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

i bet tico torres is sitting on a bigger nest egg than ocasek

Wait, he's worth $125 million and that's also how much he made last year? Must have been a real relief when that check came in...

some more possibilties. Not swearing any deserve to match the 25 but throwing them out for consideration.

Mariah Carey, Heartbreaker (3x platinum, 2 #1 hits - "Heartbreaker" and "Thank God I Found You". Follow-ups would fail to go multi-platinum until Emancipation of Mimi)

Celine Dion, Let's Talk About Love (10x platinum, but notably no hot 100 chart action aside from THE SONG, where the previous English-language album, Falling Into You, had three top 5 hits. The next english-language full length, A New Day has Come would only go 3x platinum and the biggest song would hit #22. Though she did have two top ten hits in between albums, the R. Kelly duet and a greatest hits track)

Whitney Houston, My Love Is Your Love (4x platinum, 3 top 5 hits and top 20 duet with Mariah. Follow-up only went platinum. I wasn't listening to pop radio much when this came out, so this might be a Bad and I just don't realize the songs are jams radios still rock today.)

Eagles, The Long Run (7x platinum #1 album, 3 top 10 hits including a #1. While the Eagles reunions would be huge, Don and Glenn's solo debuts would only go gold and it's sort of thin compared to Hotel California.)

Rod Stewart, Blondes Have More Fun (3x platinum #1 album, and his last chart-topper until the Songbook and his last multi-platinum until Out Of Order almost a decade later. Admittedly not that much more hollow than the previous album, Foot Loose & Fancy Free)

also notable re: Blondes is that Foot Loose & Fancy Free only went 2x platinum but has two songs that still get play, "Hot Legs" and "You're In My Heart" while Blondes only has 'D'ya Think I'm Sexy?')

Eagles might be worthy - I don't recognize either of the singles that aren't the title track, but apparently they were big hits?

Wait, he's worth $125 million and that's also how much he made last year? Must have been a real relief when that check came in...

haha

Yeah I agree with taking out No Need To Argue - I think that's when a large part of the group's fanbase discovered them. I feel like one important quality of a New Jersey is the sense of market saturation, where the album (initially) soaks up everyone already on-board but isn't by itself interesting or different enough to open up a new audience.

I keep thinking The Long Run will be the album to destroy my Eagles odium.

Blondes Have More Fun is a good one.

xpost Maybe it will.... in the extended sweep of time.

I could be wrong, but 'My Love is Your Love,' after the slightly under-performing pop hits of "Waiting to Exhale" and "Preacher's Wife," felt more like a comeback than anything to me.

Celine seems pretty otm. Something about huge crossover hits not feeling as guaranteed seems Jersey-esque. Or maybe post-Jersey-esque.

The Preacher's Wife soundtrack is where Whitney sounded hollow.

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?

― Doctor Casino

U2 still plays a few of these cuts in concert, i mean 'vertigo' and 'city of blinding lights' are huge w/the fans and live they're certainly "impressive" but not especially thrilling. for whatever reason the last album is regarded as the more disappointing one. real headz know that horizon >>>> atomic bomb though.

Whereas ILX's No Line on the Horizon is its Slippery When Wet.

'City Of Blinding Lights' is the shit imo

i'm sure bon jovi still plays at least two tracks from new jersey in live shows too, and that's almost twenty years older. but new jersey is no slippery when wet and atomic bomb is no all you can leave behind.

COBL is pretty good but my favorite U2 cut from their last three is still 'breathe', which actually opened their rose bowl show.

I preferred How to Dismantle's mix of trash and goop to ATYCLB but not so's I'd play either one now and confirm my feelings.

so not to double way back but I'm listening to "I Go To Extremes" right now and I'm still convinced Storm Front is more New Jersey-ish than River of Dreams, which had only one hit to speak of, although oddly it appears it sold more. Storm Front was attached to a big-deal tour, major videos, and, I think crucially, from Joel's perspective it probably looked like his smash star career was chugging along just fine - - no reason to assume that these songs wouldn't be radio staples for decades in the way that all his past hits had been. And yet, it's vanished out from under him, a frustration anticipated by the single jacket:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/df/IGoToExtremes.jpg

Don't worry Billy! The fans will stand by "The Downeaster 'Alexa'"!

otm

COBL is pretty good but my favorite U2 cut from their last three is still 'breathe', which actually opened their rose bowl show.

― omar little, Thursday, August 9, 2012 5:11 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark

yah that was my fav from the last one too.

the '90 Billy Joel show as the first concert I ever paid to watch, and I wasn't much of a fan! It was A Big Deal at the time: seven sold out nights at the Miami Arena.

