play; they still sell out practically every venue they play and every album they've released since Slippery When Wet has hit the top ten, most often #1

Maybe then it's less a signpost of "career decline" and more a mass discovery of career limits that didn't previously seem obvious/relevant.

Mj's "bad"

I would say it's probably Dangerous, that was MJ's first CD-length album and clearly was meant to be the start of a new era, free from QJ, on to a different sound, etc. etc. And there were a ton of singles from it but compared to Off the Wall, Thriller, and Bad, only maybe one of them is still ubiquitous today (and that one is one of his most routinely mocked).

Even less-huge artists have this. e.g., Replacements and Don't Tell a Soul.

Genesis - I Can't Dance (in re: the career of Phil Collins)

Don Henley - The End of the Innocence

that album still has a lot of respect for a Don Henley album - in Don's career I'd argue Eagles' Hell Freezes Over

Wait a sec, what about NIN - The Fragile

nice one frogbs

yeah but i don't think a New Jersey is necessarily terrible or even critical reviled, it can be good and popular etc but there's this inexpressible sense that the era of this artist is slipping away even as they are super popular at the moment.

Wait a sec, what about NIN - The Fragile

― frogbs, Tuesday, August 7, 2012 12:21 PM (58 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^this would be a great pick but Trent lets too much time go in between albums, it was a different era when he reemerged, but if it were like a year or two after the downward spiral i'd be totally on board

thing is, an album like End Of The Innocence or Melon Collie isn't loaded with the sense of somebody slipping away, it's just the last album they made before it happened.

and with the pumpkins it's more like Madonna where they had to go and push the envelope too far on the next album

Mellencamp "Lonesome Jubilee"

ultimately i am not the world's foremost don henley expert....so i will defer.

melon collie DID have some hits, and at least one (1979) that's beloved, but man even at the time that was a fucking SLOG

I hate myself for writing this but... Wild Mood Swings

INXS - Welcome to Wherever You Are

Mellencamp "Lonesome Jubilee"

― chr1sb3singer, Tuesday, August 7, 2012 12:25 PM (28 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^good one

I hate myself for writing this but... Wild Mood Swings

― keeping things contextual (DJP), Tuesday, August 7, 2012 1:26 PM (10 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

wouldnt wish be a better examp

I wish Weezer's Make Believe had been one of these but they are just as popular as ever.

this would be a great pick but Trent lets too much time go in between albums, it was a different era when he reemerged, but if it were like a year or two after the downward spiral i'd be totally on board

I see what you mean, this is why I didn't really want to mention Human After All because the follow-up to Discovery would have been huge had it came out in 2003. But The Fragile still sold boatloads.

Yeah FAA abruptly (and probably quite unexpectedly) moved them back to the centre, following Shining Light and Burn Baby Burn (which, along with Girl From Mars, I feel are their three most famous in the UK). I do get the impression that, nicely for them, a lot of it honestly probably was down to just people - radio and the public - taking to those songs so much. Because was their initial profile or promotional gambit of the period necessarily any stronger than that which Nu-Clear Sounds had? I don't get the impression they were. (Nu-Clear Sounds has a distinct lack of obvious single material imo, but I guess for them it's the Dog Man Star to Free All Angels' Coming Up.)

I don't understand how Parklife could be considered a bounceback?

Parklife is really it's own thing where their own 1991 success became wholly overshadowed/steps to the main event.

It was success in 1991 though. A proper hit single

and

(idk how that happened)

Parklife was a bouceback because Blur were in the wilderness starting w "Bang". They basically lost all their casual fans (most of their fans would have been casual at this point)... then slowly gained new "real" fans when ppl twigged how enjoyable MLIR was. But that def took time. 1992 wasn't that fun of a year for them, I'd imagine?

The situation is similar to Radiohead in America (not the UK where the Bends was soon enough a bona fide hit)

(The somewhat odd thing with the Blur story is that Bang actually precedes Leisure by a month. Goodwill from TNOW wasn't enough to sustain another hit single but the album then went on to do fine.)

What's the situation like in the US with Heart? I'm looking at Bad Animals' performance and wondering if that could be one? Sure there's 'Alone' but even New Jersey has 'Bad Medicine' so I don't know if I'd be right to dismiss the notion solely on that.

Brigade would be a better one for Heart because it also had big hits and went 2x platinum but that was it for them - the next album sold far less and I'm not sure if many people remember it

Brigade's a good one.

the next album sold far less and I'm not sure if many people remember it

Has a very "It's 1993 and we're still relevant, damnit!" album cover.

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81EgDFlwSbL._UF350,350_QL50_.jpg

After that they spend the next several years releasing live stuff (including a non-MTV 'unplugged' effort), compilations, and a Christmas album before their next proper studio album in 2004.

There's also The Lovemongers' Whirlygig, which is a Heart side-project that became their main band for a bit in 1997

Pink Friday 2

Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots

― Mr. Snrub, Friday, 23 May 2014 19:13 (nine years ago) link

i dunno, isn't it at war with the mystics? yoshimi has "do you realize"

― i also enjoy in line skateing (spazzmatazz), Friday, 23 May 2014 19:18 (nine years ago) link

the yeah yeah yeah song from at war with the mystics did fairly well, yeah? no one remembers that one

― i also enjoy in line skateing (spazzmatazz), Friday, 23 May 2014 19:18 (nine years ago) link

glad someone beat me to this

If “Houdini”, “Training Season”, and “Illusion” are any indication, we might be looking at the single biggest New Jersey since New Jersey.

