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

last album of HITS i mean

Us may be an outlier but it doesn't feel hollow

hard to argue for gabriel when he's only released one proper studio album of new material since, ten years after "us", and that album doesn't even seem to have aimed for serious chart success. it's like arguing "the sensual world" as kate bush's "new jersey".

25's sales don't disqualify it from being a new jersey, from the OP: 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.

http://pitchfork.com/news/72471-drakes-more-life-goes-no-1-sets-streaming-record/?mbid=homepage-more-latest-and-video

that settles the question regarding "Views" as a "New Jersey"... no decline yet for Drizzy !
(that said, even before "More Life", I disagreed with the idea of "Views" being a "New Jersey")

Yeah people get carried away when it comes to drake, lol. Pure wishful thinking. He's not going anywhere.

i was loudly naysaying the Drake idea upthread, he's the biggest artist in the world, has been for 2 years. makes no sense to suggest otherwise!

(quickly ctrl-f's) no one's mentioned Christina Aguilera's _Back to Basics_

Wasn't that more like a peak for her?

Let's see, Stripped sold 13 million copies, Back to Basics sold 5 million (though it was a double album, so more like 2.5 million?)

and the next album sold 330,000

I'm probably remembering through my own lens, but Back to Basics felt like the reinvention album that bought her career extra time, at a time when pop radio was rapidly moving away from the teen stars of her generation. It felt really fresh and lively and still kinda does to me. That persona fit her very well. She'd also kind of boxed herself in with the whole Xtina personality, as lucrative as that was for a time, so this album seemed like a successful correction to that

Not buying Back to Basics as an "event" even if it did sell 5 million worldwide. US sales were 1.7 mil, which doesn't even put it in the top ten sellers of the year, and way way off of her earlier sales even if you account for state of the CD market by 2006. Only the first single made the top ten, the next couple slumped and the last two didn't chart. Throw in the gimmicks of her taking on a new persona and the prewar sonics and it starts to look more like a Chris Gaines. If anything Stripped would be the New Jersey here in terms of her career arc, but I'm not sure whether Xtina fans view it as hollow in any sense.

Pretty sure that if this thread has proven anything, it's that not every huge artist has a New Jersey. Also, New Jersey is awesome.

I feel like Christina Aguilera's decline came more from being unable to keep up with changing pop landscape that occurred between the two albums, where artists that were huge in 2006 were no longer to be found in 2010. Like she teased a shift to a more electronic based sound with "Keeps Gettin Better" from her Greatest Hits album in the fall of 2008, but by the time she was ready to release her 2010 album the world had already embraced Lady Gaga and the like, and thus seemed to be lagging behind everyone else.

It seems weird, when you have a case study like Aguilara, why acts are still taking 3 or 4 years between albums

God now I'm remembering Bionic... that album was an atrocity

Back to Basics was released before Back to Black somehow, and seemed on the pulse of something new. (Has anybody ever explored the connection between these two albums? Kinda weird that two similarly-mused blockbusters with similar titles came out within months of each other).

Bionic was her post Gaga/Kesha album, and seemed to arrive shrouded in defeat. Better to do your own thing than to play catch up, I guess.

Had she capitalized on the momentum of Keeps Gettin' Better, which was was a top ten hit and released just before Gaga got super big, things might have turned out differently.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkPxgUshpec

I feel like this song is mostly forgotten.

I think the problem with post-2008 Aguilera was less market positioning or timing or w/e and simply the fact that all of her songs sucked

That's probably true as well.

I've also found it interesting it wasn't until 2012 that she finally did a song that was co-written by Max Martin.

To some extent I think she just had the right thing, wrong time, though maybe sounded a couple of just slightly sour notes with the general public. Like I feel like with both "Dirrrty" and later "Not Myself Tonight" she was rocking different kinds of uncompromising sexuality that were kinda not what the world wanted or was ready to get on board with, one too hot and the other too cold. But both really confident and strong and interesting - realer, but more icy and intimidating than, say, Gaga or Rihanna tapping into the same S&M tropes as the "Not Myself Tonight" videos. Those two made the material seem more fun and more safe (or at least just part of palette of funky quirky artsiness). Put another way, Xtina reads to me as proudly performing her own fantasies and fuck you if you it doesn't get you off, where obviously she would have sold better if she'd spun it more into cheesecake for the young straight male audience. (Even "Candyman" actually feels more like being in drag as a cheesecake pinup than any attempt to become a present-day object of late-night longing.) I mean:

https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/enhanced/web05/2012/8/21/17/enhanced-buzz-20820-1345584924-10.jpg

^^^ this is totally awesome to me but also totally not "commercial." Stronger songs might have certainly helped - even as I'm writing this, I admire the moves more than I want to listen to those tracks - but I think at this point Aguilera was sort of a star without an audience really interested in what she was doing. Probably, she was also saddled with the long-term narrative (three albums on!) of "woah, watch out! The teen idol is shedding her old image and getting S-E-X-Y!" which obscured what was specifically going on with the music, the lyrics or the videos. So if you weren't on board with any of the above, it was easy to write it off as "declining star trying to shock people and get attention with sex" which ties into lots of gendered stuff that I probably don't even need to parse out re: which people get defined as skanky, desperate, etc. etc.