Really, though, Joel's Greatest Hits Volume III is just depressing - without realizing it, they cut off the I & II series right as his creative instincts were about to go off a cliff. It's cleverly propped up by some Innocent Man material, but it's a real slew of "what?"s and "never heard of"s for me.

is "The Downeaster 'Alexa'" a real song or just a nickname for a fart?

oh wait

b-b-but the fans did stand by downeaster alexa! not to mention "and so it goes"!

seriously, storm front has way more deep cuts that get play than either the albums before and after

The Downwinder 'Alexa'

i don't get the "vanished out from under him" narrative at all, especially compared to The Bridge

I loathe The Bridge for "This is the Time," the worst prom/retreat song ever.

maybe when we poll these albums the thread title should be THESE ARE THE DAYS TO HOLD ON TO

storm front is definitely a big ol' arena move, but it actually succeeded on that front, doing better than the last album and giving him more long-surviving cuts. River Of Dreams sold even more (which really subverts the idea that Storm Front signaled any career decline) but wound up being thinner and the end of the road.

I guess we must just have different FM playlists in our neighborhoods, seriously - - I've grown up hearing the Stranger through Innocent Man stuff everywhere and almost nothing else (except "Piano Man" o'course).

I'll give you The Bridge, no idea about anything on there. I was really thinking about it versus River of Dreams.

Maybe Joel just doesn't have one of these, having short-circuited the narrative by sort of bailing on the whole "making pop albums" thing. Getting out while the getting's good, I'd say.

not even "A Matter of Trust"? That still gets a shit ton of play, at least here.

when I saw U2 they played "Elevation".......twice.....

i just remembered that. why did they do that?

i was kind of drunk and i don't go to many arena shows so i was kind of in that great 3 stadium glass bud light zone of everything seeming kind of magical...man their stage lights were cool as hell. so i guess i didn't really question it was just like "oh yeah elevation again" why not?

ha -- Paul Simon performed "You Can Call Me Al" twice when I saw him in '91.

re: "Matter of Trust," just put it on to check it out - - - can't say as I've ever heard this before, ever. Kind of striking though. Not what I imagined The Bridge sounding like at all.

river of dreams is staying unless someone can actually contradict that it was a big album that ultimately was a bit hollow and signaled a career decline.

the reasoning again: (5x platinum #1 album with 2 top 20 hits, including the #3 title track. Billy's previous album, Storm Front, had 2 top 10 hits including a #1, but only went 4x platinum. However, "We Didn't Start The Fire" is a notch above "River" on Spotify, "The Downeaster Alexa" several notches above "Lullaby - Goodnight Angel" and about half of Storm Front passes before we see "All About Soul". His only follow-up has been a classical album.)

also storm front has "shameless" - a big hit for Garth Brooks, and "and so it goes" was covered on an American Idol top 3 episode.

Guess my thinking is just that River of Dreams sold really well without being an "event" album - the #3 title track is the only impact it made on the wider culture, despite the high sales for the album itself, which feels like some kind of incipient Adult Contemporary buying pattern or something - - - selling a buttload of copies of something to people who aren't really watching MTV or following the unfolding of "events" even if they were being staged. I feel like NJ's really need that sense of one single after another being spun off to at least passable acclaim, keeping the album in the headlines and on TV for at least a year and more like two. Am I way off?

do we have a thread about acts doing the same song multiple times in the same concert? Jay-Z and Kanye doing "Gwyneth Paltrow In Paris" 8 times in a row or whatever was just appalling.

I feel like NJ's really need that sense of one single after another being spun off to at least passable acclaim, keeping the album in the headlines and on TV for at least a year and more like two. Am I way off?

we have to prune a good bit of shit on the list for this standard, starting with Black & Blue. The broader idea is that the album was undeniably successful - some prove it by huuuge numbers, others by multiple hits.

Celine Dion, Let's Talk About Love is totally a New Jersey. (x-post)

The broader idea is that the album was undeniably successful - some prove it by huuuge numbers, others by multiple hits.

^^^ okay - - - I buy this.

Celine Dion, Let's Talk About Love is totally a New Jersey. (x-post)

― LeRooLeRoo, Thursday, August 9, 2012 5:51 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark

the funny thing about the 33 1/3 book is that after he basically admits that it's "about" that album merely because of the Titanic song he starts to realize, that isn't even her really big album aside from that song

lol it's definitely going in, then.

will admit that I think albums with multiple hit singles are more apt to win Best New Jersey - it's a more impressive feat, suggests more active fans of your filler

so i think i'm gonna add four of the five i brought up - whitney gets a save because it seems like are pretty happy with that album, a genuine triumph rather than riding on fumes.

Garth Brooks, Sevens (10x platinum)
Celine Dion, Let's Talk About Love (10x platinum)
Backstreet Boys, Black & Blue (8x platinum)
Bon Jovi, New Jersey (7x platinum)
Eagles, The Long Run (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)
Mariah Carey, Heartbreaker (3x platinum)
Huey Lewis, Fore! (3x platinum)
Foreigner, Agent Provocateur (3x platinum)
Rod Stewart, Blondes Have More Fun (3x platinum)
New Kids On The Block, Step By Step (3x platinum)

that's 29 - would like to make it a solid 30 before posting a poll tomorrow.

ha if we can't think of anything i'll add Jewel

will seriously go back through the thread and my collection in a little bit, take another stab