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

i know, but i was still surprised there was a time agent had sold more, considering records had been out for a while when agent was released

Love the long list and the stats. Will have to digest. I think point B is super crucial - you would not immediately think, seeing this album's success, that this is anything but a band in a strong position career-wise. And yet in hindsight it's also easy to see that somehow the rot had set in here, that this album kind of basically was long on singles and short on deep cuts, that it was all kind of samey, that the biggest hits were actually riding momentum, whatever it is that makes New Jersey not feel like a major record despite the killer sales profile. This ineffable "feel" is pretty key to the whole thing but hard to quantify, naturally.

How many of those were real event albums? I feel like that's the magic element, an emptiness born of mass delusion, that turns a mere Agent Provocateur into a full-blown Use Your Illusion.

that's part of why i put them in order of sales - one of could easily make the argument that 7x platinum is the cut-off. I just chose 3x platinum since Spellbound was a pretty big deal and still pretty undeniably a success.

i'm not going to go to bat for my one contribution to this thread or anything, but i am having a hard time understanding this and would love it if you'd take another shot at explaining what it means. (note: it's not you, it's me. i'm dumb.)

b) achieved enough success as not to guarantee the next one would do even worse. I left out Adrenalize because even if 3 million sold and 4 top 40 hits is kind of stunning in hindsight, it's still a Fairweather Johnson following a diamond album with 6 top 20 hits.

or maybe, to put it more clearly, why is Adrenalize a FJ and not a NJ?

regardless, nice work on that list! very impressive

I don't know much about Def Leppard, but from the Wiki info it seems like it sold well enough to be a New Jersey - four singles in the US Rock top ten, with two of them hitting #1, and the album itself is 3x platinum. Maybe not a monster but surely a hit record, right? So all that's left is to determine whether it has the general feeling of dudness, irrelevancy, and failure to contribute meaningfully to the band's reputation, that hint at New Jersey "the hit that felt like a bomb" status.

Let's bear in mind here that Fairweather Johnson debuted at #1 on the albums chart, sold copies quickly to three out of the eleven million Cracked Rear View buyers... and then started slipping immediately. First single "Old Man & Me" (a pleasant tune IMO) made #13 on the Hot 100 - respectable, but the equivalent of the previous album's fourth single "Time" (anyone remember this one?) which got to #14. The followup, "Tucker's Town," (???) barely cracked the top 40 at #38, and "Sad Caper" (nooooo idea) did not chart, which would be true of all of the band's future singles. It's a flop that also happens to be a straight career-killer. It doesn't look to me like Adrenalize is either of those things.

Now let's get the rock outta here!

(note, Cracked Rear View has shipped 16 million and sold 11 million. And either way, holy fuck, that's a lot of copies of Cracked Rear View.)

I felt like, even before it came out, no one thought Fairweather Johnson had any chance of hitting anywhere close to CRV's success. Hootie felt like a novelty, not a group with a "career" ahead of it. The reviews all seemed along the lines of "maybe they could have have kept this shit up if they had written catchier songs, but oh well"

I had never heard of Fairweather Johnson before this thread.

regardless, nice work on that list! very impressive

OTM

Plus there's the whole 'most sold back CD ever' thing

Is this based on some statistic or is it just an impression people have? I've been wondering. I can believe that a lot of people might have sold it back, although I still think Monster is a good album, one I'd easily rate over Green and probably over Out of Time.

I think it's less about Monster's actual quality and more about its longterm appeal to the audience who bought in with "Losing My Religion" and "Everybody Hurts".

still think Rattle & Hum is a New Jersey, would add it to the list; it had a movie! Doesn't get more event than that.& now they've passed it over in their deluxe edition reissue project as though it doesn't exist

5x platinum btw

Great thread. In terms of UK stuff I feel like Arctic Monkeys - Favourite Worst Nightmare was a sorta-kinda-maybe example of this.

Alright, I'm convinced, re: Adrenalize. It was definitely a consistently purchased, promoted album through 4 top 40 singles, on MTV all the time.

U2 was another one I wrestled with - on one level Rattle & Hum has a lot of New Jersey qualities, but is it really an album-album or one of those continuance albums like Zooropa and the '80s live EPs? They definitely sacrificed their Rattle & Hum personas to survive - passes the "hollow" test - but what about How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb? That managed to go 3x platinum of mega-promotion - just south of All You Can't Leave Behind's 4x plat - despite far weaker singles? And Achtung Baby was no career decline compared to No Line On The Horizon.

Though basically, while I pruned the list to the strongest arguments, if there's a strong argument to be made for a multi-platinum album I think we should throw it on in a poll. So maybe put Adrenalize, Rattle and Atomic on?

as a coda:

New Kids on the Block - Step By Step

3x platinum with two top tens, including one #1 (the title track). The third single "Let's Try It Again," however, stopped at #53. Their next album generated one top fifteen and had one less New Kid (the Old Kid left).

"3x platinum off mega-promotion" i mean xpost

yeah nkotb probably deserves inclusion for managing to get "Tonight" in the top 10.

it's probably a point in Adrenalize's favor that 10-year-old me bought maybe a dozen CDs in 1992 and that was one of them.

I keep forgetting how young some of you are.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTo3N73hpPg

a horseshit Beatles homage second single in the top ten really is more New Jersey than Fairweather Johnson

(and before anyone says anything, Tears For Fears' Seeds Of Love only went single platinum)

not only a Beatles homage BUT a self-reflexive commentary!

Is this based on some statistic or is it just an impression people have? I've been wondering. I can believe that a lot of people might have sold it back, although I still think Monster is a good album, one I'd easily rate over Green and probably over Out of Time.

yeah it's not a hard stat but an impression that was included in any article about Used CD stores for a while. I love Monster, but have to admit there's been a drop in its estimation over the years, esp compared to Automatic.

