BEST/MOST "BON JOVI'S NEW JERSEY" ALBUM EVER

TS: durst vs axl, which guy was a bigger dick and made you happier when their new jersey sent them unknowingly off into the fields of pathetic irrelevance

I mean on personality alone, few things signal "fuck this band" like "Get In The Ring," which aside from making the band look like complete clowns, is also just a boring filler rock track raising the question of why they needed a damned double album.

tbf axl sent himself off to more of a degree

Axl is a genuine bastard, at this point Fred just seems like an extroverted Smiths fan

also Doc there was quite a love-in about "Get In The Ring" as a song on a GNR thread recently, that riff slays imo

in 2003 Fred Durst made videos where he made out with Thora Birch and Halle Berry and America was smart enough to only let it go platinum, while if Axl had brought out some riffs and/or dolphins in the mid-'90s who knows if we would have been strong

tbf Axl DID go platinum with an album of New York Dolls and Charles Manson covers

lol i never realized this but The Spaghetti Incident outsold Chinese Democracy!

The Spaghetti Incident is the only GNR album I own, and it's great.

also Doc there was quite a love-in about "Get In The Ring" as a song on a GNR thread recently, that riff slays imo

― Pollopolicía (some dude), Friday, August 10, 2012 11:26 AM Bookmark

O_o seriously? Seems like the most by-the-numbers workout to me, but I guess I'm not a GNR fan as such.

Is anyone actually going to vote for New Jersey?
― Matt DC, Friday, August 10, 2012 10:18 AM (44 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

of course not. which is really what makes it the ultimate archetype of the form.
― Pollopolicía (some dude), Friday, August 10, 2012 10:18 AM (44 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Sooo OTM.

Best album: UYI or Dangerous. Both records are fascinating in part because they're grotesque - periodic fits of grandstanding, incessant superstar whining about victimization at the hands of the media, portentous intros, fades and overdub-city overproduction. All of which signal egos spinning out of control and production budgets pumped beyond all reason by their industry enablers more audibly than almost any music before or since. And even with all that cash the results are still more workmanlike than their breakthrough predecessors. Yet both albums showcase plenty of Good Art that requires no introduction, previous fanship or goodwill on the part of the listener to be appreciated. All of which is maybe why these records are also two of the most Jersey-esque even if they're almost too good for the category. I voted UYI on the grounds that I still listen to it all the time, though if we're talking "best" Dangerous would probably be the more aesthetically defensible answer. There's too much audible strain on Dangerous for me to really enjoy it as much as I'd like to.

I get what you're saying about Dangerous, but OTOH uh-huh, told you, it ain't to much for me to JAM *breaks glass*

One thing that's funny about Monster is how it sounds very New Jersey, campy hard rock bubblegum with ridiculous conceits like "tongue." But REM's Slippery When Wets had mandolins and stream-of-conscious meditations on death and love. Somehow they managed to make a very normal fade-out after a very bizarre success. They thought "let's remind them we're a rock band"...forgetting that rock bands often have a new jersey by the third big hit album.

djp otm

all I really remember about Monster is that at the time I really loved "Bang and Blame"

worst song by far!

look it has prominent tom work in it, I know my biases and how helpless to them I am

it's always been pretty low in my estimation, too. In the documentary about the Monster tour, the band was really excited about playing it on SNL, though.

haha ok. "i don't sleep i dream" is the better tom tom slow burner though imo.

xpost isn't "dream" the one they played on SNL?

Best: Butterfly. I guess it was the start of her commercial decline, but the consensus (at least amongst fans) is that it's her artistic peak, so I don't really see it as a New Jersey.
Most: BSB

xpost they played those two AND kenneth, a rare gesture from the show at the time. Hosted by Sarah Jessica Parker during the godawful period right before will ferrell's era.

gonna vote use your illusion, because my friend dan had his license early and we drove an hour to mankato to buy it at midnight at musicland

is Butterfly really the consensus favorite for Mariah, or just among fans who got on the bus in the bare midriff era? (xpost)

if Butterfly is the consensus favorite for Mariah, it explains so much of what I find enraging about modern culture

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

michael stipe just begging people to sell their CDs back in this (esp at 4:15)

On second thought, Monster is a more listenable record than either Dangerous or UYI, and also one of the weirdest blockbuster albums ever - it's an "only in 1994" kinda record - but it never felt as monumental, perhaps because the modest-to-a-fault R.E.M. never telegraphed their ambitions or their megalomania the way Axl and MJ did.

i dunno if i'd call the clip above "modest-to-a-fault"

pretty sure it's bono's fault so many '90s rockers thought the way to deal with fame was to "ironically" sashay around like jackass

I totally love about half the songs on Dangerous - track-by-track it's clearly, indisputably stronger than UYI II, my pick of the GNR twofer - but somehow it's even harder to get through from beginning to end. All that broken glass gets wearing after a while.

