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

hey, what about the Bee Gee's Spirits Having Flown? Only registered as platinum in the US but 35 million sold world-wide with three #1 hits you don't hear anywhere as much as the Saturday Night Fever stuff.

the Garth Brooks album Sevens I mentioned yesterday was 10x platinum

but no fences was 17X and ropin' the wind was 14X

btw has their ever been an artist that sold THAT MANY records and just dominated his genre that's been as forgotten as quickly as garth brooks?

maybe Hammer/Vanilla Ice but yeah

Garth Brooks is the New Jersey of artists

except that he does get played on country radio still, at least "Thunder Rolls" & "Friends in Low Places" & "Two of a Kind"

"That Summer" is a jam

he's still played in country stations here. He'd seem less ephemeral if he kept recording music.

garth brooks hasn't really been forgotten has he? He just semi-retired. Dude had a song debut at #1 on the country chart in 2007 from a hits comp. He also got to sing at the Obama inauguration.

maybe Hammer/Vanilla Ice but yeah

― some dude, Wednesday, August 8, 2012 10:51 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah i guess hammer even more so....he's more comparable to garth because he had multiple successful albums....vanilla ice was destined to be more of a one hit wonder and those guys can't really new jersey by definition.

Sly & The Family Stone - Fresh

^ that's the kind of album where i get the logic but you're really going to have a hard time getting everyone to agree it "ultimately feels a bit hollow"

the country station i listen to NEVER plays garth but they don't seem to play much in the way of '90s recurrents in general

though there's something different about Garth's ephemerality: while I hear e.g. John Anderson & Trisha Yearwood on country radio still, it's because those songs resonate; whereas Garth's songs rarely did (the quality that pushed his sales so high, paradoxically)

i guess i base it mostly off my sister and bro-in-law who have always been big fans of pop country etc....they were big garth fans but never seem to listen to him now...kenny chesney kinda captured that crowd, they just went to see him in concert a month ago w/tim mcgraw opening

if Garth put out a new album today it would sell millions

yeah, it's not like garth is running around trying to woo them though, unlike hammer and vanilla ice

ugh my sister adores Chesney.

"it's because those songs resonate; whereas Garth's songs rarely did (the quality that pushed his sales so high, paradoxically)" what does this even mean

if Garth put out a new album today it would sell millions

― Listen to this, dad (President Keyes), Wednesday, August 8, 2012 11:59 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

no way

it would sell millions if garth did the media blitzkrieg he was a god at and could still swing on a rope over a stadium, but if he just plopped something out from his castle and ran away yeah it wouldn't work

Wait, Garth Brooks is country royalty! Pretty sure a lot of those albums have never left people's disc-changers, let alone gotten sold back to the store or forgotten about. But I haven't followed his career with any attention at all so there could be one that's thought of as more of a dud, I guess.

Spirits Having Flown is a total New Jersey.

just saying songs like "Rodeo" or "Papa Loved Mama" don't tell great stories & so what's appealing about them is that everyone else likes the songs, not that you like the song

I dunno, maybe it's bullshit

yeah that's crack talk, sorry

Garth's crack

you can turn on a country radio station right now and you have a pretty good chance of hearing a Garth song within an hour

xpost to da croupier

I wouldn't say 'hollow', necessarily, but I doubt that many would argue that it was a step down from Riot and a sign that the Sly magic was starting to wear off (although you could easily argue that Riot, genius as it is, was a surefire indicator of an impending slide).

That it wasn't a step down, I mean.

i said i got the logic! it's just harder to play this game with critical deities because people aren't as likely to concede the affair was weak

he dropped a double CD of hits everyone already had in 2007 and it went 5X platinum

alright I'm gonna listen to K102, Minnesota's Rockin' Country right now and on I Heart Radio and see if I hear Garth Brooks song

ok first up, some toolbox named Luke Bryan who says kiss tomorrow goodbye

"Drunk On You" is good!

Everclear - Songs from an American Movie, Vol. 1

is that the song i just heard? i have no idea.

ok they are playing independence day by martina mcbride which i guess is an "oldie" by now so maybe we'll hear garth.

Elrond, just so we know the parameters of this experiment, how many country stations does your area have? I don't keep track of these things but it feels like I pass maybe four on the FM dial, and I would imagine they cater to different niches. Any ILM country heads know more about this?

btw i STILL have goddamn "bad medicine" stuck in my head, thanks thread

he dropped a double CD of hits everyone already had in 2007 and it went 5X platinum

― Listen to this, dad (President Keyes), Wednesday, August 8, 2012 12:08 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

that really does not mean he could sell a million copies of an album of new songs in 2012, though

Philadelphia Country station played Garth 45 minutes ago.

GARTHWATCH 2012

not sure you guys understand what an "event" a new Garth album would be in the Country world.

but, yeah, if it was all Bluegrass or if it sucked then it would sell poorly

not sure you understand how few albums sell a million copies anymore. so far this year it's just that Lionel Richie album.

Elrond, just so we know the parameters of this experiment, how many country stations does your area have? I don't keep track of these things but it feels like I pass maybe four on the FM dial, and I would imagine they cater to different niches. Any ILM country heads know more about this?

― Doctor Casino, Wednesday, August 8, 2012 11:14 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

actually....it looks like there are 2 of decent power FM...I think there used to be a quirkier old school AM station that played older cool stuff but that's pretty low powered...

both of them have playlists so fuck this i'm not going to listen to this shit

http://www.k102.com/iplaylist/playlist.html?last10=1

K102

and 102 Buz'n (??) Country

http://buzn1029.cbslocal.com/playlist/

i think if Garth put out an album of new material and did even minimal "return of Garth" hype work, it would sell over a million. i wouldn't bet on "millions" plural, though.

yeah, maybe. to me that feels a little like saying Bobby Brown could return to R&B radio and outsell Usher but maybe i'm underestimating him.

let's call him up and get this started

Bobby Brown isn't to R&B what Brooks was to country, I don't think.

bobby hasn't sold 128 million

Garth is a deity in his genre in a way that Bobby Brown is ... not. A CD of new Garth songs would do quite well among people who still buy CDs, i.e. my aunt in Missouri.