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

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?

"My Favorite Mistake" is my Crow jam.

More like song is the equivalent of pumping (more) pure oxygen onto the gaming floor.

xp

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

― the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, May 30, 2023 9:44 AM

you actually listen to the radio, whereas i actively avoid it. so fair enough!

Funny, Biffy Clyro are exactly the kind of band I imagine doing well in America. They're basically the 2000s Bush, aren't they?

No, because nobody here knows who bush are as they sold fuck all in the UK while those shitehawks Biffy Clyro have sold shitloads here

biffy clyro have such a weird trajectory as a band and have released a lot of insufferable garbage but their second album is a pretty decent emo album

never heard Biffy Clyro, name is vaguely familiar

Bush came out during the high alternate rock era though, very different time

they're kinda like if foo fighters were scottish, had a mathy post-hardcore phase early on, and got really into overwrought balladry after blowing up

Only thing I know about Biffy Clyro is that their guitarist and bassist each had a signature model guitar from Squier. I tried listening to them once and they made absolutely no impression on me.

For every post-2010 New Jersey suggested, invariably the fans pop up with "what are you talking about, there was never a decline, they are as big as ever and still culturally relevant, streams/likes/views are at an all time high".

Justin Bieber, Beyonce, Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, Rihanna, Kanye West, Pitbull, Eminem, Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg, Drake, Adele, Bruno Mars, Ed Sheeran, Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande, Nicki Minaj, Kendrick Lamar, Calvin Harris, Post Malone, Imagine Dragons, Coldplay, The Weeknd, Lil Wayne, none of them apparently have a New Jersey.

Certified Lover Boy by Drake is imo the most classic New Jersey of recent years

Only thing I know about Biffy Clyro is that their guitarist and bassist each had a signature model guitar from Squier.

This must feel like a slap in the face tbh - "hey we've already got an Yngwie signature Strat, you can be the face of our budget brand"

Certified Lover Boy by Drake is imo the most classic New Jersey of recent years

Maybe but 2021 feels pretty far removed from peak-popularity-Drake - maybe it's his Keep The Faith?

In BC's paaaartial defence the amount of slowies they did after they blew up is no more than, say, Muse. Of their five ubiquitous hits from 2008-2010 only one was a ballad - albeit a shitty one that was quickly becoming the Kerrangcore Wonderwall/Angels/Chasing Cars until the X Factor nipped it in the bud.

I've said this before and I 'll say it again, Drake is an artist where almost every album of his feels like a New Jersey. I think VIEWS might be the best candidate.

This must feel like a slap in the face tbh - "hey we've already got an Yngwie signature Strat, you can be the face of our budget brand"

― Siegbran, Wednesday, May 31, 2023 8:47 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

I dunno, I actually thought it was cool that they'd do a signature model for people who can't afford to shell out $2,000 or whatever. J. Mascis has a Squier signature Jazzmaster too! It's just I'd never heard of Biffy Clyro before the guitars came out and only rarely since then.

Just played through a few Biffy Clyro tracks, having never actually heard them, and they sound like a heavier update of Runrig.

Squiers have a good reputation now and honestly I don't think there's any advantage to the MIM stuff unless you just have to have it say Fender on the headstock

I've said this before and I 'll say it again, Drake is an artist where almost every album of his feels like a New Jersey. I think VIEWS might be the best candidate.

― MarkoP, Wednesday, May 31, 2023 8:04 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

2019's scorpion was prob his biggest album tho. he was atop the billboard charts for like half the year with "god's plan," "nice for what," "in my feelings"

off-topic, but "god's plan" might be one of the blandest, least memorable mega-hits of all time

I just learned that in Canada Views was certified 6x Platinum, while Scorpion was only certified 2x Platinum, whereas in the US, Views was certified 6x Platinum, while Scorpion was certified 5x Platinum. This might be why I have thought of Views as being a much bigger deal than Scorpion.

Drake also has songs that are other people's songs technically, like "Going Bad" w/Meek Mill or "Sicko Mode" w/Travis Scott that feel more like Drake songs than the other artists' that were hugely popular

Neither it or its predecessor Riptide broke the 3xPlatinum threshold and its chart position was nothing special, but in its own ways Heavy Nova still gives off elements of NJ.

(Sorry for bumping with a non-NJ but I can't shake the thought. The album was feels designed to do as well as possible.)

Yeah, I'd say it qualifies were it not for the sales threshold. It's clearly trying to be Riptide: The Sequel except Palmer wrote and produced the whole thing himself (as he tended to do pre-Riptide).

lol "Simply Irresistible" only made it to #2. Kept out of the top spot by "Sweet Child o' Mine"

He also moved (up) from Island to EMI, did five music videos (two of which have AtL homages), pretty much everything perhaps except make the actual album too long.

I feel like the album's analogue should be Winwood's Roll with It, which actually did better. But it just seems less NJ-brash somehow.

Heavy Nova has "Early in the Morning," another of his credible electro-R&B covers.

happy 35th to the original

Hah just remembered one restless night not too long ago deciding that Red Dwarf's Back in the Red was a UK TV New Jersey.

As you were.

cult acts have a different but similar arc involving albums that seemed like potential breakthroughs that weren't in hindsight, shit like that deserves its own thread

― da croupier, Tuesday, 7 August 2012 19:40 (eleven years ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think Bossa gave the perception that they'd only likely be a marginal concern going forward, rather than breaking through into the mainstream.
In the slipstream of Doolittle, it kinda seemed anything was possible.

That WOULD be a nice separate thread.

― mr.raffles, Tuesday, 7 August 2012 19:43 (eleven years ago) bookmarkflaglink

If this never became its own thread it still should.

It also made me think of how Feeder's Pushing the Senses was their biggest album in the UK, or had the best first week sales anyway (made no. 2), and was the moment that they seemed to finally seemed to settle in the UK (Q are quoted on wiki as saying it could finally establish them as "major league players"). Whereas today it's 'the one that everyone bought and cannot remember why'. After their successive hits compilation, also a big hit, they fell off a cliff commercially forever. Only 'Feeling a Moment' survives - although I did hear all but forgotten top 5 lead single Tumble and Fall playing on the radio in a charity shop recently.

Feeder were utter shite

Their britrock brothers in christ Ash have something rarer - a genuine bouncing back album, where after having fell from grace after their moment had seemingly passed they went and made an album that was as big as their breakthrough, if not bigger, and crucially were made to be 'relevant' again, and achieved more one actual hit. Not that Ash ever were mega-MEGA sellers but that's a number one album we're speaking, to go with the one they had back in 1996. Larger-scale versions of this are Californication and American Idiot and maybe not much else. Born in the USA?