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

Feel like with all the clowning on Drake nowadays it's increasingly clear Views was a New Jersey

Somehow skipped this thread for four years... just spent like 3 hours reading the whole thing.

Laughed at this

all rap new jerseys are actually called new jeruz

Some rap New Jeruz that haven't been mentioned I don't think:

Master P - MA da Last Don
actually his highest selling album (4 mill) but clearly the end of the line for him. and no memorable songs.

Wyclef - The Ecleftic: 2 Sides II a Book
sold quite a bit based off the success of the carnival, had that one song w the rock. 911 still a jam tho.

LL Cool J - 14 Shots to the Dome & GOAT think he had two .

Luda - Release Therapy

DMX - The Great Depression

Ice Cube - War n Peace

Witness.

Nelly - Sweat/Suit

people keep forgetting this part: 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.

i.e. witness would not be a New Jersey, but Prism might

Yeah I thought we had already decided that Prism was a NJ

surely Bee Gees 'Spirits Having Flown' is one of these? it featured 3 US number 1s, shifted 16 million copies. the follow up Living Eyes sold 750,000.

Got discussed way back in the early days of the thread iirc! I agree with you.

is boyz ii men's (inappropriately-titled) evolution one of these? opened at number one, spawned a number-one lead single and follow-up top ten hit, but also marked the beginning of their shockingly precipitous decline

I'd say so.

thought for sure this bump was gonna be about Arcade Fire

^^

I think the last one was

yup

Ice Cube - War n Peace

was this really a "huge event" album that spawned hits? I don't remember hearing a single song from it.

Yeah he'd been gone for awhile at that point and there wasn't a lot of excitement about his comeback. I'd say Lethal Injection was the start of the decline.

Not familiar with "Pushin' Weight", but I am familiar with "You Can Do It" from War & Peace Vol 2.

you can do it was pretty big but yeah maybe yall are right

I'm also discovering that You Can Do It became a hit in the UK in 2004, of all times, which seems a little weird.

probably a video game or something?

Britishers ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Would El Perro Del Mar "Love is Not Pop" qualify? It seems to be her last successful album over all. The next one "Pale Fire" did have a minor hit in "Walk On By" but the latest didn't even register at all.

I love them all though.

Mr. Short Khop 4 eva

got credit his hussle a little bit

Mr. Short Khop, (pronounced "short chop") or simply Short Khop (born Lionel Hunt) is an American rapper. He encountered Ice Cube in front of a 7 Eleven convenience store in South Central, California. Ice Cube eventually struck a deal with the newcomer, and soon Short Khop made guest appearances in Ice Cube's 1998 War & Peace - Volume 1 (The War Disc)

Willenium

haha, this is kinda prophetic:

After winning the award twice in a row in 1998 and 1999, Smith was nominated again for the Grammy Award for Best Rap Solo Performance at the 2000 ceremony for "Wild Wild West", but lost out to Eminem's debut single "My Name Is".

whoa, surprised that Willenium hasn't been mentioned yet, I think we've finally found another bonafide New Jersey.

Prism too. Remember the truck?

If it's so surprising, why in the hell didn't you mention it, then?

(xpost)

Well, exactly. You forget about New Jerseys. I figured the sleuths in this thread would've found it already. A defining feature of a New Jersey is an "Ohhh yeah!" reaction.

more like "oh...yeah"

dammmmn willennium is on point. crowning glory: the biggest song on it was a soundtrack hit six months before the album came out, and it acquires a lengthy spoken-word intro in which Will tries to convince toddler Jaden that it really should be left off the album, citing several other ostensible bangers that could replace it.

Not sure if this album would be considered a big enough event to be a New Jersey, but it seemed like one to my teenage mind:
The Offspring - Conspiracy of One

^ Yeah, it had 'Want You Bad' and... *thinks hard* something about a prankster on it. But it marked the last of their big commercial successes.

*rouses from sleep*

The reason Willenium wasn't mentioned is that it was a relative flop compared to the previous album. Big Willie Style sold 9 million copies in the US, had a #1 and two top 20 singles beyond the preceding movie tie-in. Willenium sold 2 million, and had no top 20 singles after the preceding movie tie-in. It was a clear misfire long before the release of the follow-up.

*goes back to sleep*

surely a defining feature of a NJ is that after initial recognition its NJ status is ultimately disputed and rejected

hmmmm so it's more of a Fairweather Johnson? looking at the actual performance of the actual album singles I buy that... pretty dismal.

To qualify as a New Jersey, the album has to sell as much or even more than its predecessors yet everyone knows the gig is up.

a bomb is not a New Jersey.

da croupier & alfred otm

willennium was not a bomb imho (4x platinum!) - but agreed that it is way way too diminished as a followup to count as a NJ.

I think you guys are being way too rigid. 4 million is not a bomb and New Jersey itself has sold 10 million less than SWW

Number 1:

Willennium was NOT an event album remotely on par w/New Jersey

The album was the follow-up to the band's third album, Slippery When Wet, and reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart in its second week of release after making its debut at No. 8. It remained at No. 1 for four consecutive weeks.[3] It produced five Billboard Hot 100 top ten hits, the most top ten hits to date for any hard rock/glam metal album, including "Bad Medicine" and "I'll Be There for You", which both reached No. 1. The album was certified 7x Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. The album also debuted at No. 1 in the UK and was the band's first UK No. 1 album.

Number 2:
Will Smith was not even capable of HAVING A NEW JERSEY in 1999. He's coming off Bad Boys, Indepedence Day, Men in Black and Enemy of the State, already a bankable Hollywood blockbuster action star and heading into his bid for critical acclaim Bagger Vance/Ali stage....

by this point he's not even primarily thought of as a music star, the fate of Willenium good or bad isn't where his career is going anyway

I'm pretty sure we discussed a long time ago that despite the thread title no album is ever going to match exactly the data points of the album "New Jersey" by the band Bon Jovi, and we can look for similarities in other blockbuster follow-up albums.

p.s. some of those movies you mention came out before Big Willie Style

we did discuss that and this is still not a New Jersey

*stomps angrily out of bedroom*

How the fuck did the sales magically turn from 2 million in the US to 4 million for willenium in the last 8 hours? Wikipedia has it at double platinum. Riaa.com has it double platinum.

Slippery When Wet and New Jersey both sold over 5 million copies before the release of the next album. New Jersey had MORE top ten hits than Slippery When Wet. "New Jersey" status doesn't just go to the last album by an artist you can remember.

I swear to fucking god, it blows my mind there are records nerds who want to play this game but a) don't want to look beyond personal anecdotal experience and b) can't fucking count to ten.

*storms out of room, slamming door*

*opens door a crack*

Sorry UMS, didn't see you'd already reaffirmed how notable New Jersey's stats are

*closes it quietly*

I might argue that Big Willie Style was the New Jersey to Will Smith's Fresh Prince career if I was feeling ornery

*talks politely from other side of door*

The problem there is the previous Fresh Prince album was Code Red. "Boom boom shake the room" has not endured in culture better than "Miami," let alone "gettin jiggy with it"