Was going to say "don't the singles have to be relatively successful for it to be an NJ?" then I checked and saw that the first two hit the top 10. Shocking.
This has felt floptastic from word go.

the only thing is the singles from Future Nostalgia did pretty well, so I don't expect this album to outperform (if that is a requirement for an NJ). Otherwise, it does feel like the jig is up. I enjoy "Training Season" but it's not a patch on any of the Future Nostalgia singles. and "Illusion" is a poor excuse for a single

i heard a dua song in public recently and thought "oh this must be one of her not-quite-a-hit songs that didn't really connect from a few years ago" (like "we're good" or "idgaf" or w/e -- yes i know the latter was an actual hit in the uk, but not here). the song turned out to be current (or should i say past) single "training season"

song is bad btw

idgaf is at 1.5 billion Spotify streams

i don't really know her stuff enough but it feels pretty clear that taylor swift had a new jersey already but i'm not qualified to say

It seemed like Tortured Poets is where many people seemed to get tired of her.

I'd say Midnights is most likely her New Jersey. Tortured Poets feels more like the step after that.

Probably true in that Keep The Faith was their biggest album in the UK at that point in time and the first album they got to play UK stadium tours. It was huge here.

The only trouble is that Midnights preceded her biggest pop culture moment.

TS had various letdowns in the course of her career (Reputation, Lover, Midnights) but none of them really slowed her momentum. Tortured Poets, especially with its length and mid-ness, was an event album that tired people out and led to the negative reaction to Showgirl.

Cult leaders have Jonestowns, not New Jerseys.

Bryan Adams has never been mentioned in this thread according to CTRL+F. I guess he doesn't really have one but from a UK perspective 18 til I Die went 2x Platinum when he had a lot of mainstream interest riding on him (belated follow-up to stentorian '91-'94 successes) but none of its songs seem to get airplay anymore (unlike the Gold-selling follow-up album which at least has "Now You're Gone" on it), so maybe it applies?

When You're Gone that obv should be

"Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman? was his last big hit in America IIRC

which now I see is on “18 till I die” but here in America, we know it better as the theme to the forgotten popcorn classic “Don Juan DeMarco”

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🕸

A long time ago, while looking for something else, I saw the New York Times review of the white album which they called a 90 minute bore so The New York Times had it in for the Beatles it seems.

A New Jersey can have an evergreen hit--"Bad Medicine" is a big '80s Retro/Classic Rock radio staple.

idk if it ever came up here but i'd imagine there's plenty of people out there who think Bad Medicine is on Slippery (I was one until Wikipedia began to leave its mark on me)

I don't like Bon Jovi, but Bad Medicine is one of my favorite dumb songs. And boy is it dumb.

I saw them on the NJ tour and I would have sworn Bad Medicine was on Slippery When Wet.

Still think one of the INXS albums mentioned should be in there - but I think X rather than Welcome To Wherever You Are.
― Tim F, Friday, August 10, 2012

Yeah. Definitely my reaction upon seeing WTWYA early in the thread.

Off topic but “New Jersey” is such a bad name for an album

Given that the cover is supposed to look like a biker's jacket, it kinda makes me wonder if it was originally supposed to be a self-titled album and when no one understood that, they just went with it? Like how Philip Glass's "Music In Twelve Parts" was originally just what's now the first movement, which had twelve parts if you calculated the harmonies and whatnot the way he did, but when he played it for a friend they said, "Wow, Phil, that's awesome! Can't wait to hear the other eleven parts!" and he said, "Oh, shit. Well, back to the workbench I go..."

It's a jacket? I always thought it was a wall. Late 80s/early 90s major-but-not-top-of-the-pile hard rock albums like this (and Van Halen's FUCK, Kiss' Revenge, Whitesnake's Slip of the Tongue, AC/DC's Razors Edge) going all in on showcasing the monolithic band logos with not much happening in the background which is why (as someone discovering them in the late 00s) I thought they were all more important than they are.

The album’s working title was “Sons of Beaches”

Razor's Edge is probably too good and too much of a comeback album to qualify

I guess if AC/DC has one it's probably For Those About to Rock

Yeah, that one is the basis of Chris Molanthy’s similar “AC/DC rule.”

Man, it's a tough call when your "New Jersey" has one of your most iconic songs on it. But I guess every AC/DC album has at least one banger that deserves a spot on any setlist.

It's a jacket? I always thought it was a wall.

It looks like a mausoleum to me. Same with Whitesnake's 1987 album.

The album should have been in a bad puns title style, Bon Jovi in a sporting goods store buying a new sports jersey.

There is a video linked here in which Jon Bon Jovi describes the album cover process for New Jersey.

https://backstage.bonjovi.com/artifact/nj-album-cover-art

Short story: Was supposed to be a jacket with patches. Art director was wary of biker gangs getting upset by the patches. This was the compromise.

And speaking of bad puns, the original album title was supposed to be Sons of Beaches.

...which president Keyes pointed out yesterday. doh!

Sons of Beaches: sounds like a Jersey Shore biker gang (intentionally, I’m sure).