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

"remember the time" def a top three mj song

Yeah, I've never liked Dangerous much (and I was a huge MJ fanboy since the early 80s !) but after reading the quite good 33 1/3 book lately, I've listened to it a lot for the first time since its release and reevaluated it : it's actually good (and even more if you consider it as a double album, which in many ways, it is). Far from OtW and Thriller obviously but at least comparable to Bad. I think for many (younger) people, Dangerous is clearly one of the classics.

"Who is it" is also up there with his best work.

I was about to say that whatever other sins you want to lay at its feet, Dangerous has "Who Is It" and "Remember the Time" on it and that forgives a lot in my book (nb, I do love most of the rest of the album)

the memories that these records all flood me with remind me just how easy it is to get an 11-year-old excited about something. I mean Dangerous, UYI I & II, New Jersey, these all loom huge in my childhood and yet true to the thread title I can't say I love any of them.

I had a lot of questions for my parents after the Leave Me Alone video.

Oh wait lol that was on Bad. durr

I've always dug "Who Is It," and have honestly come around on Dangerous a bit since this thread's heyday. It absolutely earned its second-place finish in the NJ poll, but there is a pretty decent quantity of good material there. If it were cut down to single-LP length (more by trimming the excesses of each over-long track than by cutting songs outright I think) it could have been a very tight slab of turn-of-the-90s dance-pop - but then it wouldn't be Dangerous, the soundtrack of a paranoid and overexposed star disappearing into the camouflage of glitz, tics, and production promised the cover. It's more memorable and special as a New Jersey than it would be as Bad II. *drops mic; it digitally morphs into a glass and breaks*

You wouldn't even need to cut down the length of the songs or some entire songs or even re-organize the tracklist, I think.
I find that if you consider it as a double album with disc 1 ending after "Heal the World" and start disc 2 with "Black or White" (minus the terrible intro), it works pretty well.

Now looking at wiki I realize the history of Leave Me Alone is complicated and that's probably why I mentally placed it on Dangerous. Didn't come out as a single until 89 and video won a grammy in 1990.

I find that if you consider it as a double album with disc 1 ending after "Heal the World" and start disc 2 with "Black or White"

Indeed, this is exactly how the 1991 vinyl release was formatted.

really ? it seems to me it was a bonus track on Bad from the start.

weirder still it wasn't even ON the vinyl and tape copies! is it the biggest ever 'extra track'? in fact is it the only ever *single* that was originally just an extra/bonus track used to flog CDs?

Would have to make a pretty big exception for "new songs on greatest hits albums," about which I'm certain there's a thread...

Indeed, this is exactly how the 1991 vinyl release was formatted.

eheh, I didn't know that (since I only had the CD) !
that way, disc 1 is more "urban" and hard and disc 2 is more introspective and dark. I prefer disc 2, actually.

just looking at the 'Bad' wiki, i'd forgotten that Another Part Of Me was originally part of the Captain Eo soundtrack!

Ah okay, I had the cassette version and I don't remember hearing it before the big *event* premier of the video, so that makes sense. xp

Captain Eo !! totally forgot about that (I don't even think I have seen it...) !
What else is on the soundtrack (I guess I should check that myself...) ?

and "another part of me" is one of my favourite tracks on Bad.
actually, all these are classics for me :

The Way You Make Me Feel
Liberian Girl
Another Part of Me
Man in the Mirror
Smooth Criminal

I even like "Just Good Friends" ! because it's the only fun and light song on the album (something that almost totally disappeared from his music after Thriller, sadly...).

the only other Eo song was uh We Are Here To Change The World. no me either. Captain Eo was the first collaboration between George Lucas and Coppola since THX it says.

i think 'bad' has too many classics still in regular rotation for it to be a NJ.

Pat Benatar is tricky. Tropico would seem like the obvious answer, with her biggest hit, We Belong. But in truth her NJ would have to be Live From Earth. It contained Love Is a Battlefield, which was her last big hard rock hit.

I don't think anyone in 1983 thought Pat Benatar's hit making days were over. Far from it.

That's what distinguishes NJs from the rest: the audience knows the artist is treading water.

"Love is a Battlefield" was her first top five!

