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

I liked "D'ya Know What I Mean" a lot more than any other Oasis song I'd heard up to that point, although still not enough to actually consider purchasing the album

Maybe there's another thread in the "This is great, but now it's done" vein, where the band/artist achieve the close.

Spirit only had one hit, which is a little Fairweather Johnson.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEM78ElGthI

The intro sounds like ZZ Top attempting "Rockit."

Vox gave BHN a 9 as well

I would go for either the live album or Street Fighting Years over OUAT; if only for the fact that for millions the latter was their first SM album

Stones - It's Only Rock and Roll? I can see Black and Blue but this could fit.

i love that video so much - in the drive to top the Eliminator videos, ZZ Top now have the ability to make tents out of thin air.

3x platinum cut-off, people. 3x platinum.

as mentioned upthread, all Stones albums are Events. Plus, their two biggest sellers came out after IOR&R.

The level of hubris around Oasis was so great in 1997 that everyone who reviewed it convinced themselves it was a classic and then got very embarrassed when they'd calmed down a bit.
Yeah this is basically my memory of it. I feel like the realisation of crapness set in a bit more quickly for BHN than for some of the other albums we've been discussing, but again this is just a vauge memory (might check if the BHN wiki has a 'reception' section to give some clarity).

Although initial reviews were positive, retrospectively the album is viewed by much of the music press, the public, and by most members of the band as over-indulgent and bloated.[1] In 2007, Q magazine, having given the album a five-star rave review on its release, described the fact that Be Here Now is often thought of as "a disastrous, overblown folly—the moment when Oasis, their judgement clouded by drugs and blanket adulation, ran aground on their own sky-high self-belief."[2] The album's producer Owen Morris said of the recording sessions: "The only reason anyone was there was the money. Noel had decided Liam was a shit singer. Liam had decided he hated Noel's songs [...] Massive amounts of drugs. Big fights. Bad vibes. Shit recordings."[2]

John Mellencamp - Scarecrow

Spirit only had one hit, which is a little Fairweather Johnson.

Still it went 4X Platinum in America. (And 2X Platinum in Australia)

nah Scarecrow is beloved 'round here, and The Lonesome Jubilee is widely thought his best.

Spirit only had one hit, which is a little Fairweather Johnson.

Still it went 4X Platinum in America. (And 2X Platinum in Australia)

And fairweather went 3x platinum. It's a slippery slope, and I'll include it you plan to say its her best and vote for it.

If people didn't like Lonesome Jubilee it would be his New Jersey, but yeah instead I think Coog is a "Secret Life Of Plants" guy thanks to Big Daddy.

there were at least 2 videos off the Jewel album that i saw a lot of. i think video channels towing the line even when radio shrugs is kind of a hallmark of these albums.

Reviews of Be Here Now explained:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_0CrEkeCBSUc/SXyb15grIBI/AAAAAAAAD4I/cu0M3udLLB8/s400/b5f4224128a0ea161e093010._AA240_.L.jpg

How about Tattoo You?

their two biggest sellers came out after IOR&R

For real?! Some Girls and Tattoo You?

Its hodgepodge nature aside, does anybody really think it's hollow?

there were at least 2 videos off the Jewel album that i saw a lot of.

and fairweather had two top 40 hits. if you guys really want to vote for jewel as Best New Jersey i'll add it, but it really does blur the line. it's a 4x platinum album after a diamond release, with only one big hit.

johnson! we've got johnson here!

For real?! Some Girls and Tattoo You?

Check the sales. SG is 7 million.

ways you can escape the new jersey:

EVERY ALBUM IS AN EVENT, BITCHES. PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE SOUNDSCAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN. (i.e. Stones, Michael Jackson)

"I'm going to tone it down a little here so don't feel like you have to buy this....what's that? I only go single platinum if that now? Ah, well. Let's go tour." (i.e. Bruce, Coug, Sting)

if my judgment of the past is unreliable, pardon my cracked rearview

does anyone have an issue with Around The World In A Day making the list? If your name rhymes with Shman Shmerry, just consider it an easy pick to vote for.

*sits in corner, sadly contemplating the girl on the seesaw*

it is the kind of album you find in a second-hand store

yeah it's really the fact that it's sold more than any of the albums since, whether critical beasts with #1 hits or Batman soundtracks, despite being considered one of his weakest efforts (if still arguably godly depending on your pov) that really makes it stand out.