I was going to also say that she seemed to be actually aping Gaga, specifically the "Alejandro" video, but I looked it up and the "Not Myself Tonight" clip actually dropped a couple months earlier! Huh.

there was basically no momentum to speak of with "keeps gettin' better" -- it was technically a top ten 'hit' on the strength of first-week download sales (i.e. her diehard fans), but it tumbled off the charts shortly after. i barely heard it on the radio at the time and naturally have never heard it since then. it is indeed mostly forgotten.

bionic really was a disaster. it had been talked up so much as being somewhat boundary-pushing for a mainstream pop album, and then it just... wasn't. and the songs really weren't there save for a couple that were perplexingly made bonus tracks. lotus was very nearly irredeemable.

It seems weird, when you have a case study like Aguilara, why acts are still taking 3 or 4 years between albums

― duped and used by my worst Miss U (President Keyes), Tuesday, May 9, 2017 10:53 AM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

so many reasons for this with pop stars - legal limbo, getting producers, getting songs, planning the album campaign - like she can't just pop into the studio and cut a record in two weeks

but more than anything it's label politics and bullshit - reminds me of Sky Ferreira's label taking the budget for her followup record and giving it to Halsey.

capitol must be a mess right now. their flagship pop artist katy perry is currently in the midst of the steepest commercial decline recent years have seen and their next big hope halsey is just starting to scrape the top 40 with a "needed me" ripoff. like how out of touch are they

i find myself wishing stars like Christina would just say "fuck it" and ditch the whole circus and go make a terrific record on the cheap somewhere. what are some examples - if any exist - of a star that big doing something like that?

or is it basically impossible because many at that level *need* the "getting producers, getting songs" part of the process to actually create something, and that part of the process costs lots of money?

like, i have no idea if you all are gonna say "nobody's done that" OR "here are 20 good examples"

definitely depends how many instruments they can play / if they can be their own producer. like i imagine Lady Gaga could make a solo piano record in a week if she wanted or needed to. amy winehouse could've. britney spears definitely couldn't

I would assume most major artists' contracts preclude them from ditching the whole circus and making a terrific record on the cheap somewhere

idk that Miley record with the Flaming Lips?

charli xcx's number 1 angel, maybe

(if you buy that it was recorded behind the label's back, which I kinda don't)

going back there's Nebraska

Nashville seems to let its stars do low-key vanity albums every once in awhile-- your bluegrass, gospel, Americana-like, instrumental guitar records etc

Pink kinda did that on her third album - she got together with Tim Armstrong from Rancid and wrote 10 songs in a week, then padded the album out with a couple of Linda Perry leftovers and a song with Peaches. Everyone hates it, but it's my favorite of her albums.

I would assume most major artists' contracts preclude them from ditching the whole circus and making a terrific record on the cheap somewhere

― sick, fucking funny, and well tasty (katherine), Tuesday, May 9, 2017 4:21 PM (nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well yeah, but what are those contracts like? 3-4 record deal? by the time an artist reaches this theoretical point, they would've presumably already run out their contract.

360 deals, surely

xxxp alpine static it may not have been done on the cheap but ANTI is the all-time 'Fuck it' album by a pop star ever.

in what universe does an album that hones in on the most successful part of its all-over-the-place predecessor ("Pour It Up"), has well-curated features including fucking Drake, and generally hews to sonic trends qualify as a "fuck it" album

like I know that's the marketing but come on

when did 360 deals become the norm?

that's a great point, i didn't think about that - those deals are insane. touring? merch????

are they 10 year contracts or something

^^ When Ticketmaster became LiveNation.

I would assume most major artists' contracts preclude them from ditching the whole circus and making a terrific record on the cheap somewhere

― sick, fucking funny, and well tasty (katherine), Tuesday, May 9, 2017 1:21 PM (two hours ago)

indeed, i would assume this, too; as flappy bird said, i meant "when they end a contract / have an opportunity legally" but didn't say it!

fun responses ... i probably should've started a thread

I was going to also say that she seemed to be actually aping Gaga, specifically the "Alejandro" video, but I looked it up and the "Not Myself Tonight" clip actually dropped a couple months earlier! Huh.

It was pretty obvious (and intentional I'm sure) that she was aping the "Express Yourself", "Human Nature", "Like A Prayer", and "Freedom 90" videos, but with a 10th of the budget.

Gaga was aping "Express Yourself" and "Vogue" for "Alejandro", hence the similarities.

360 deals became the norm when album sales fell off a cliff. paramore was one of the first bands to be famous for signing one; u2 and madonna were trumpeted to have signed them with live nation although they didn't fully close because LN was lacking in label infrastructure.

i love this song from LOTUS. it's very similar in feel to charli xcx's semi contemporaneous "superlove"

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TeHR0IrTDcI

there's a dearth of female pop personalities on the radio right now and the struggles gaga and KP have been having are a symptom of that. rihanna is the exception that proves the rule

but this week the only woman in the top 10 is selena gomez, who's on a kygo song. the other women on radio right now all have bland names (mostly mononymic) and sound like they're on the verge of sneezing fits - daya, etc. even halsey was sanded down into the chainsmokers dink's mirror image for her big chart topper. the better to fit into a chainsmokers or louis the child track i guess but it sure makes everything sound boring.

the other women on radio right now all have bland names (mostly mononymic) and sound like they're on the verge of sneezing fits

lolol love U

i find myself wishing stars like Christina would just say "fuck it" and ditch the whole circus and go make a terrific record on the cheap somewhere. what are some examples - if any exist - of a star that big doing something like that?

What is Radiohead's "What a Girl Wants"

yea this only applies to popstars mired in bad contracts and label politics