Live from Earth was the beginning of the end of the Pat Benatar golden age. She had a couple big hits afterwards, but no blockbuster albums.

I agree, but no one thought so in 1983.

incidentally, the main impact of this whole discussion for me is having "Bad Medicine" stuck in my head, also i am convinced that Bon Jovi's best hits are the ones where I can mis-hear some element of the chorus as being about Batman, as in "Your love is like Batman is in" and of course "Shot through the heart, and you're to blame / You can't run...from Bat-Man."

― Doctor Casino, Tuesday, August 7, 2012 3:01 PM (48 minutes ago)

I just got "Your love is like Al Sotosyn" stuck in my head.

and very good love it is too

lol

"That's what distinguishes NJs from the rest: the audience knows the artist is treading water."

Views.

Starboy and 24K Magic are also looking potentially New Jersey-ish at this point.

Regarding "Views" does the audience (or anybody) think Drake's hit making days are over ?
I wouldn't be surprised at all if Drake had more big hits/albums in the coming years...

a new jersey doesn't mean there's no more hits or big albums

aw yeah, sorry, I know there are so many rules about the New Jersey by now (and I don't have the time/patience to read them all) !
I guess it's been discussed at length already but could Views be a New Jersey if following it Drake has more big hits and big albums, business as usual ?
I mean, if there's no difference before and after the album in question, can it qualify as a New Jersey ?

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)

just quoting the original rules, there are too many messages afterwards !
so, as for Views:
1- not really, is it ?
2- Views has One Dance (his biggest hit, no ?) and Hotline Bling (his 2nd biggest hit ?)
3- that's the question !

they tacked hotline bling on the album but it was a hit nearly a year prior to views!

imo it's more like putting "how soon is now?" on the u.s. edition of meat is murder

Here's one that popped into my head: Timbaland's Shock Value. It's success came mostly from the momentum built up by the previous year's Loose and Futuresex/LoveSounds, and he kind of went downhill after that, with the possible exception of the 20/20 Experience. Or are it's big singles (Give to Me, The Way I Are, and Apologize) too well remembered to count?

did it even have a presence/identity as an 'album'? barely remember it coming out. not sure it merits "event" but maybe i just wasn't following things very closely in 2007/

Timbo was at a new commercial peak in 2006; I'm not sure anyone thought his next record would see the bottom fall out.

IF YOU'RE READING THIS IT'S TOO LATE and WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE were both bigger artistic 'statements' than VIEWS—especially when you recall that VIEWS was supposed to come out before IYRTITL!

anyway i want drake to go away, he sucks and is bad

I connected Views to the "audience knows the artist is treading water" comment based on the reception I've seen to the album. General consensus, even from Drake fans, seems to be this isn't his best work and he's coasting, even if One Dance and Bling are his biggest hits, which, if we're being totally honest, aren't exactly anything new for him (although personally I enjoy both quite a bit).

I agree that it doesn't fully qualify (at least not until his next record), though it does have some New Jersey-ish qualities.

Shock Value is an interesting proposal. It definitely felt like an "event" at least to me / the music circles I was in at the time. Coming off of two of the biggest albums of the last year/decade, star-studded guest-list and all. Give it to Me definitely felt like an event anyway, yet I think the album as a whole is largely forgotten, as are its singles. I think Apologize is far more associated with OneRepublic than Tim, so I wouldn't really count it as "his" per se, even if he was responsible for exposing the song to a larger audience. At the very least it was a sort of bookend to Tim's imperial phase. And Shock Value II came and went without a trace, so I think it's a pretty strong case actually.

so Starboy is definitely the Weeknd's New Jersey, yeah? Probably the best example since Artpop

Wasn't Born This Way Gaga's New Jersey?

Also, I think Adele's 25, might be better example of a recent New Jersey.

isn't "Hello" her signature song now though? that song was everywhere last year

I've somehow managed to avoid it after its initial run on the charts. And I haven't heard anything else from that album.

How isn't "views" not a New Jersey?

Um double negative typo. Delete "not"

Wasn't Born This Way Gaga's New Jersey?

― MarkoP, Friday, November 25, 2016 1:27 PM (fifty-six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

And yes