NJ sales wise is at least in the same ballpark as Slippery; ATWIAD isn't at all compared to Purple Rain

Diamonds has sold more

sales figures being used are US-centric

yeah i'm seeing around the world in a day at 3x platinum, diamonds at 2x platinum in US sales

Is there a 'Secret Life of Plants'-style release thread? Insane left-turns are fun!

rejoice, prince lovers!

So I checked the RIAA site myself and couldn't find a 3x platinum trophy for the album. I googled and billboard also claims that the album only went double-platinum. So it looks like someone typo'd on wikipedia and Around The World In A Day is not eligible.

though someone should definitely do a poll of the prince albums that have hit double platinum (1999 and purple rain are the only to go further)

"Around the World in a Day" (1985), 2-times Platinum
"Diamonds and Pearls" (1991), 2-times Platinum
"Emancipation" (1996), 2-times Platinum
"Batman (soundtrack)" (1989), 2-times Platinum
"Musicology" (2004), 2-times Platinum

notable one of those is a 3CD and another was given away with concert tickets

and Batman was helped by the movie and Around the World by Purple Rain.

Diamonds as the only one to get there under its own steam?

more like under its own...cream

it's kind of amazing considering the man managed at least one top ten hit every year from 1983-1994

oh wait no 1993, but still

N.B. - people fuck with certification info on artists' Wikipedia pages all the time, usually inflating certs by 1 to 2 million. I'm kind of a geek about this stuff, so I'd advise anyone citing these numbers to check the RIAA database instead: http://riaa.com/goldandplatinumdata.php?content_selector=gold-platinum-searchable-database

Just for instance, ATWIAD is 2x Platinum (tying it with D&P and Batman), Some Girls is 6x Platinum, Encore is 4x Platinum (though if you check Soundscan, which measures actual sales rather than shipments minus returns, it has indeed sold over 5 million copies in the U.S.).

See I was beaten to the punch on Prince, but my point stands.

didn't "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World" peak in early '94?

cool, i'll go through the lot xpost re RIAA

Prince's Cream Steam.

Said elsewhere but the whole 1985-1988 album decline* thing is bizarre, like Purple Rain never happened

Obviously not in terms of quality..

xp - "Most Beautiful Girl" hit in early '94, yeah, but due probably to his dispute with Warner Bros. the Gold Experience didn't come out until a year and a half later, far too late to capitalize on the single's momentum. Emancipation was a 3 disc set, so its cert is artificially inflated by its bulk - it actually Soundscanned less than 700k copies, a considerable disappointment given that it was designed as his post-WB comeback record.

So here's the updated list. Only thing that had to be changed was Encore going from 5x plat to 4x.

Garth Brooks, Sevens (10x platinum)
Backstreet Boys, Black & Blue (8x platinum)
Bon Jovi, New Jersey (7x platinum)
Guns'n'Roses, Use Your Illusion I & II (7x platinum each)
Limp Bizkit, Chocolate Starfish & The Hot Dog Flavored Water (6x platinum)
Journey, Frontiers (6x platinum)
ZZ Top, Afterburner (5x platinum)
50 Cent, The Massacre (5x platinum)
U2, Rattle & Hum (5x platinum)
Billy Joel, River Of Dreams (5x platinum)
Bob Seger, Against The Wind (5x platinum)
R.E.M., Monster (4x platinum)
Eminem, Encore (4x platinum)
Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, The Art Of War (4x platinum)
Boston, Third Stage (4x platinum)
Genesis, We Can't Dance (4x platinum)
AC/DC, For Those About To Rock We Salute You (4x platinum)
Lionel Richie, Dancing On The Ceiling (4x platinum)
Spice Girls, Spiceworld (4x platinum)
U2, How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb (3x platinum)
Paula Abdul, Spellbound (3x platinum)
Def Leppard, Adrenalize (3x platinum)
Huey Lewis, Fore! (3x platinum)
Foreigner, Agent Provocateur (3x platinum)
New Kids On The Block, Step By Step (3x platinum)

xp - I still don't understand how "Sign O' The Times" could spin off 3 top 10 singles but stall at platinum.

maybe people saw a "room full of psychedelic crap" cover and a 2LP price and said FOOL ME ONCE, PRINCE. FOOL ME ONCE.

kind of a shame that the album that inspired this whole convo gets excluded by the sales barometer, Born This Way definitely fits the archetype aside from arriving well after triple platinum became almost as rare as diamond used to be.

Probably for the best - it also inspired a lot of disagreement about whether it actually had that role in her narrative or not! I'd concede, now, that it's way too soon to say with any confidence what the real impact will be.