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

silverfish otm

Cheap Trick- Dream Police

You got killer single and George Martin- should have been their victory lap and it was popular but they had kinda lost something and the slide to the state fair starts.

― earlnash, Tuesday, August 7, 2012 1:43 PM (22 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

George Martin didn't produce Dream Police, but did produce the follow-up, All Shook Up (which didn't sell too well, and didn't have any major hits).

Ironically, Dream Police was recorded before At Budokan was released.

but only one follow-up single scraping into the top twenty and the album stalled at platinum. Love Zone was his last event album.

xpost to croup.

ok i was only there as a little kid watching billy ocean videos with aliens, cartoon ducks and danny devitos so if you're really sure that the "Event" status of a billy ocean album had been lost and I missed it that's possible.

the thing about the NJ is that it's a bit of a dis. Hard to pin on someone like MJ because it requires implying "The Way You Make Me Feel" or "Remember The Time" was negligible in hindsight and good luck with that.

Yep, MJ managed to sidestep having a New Jersey, unless the second disc of HIStory being smuggled in as part of a greatest hits counts. Even still, the singles from it are still pretty well regarded.

if an artist is consistently good and doesn't have a quality drop-off before a commercial drop-off, they didn't really have a New Jersey.

i have no idea what "Remember The Time" is, and I'm pretty sure I can sing every single off Thriller, so there's that

yeah but you thought Automatic For The People was lost to the sands of time

Destiny's Child - Survivor

oh yeah it was clear Beyonce was in decline after that one

These are really good points, I think:

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.

― Eric H., Tuesday, 7 August 2012 17:19 (3 minutes ago) Permalink

It looks for a while like the blockbuster's been beaten, then it ... just hasn't)

― Ismael Klata, Tuesday, 7 August 2012 17:42 (11 seconds ago) Permalink

ok i was only there as a little kid watching billy ocean videos with aliens, cartoon ducks and danny devitos so if you're really sure that the "Event" status of a billy ocean album had been lost and I missed it that's possible.

the whole point of this thread is naked geekdom!

i have no idea what "Remember The Time" is, and I'm pretty sure I can sing every single off Thriller, so there's that

bingo, Remember is a good single but not something you'll hear often 20 years from now (if you even hear it much today)

Afterburner, Rattle and Hum and Fore! look like the best contenders so far.

I picked Monster based on buyer's remorse. The last album that, in retrospective, most people ended up caring about from REM is Automatic for the People which makes Monster the one that signaled the gig was up, it also sold more than its predecessors and successors at the time. It fits perfectly with the criteria of the thread.

The fact that it became the most sold-back album of all time tells you all you need to know. Lots of people bought it and lots of people stopped caring.

xp: except that it's awesome

Afterburner, Rattle and Hum and Fore! look like the best contenders so far.

― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, August 7, 2012 2:18 PM (2 minutes ago)

Should totally have the heavyweights compete in a most "New Jersey" poll after this runs its course!

and Dancing on the Ceiling

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)

Def Leppard's "Adrenalize" ... right? Or no?

definitely

YES

So is it that New Jerseys are way more common in rock than in pop or R&B or that people just expect artists to drop away in the latter 2 genres?

i mean it's a little off in that New Jersey was huge and Adrenalize was merely a hit, but shit if MTV didn't play the video for "Make Love Like A Man" a ton anyway

Yes' Big Generator maybe?

xposts If so, I love that BTW even sounds like it's trying to be a New Jersey.

xp: based more on momentum than appeal, I assume

In penance for my challopsy stance on REM I would like to nominate Bossa Nova, which charted higher than Doollittle in both the US and UK. I think it's fair to say that "Velouria" and "Dig for Fire" are hardly listened to now compared to the earlier singles, but they were a big deal at the time.

"Adrenalize" would have been even more of a "New Jersey" if had come out in say 1990 rather then 1992.

"Use Your Illusion 1 & 2" mention'd up thread is so otm it is kind of blowing my mind a bit

I can't decide if it's Kid A or the one that came after it.

Seriously, can we refrain from listing albums that sold less than a million copies, much less 5 million?

idk if i had a special nose for these or anything but new jersey, adrenalize, and mellon collie all just seemed plain BAD to me at the time

Yes' Big Generator maybe?

I remember trying really hard to love "Rhythm of Love" as much as I did "It Can Happen" or "Leave It," but I dunno, this was well outsold by 90125 and had no huge hit like "Owner of a Lonely Heart"

Bossanova totally sounds like a low-level Jersey to me

The Pixies discography is too short imho but Bossa Nova could definitely fit in this thread.

I don't know how general consensus had it, this kind of thought applied to Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots for me for a while, until Embryonic brought something new. But since there's (surprisingly to me) only one album in between it muddies it a bit - with the novelty band ubiquitousness they managed to maintain over a fairly long period of not releasing much it feels like there had to have been a couple of other passable but uninteresting Yoshimi-style albums in there somewhere.

yeah I get Eric's "actual hit please" request but in hindsight Doolittle is clearly a bigger deal than Bossanova and the only people who even talk about Trompe Le Monde are people who thought the Pixies were consistently awesome (like me).

Journey - Frontiers
REO Speedwagon - Good Trouble
Foreigner - Agent Provocateur
Styx - Kilroy Was Here

Paula Abdul - Spellbound

hah perfect

yeah i don't think the pixies qualify here but frank black's solo career sure does. maybe his first solo album? idk

I dunno how big a deal it was but:

Rolling Stones - Goat's Head Soup

Journey's Raised on Radio closer, Matt #2, no?

I considered Bossanova my fave Pixies album for a long time. I still love it.

I understand it's not as good as Doolittle, etc., but it's a good record. And if nothing else, I don't think the bottom dropped out on Trompe Le Monde AT ALL. Yeah, there are a couple weak tunes in the second half, but overall it's great, too.

Could be that I just love the Pixies too much to see any of the albums as a NJ.

though actually the problem with the Pixies is that people weren't saying "oh the pixies they're over" when Trompe Le Monde came out or anything. That album still got them Buzz Bin status and high placement in critic charts - in general maybe it is a good idea to stick to actual chart heavies.

man those Spellbound singles have vanished, in part, I hope, because everyone realized they were awful

I love Spellbound. So it probably deserves to be mentioned in this thread.

fwiw, i think keeping this to giant hits a la REM, U2, Def Leppard, etc., makes more sense than something like Frank Black's solo albums...i mean it's hard to even fathom shoehorning "NJ" status on like The Cult of Ray

Tho in that case, the problem was that it deviated too far from its predecessor. So "coasting off the last one" isn't really in play.

and by Cult of Ray I meant Teenager of the Year