A couple more contenders with big lead single(s) and no legacy:

Texas - The Hush
The Killers - Day & Age

I was wondering about Coldplay, specifically Viva La Vida, but I think they've probably managed to avoid this fate.

I'd say Sam's Town more than D&A.

Coldplay may count. i was gonna say X&Y is theirs but somehow that's their biggest selling album in the UK!?

Viva La Vida is one of their biggest singles - X&Y sounded like a New Jersey but they survived it handily.

I decided I'd rock New Jersey itself this afternoon, but tbh three songs in and I'm not sure how much more I can take.

Bombast! everywhere. This appears to be an album constructed entirely of moments to be hollered along to in stadiums. Which are mostly fine in isolation, actually, but they haven't been knitted together at all. 'Bad Medicine' is completely deranged - there are about six different choruses here, but no verses and no progression; chanting crowds burst in continually; guitar solos like jet engines; the key changes randomly. It reminds me of those Jive Bunny style megamixes that were popular around the same time.

The effect is like reeling around drunkenly inside an iron maiden.

bad medicine is terrible

Worst Summer job ever was working at the Tilly Balloon Co. (the Monster artwork is one of their balloons).
Spending all day "testing" balloons. Put balloon over spigot... send air into balloon... balloon pops in your face 3x outta 10 (no, you DON'T get used to this).

Was still more fun than listening to "Monster" though.

and we could've had more medicine!

The album was initially meant to be a double album; however, this idea was rejected by the record company because they got nervous about the higher price point and decided they would only release a single album

My theory re: New Jersey is that somewhere along the line they and Fairbairn (he produced, right?) realized Hysteria was turning out huge, went "Oh shit" and mixed the album accordingly.

I am trying to work the Foo Fighters into this theory. By all accounts it should be 'There Is Nothing Left To Lose' but my guess is they got even bigger after that?

Yeah. Hysteria added a wrinkle in the seven-singles-plus formula: the fourth and fifth singles could be the biggest ones.

what about the Chili Peppers' By The Way?

Absolutely

only went 2x platinum

also one could argue RHCP has stayed the same, it's just the Modern Rock Chart that's gotten smaller

pretty hard to find New Jerseys that actually did half of New Jersey's numbers in the 2000s on

I am trying to work the Foo Fighters into this theory. By all accounts it should be 'There Is Nothing Left To Lose' but my guess is they got even bigger after that?

― Matt DC, Thursday, August 9, 2012 9:41 AM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark

almost every FF album has sold more or less the same amount, had more or less the same success with singles, with The Colour & The Shape standing slightly above the others. that kind of workmanlike arc probably is a different matter entirely than too big to fail New Jerseys.

I think Rattle & Hum has to count - as Euler points out, "it had a movie!" It got thrown under the bus later and now seems obviously a minor work, "nothing to see here, practically an EP really" - but it was a huge deal, heavily promoted "event," right? Plus one #3 Hot 100 single, and all four singles peaked pretty high on Mainstream and/or Modern Rock. And in the UK, "Desire" was their first #1! (Pushed there, I think, by momentum from The Joshua Tree - but still.)

Foo Fighters don't have one - "workmanlike arc" is right. Consistent sales, no sense of having a particular BLOCKBUSTER album. I also think they just occupy a weird niche of unfashionable but perennially popular meat-and-potatoes rock that leads people to find them and leave them without necessarily becoming career fans that own all the albums, or at least this was my experience. Hence my assertion on the FF thread that the last good Foo Fighters album is the last one that came out before you were 18 or 19.

yeah as i said, i think Rattle & Hum and Atomic both qualify - feels fitting U2 has two hollow hits to their credit, one pre-sunglasses, one post.

Atomic also won Album Of The Year at the Grammys, to verify its validity here

Like Santana's Supernatural, this album was awarded nine Grammy Awards overall in 2005 and 2006, winning in all of the categories in which it was nominated. It was awarded the Album of the Year award in 2006. "Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own" from the album was awarded "Song of the Year" and "Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal". "City of Blinding Lights" was awarded the award for "Best Rock Song", and the album was also awarded "Best Rock Album". Album producer Steve Lillywhite was also awarded Producer of the Year, Non Classical in 2006. In 2005, the single "Vertigo" from the album won in all three categories in which it was nominated: "Best Rock Song", "Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal", and "Best Short Form Music Video".

I have the misfortune to work for a division which often uses "City of Blinding Lights" as Inspirational Music. U2 as new Vangelis.

Atomic Bomb is so recent though (in my warped perception of time), and I don't really keep up with U2 fans and their discourse - - what's the C.W. on it at this point?

xxpost haha wowwww, okay, yeah, i dunno what the c.w. is but i doubt it measures up to THAT

Best Rock Song two years in a row

Gosh, that was gruelling. It's actually quite intricately put together - there are whole nations' worth of backing vocals - but obviously no subtlety or finesse. It's a bit like attempting the Mona Lisa in marker pen.

Agreed on Rattle and Hum being necessary. Not LEAST for inspiring the Most Legendarily Horrible Piece of Writing On Rock Ever:

http://articles.latimes.com/1988-11-20/entertainment/ca-441_1_rock-band

I read this in fall quarter of freshman year at UCLA, having just moved to Los Angeles for the first time, and immediately learned to mistrust anything Hilburn claimed. This served me well.

...we probably do have to actually poll New Jersey the album at some point, but i don't think i'm ready for that point to arrive. BTW GUESS WHO HAS GODDAMN BAD MEDICINE IN HIS HEAD AGAIN

I'm not sure I'll have space for anything in my head again