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

i just want to watch garth brooks sit on a stool naked

thanks for killing the thread

traveled down the road and back again
your heart is true
you're a friend and a confidant

thanks for killing the thread

― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, August 8, 2012 12:49 PM Bookmark

The downward slide in the fans' estimation begins. Soon, it will be ILM's own New Jersey.

Taylor Swift's Speak Now might end up being her New Jersey. I can't imagine any of the singles really being played 5 years down the line. "Mine" is a Fearless retread, might as well play "You Belong With Me" or "Love Story". "Back To December" is great, but its not quite country, or peppy enough for Pop radio. "Mean" might keep getting play on country radio, but I think as a song it is too tied to the Taylor Swift career narrative, and so when her star fades a little bit it won't have the same resonance. "The Story of Us" is too rock, and unless there is a major style change for her, it won't be seen as Taylor-enough to get played. "Sparks Fly" is another Fearless retread, and "Ours"... its not even on the proper album so maybe it shouldn't count at all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWPfK_3mbbk

that's double platnum

No way is that a New Jersey, people lost interest in the entire project almost immediately. DOA.

i just like that song. he did get millions of people to buy an album that they were confused by and quickly forgot and a lot of promotion went into it. snl, vh1, etc. i think things started to fade a bit - by garth terms - after fresh horses.

i just like that song. he did get millions of people to buy an album that they were confused by and quickly forgot and a lot of promotion went into it.

Marketing feels like it is as important to determining NJ-status as sales is.

when Bowie received some industry award from presenter Garth Brooks in '99 he thanked the committee "and, of course, Chris Gaines." The audience was like OOOOOOOH

Elvis Costello has several New Jerseys, but I suspect that Mighty Like A Rose is the winner/loser.

MLAR was a huge event album?

Spike?

Elvis C is too mcuh a cultist to qualify but I'll be challopsy and say Armed Forces.

he made good even great albums but it was the first time his anger felt like schtick.

yeah with culty critic's picks you get into "here's where they started sucking and we didn't notice immediately" and "here's where we should have realized they'd never expand their audience" etc etc that rely far too much on taste

Armed Forces does kinda fit, because at that point he was starting to look like a major star, but his momentum was slowing even before the Ray Charcles debacle

i really don't get the sense that people were like "well it's over for EC" when Get Happy! out

i mean we're dealing with serious serious hindsight here

AF was his commercial peak.

Does Spiceworld count?

Yeah, do people really think Armed Forces feels a bit hollow or signals a decline? I'm not a big EC stan at all, but I think it's a great record, and stands up. xpost

Spiceworld counts, I think.

It's hard for me to hear AF these days without trying to forget the literally dozens of acerbic roots-rock records he's released since I started typing this sentence.

that's super, but there's no reason that's a New Jersey any more than Get Happy! which charted equally but sold less, and had about equally high charting singles in the UK that are slightly less well known afaik

I don't think Costello really works for this

yeah you gotta have a slippery when wet to hope to have a new jersey

seems clear that part of the thread's purpose is to deny the premise -- it seems clearly NOT to be the case that every huge artist has a New Jersey

more like people like to ignore the word "huge" or allow for liberal interpretations of it

along those lines, I think you can make an argument for Actual Sounds + Voices as Meat Beat Manifesto's New Jersey

also 13 Above The Night for My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult

Spiceworld otoh is an excellent choice

what about For Those About To Rock We Salute You? AC/DC's first #1 album.

yeah that's not bad

though....Razor's Edge brought them back to a new popularity later on

yeah but you follow back in black with an album that goes to #1 for 3 weeks...only to never hit the US top ten again for a decade. You can have a comeback, but Salute was definitely a hollow album the label said LET'S GET IT UP for

i'm sold.

i kinda feel like challopsing the fuck out of the thread and saying The White Album

has there ever been a more hollow album in hindsight, more of a blatant sign of a career decline than the white album? I think not.

the beatles broke up because clearly the world stopped caring

i admitted i was trolling!

Goat's Head Soup maybe--except that it outsold Exile by quite a bit.

Doing really well sales-wise is one of the requirements of being a New Jersey.

looking at their solo careers, John avoided the New Jersey by releasing a flat-out dud (Some Time In New York City) and not quite recovering until death and someone with a better sense of what it was like to live in a world with Wings can figure out when Paul's horseshit stopped being an "event". Based on stats I can see an argument for George's Living In The Material World (esp. since I've never even heard of the #1 hit "Give Me Love".

this would probably be Dead Man's Party for Oingo Boingo

the problem with finding a New Jersey for the Stones is that I don't think they've ever admitted an album wasn't a huge event yet. I can see cases for Goats heads, Undercover and Voodoo Lounge though.

I think everyone is missing the obvious here, Bizaar/Bizzar by ICP

Jewel- Spirit

Re: For Those About To Rock, I worked in a record store when that was released. We pre-ordered a TON of them based on Back In Black's popularity, and still had huge piles of them sale priced for a year afterwards.