Taking Sides: ACHTUNG BABY by U2 VS. MONSTER by R.E.M

i feel like Monster's weirdness was very relative, in the context of their career and of the era. taken on its own terms i don't know if it's really so strange or even bad.

xxxp - by "modest to a fault" I mean the image they projected more than the reality. Even though they pointedly went faux-glam with Monster it's not like anybody was bashing cars and turning into a panther or swimming with dolphins in the videos.

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

i think it was omar little that posted back when, as they go from the one Human Clay to the two Weathered hits shit gets ever more surreal

that posted the above clip back when, i mean

Yeah, however it was hyped and however much it disappointed people, Monster was, at worst, a little too darn serious (the gritty black and white of the videos and the booklet). And while it could lose 1-2 songs, it's not bloated by any stretch of the imagination. It just wasn't in REM's nature to do the kind of album that the title Monster and the New Jersey tag would start to suggest. It's certainly the record here that I have the most interest in listening to...

ah shit, you know what we forgot? Poison's Flesh & Blood. "Unskinny Bop" and "Something To Believe In" were totally the poor man's "Nothing But A Good Time" and "Every Rose Has It's Thorn" but they still got 3x platinum and released a DOUBLE LIVE album the year after.

I remembered it when watching Paula Abdul's "Vibeology" VMA performance, which reminding me of when CC couldn't even get through "Unskinny Bop" and just started playing "Talk Dirty To Me"

I'm listening to Monster right now. I think one reason it's not "New Jersey" is that it doesn't in any way presage THE WAY in which R.E.M. dropped out of the commercial megastar zone. Two alternate futures in which it would be more of a New Jersey:

1. R.E.M. makes four more steadily less popular albums which all sound like less-interesting versions of Monster (e.g. four "Accelerate"s.)
2. R.E.M., chastened by relative failure of Monster, makes four more steadily less popular albums which all sound like less-interesting versions of Automatic (I wouldn't say they even recorded one.)

those roads are ironic considering bon jovi took neither

is Butterfly really the consensus favorite for Mariah, or just among fans who got on the bus in the bare midriff era? (xpost)

I guess it's at the crossroads of fans who came on board the bus for Mariah finally going straight up R&B and fans who were still at this point on board who liked her vocal skills (this is when she started to go into whisper territory but could still belt & do her runs). It's at the midpoint where it appeases those who like "old" & "new" Mariah, so gets more broad consensus appreciation in the fanbase. Plus it's her ~personal~ album (dealing w/ her divorce etc.), and the one with her finally getting real artistic & creative control over the output which always codes well for a consensus critical favourite. Plus stuff like "The Roof" & "Breakdown" are hard to argue with.

Really convinced Monster is more of a US-style Be Here Now - aside from early sales gigantism, it lacks "event" status. But once again, I remain most interested in the New Jersey as the inevitable result of the era/ethos that said "try to get every album to be Thriller or Hysteria, spend a year a gazillion dollars in the studio, then unveil the treasures slowly." Albums that peak early on prior momentum and then totally lose the commercial plot, like Monster, are better understood in terms of the general rules of flops and audience-shedding "oops" moments. Not uninteresting, and it's true that it's only in the big-sales CD era could an album with the contents of Monster do 4x platinum - but the story doesn't have the same hooks for me.

those roads are ironic considering bon jovi took neither

― da croupier, Friday, August 10, 2012 3:06 PM Bookmark

they took the lost highway iirc

Albums that peak early on prior momentum and then totally lose the commercial plot

that's not what happened, though. Monster got it's fourth platinum trophy almost a year after it came out. The tour kept it selling.

Wow, damn, didn't realize that.

Sorta gives some lie to the "#1 used CD" story, which kind of implies people buying it, deciding it sucked, and selling it back. You'd think by six months in the word of mouth would be out and people would have stopped buying the thing.

i think it just took a while to happen, Monster being "acceptable in the '90s" and sticking out like a neon orange thumb a couple years later

voted Rattle & Hum as the most New Jersey album. "Angel of Harlem" remains supremely hollow: list a bunch of names & places, "tonight this city belongs to me". Angel, alright.

the Charles Manson opening

also on one of the singles you have

"Love Rescue Me" (Live from London, 16 October 1988; featuring Ziggy Marley and Keith Richards)

hoping they turn it into a reggae theme!

Voted for the only one of these I've ever heard. (Rattle & Hum)

you should hear Dangerous shamon, told you, uh-huh, it will change your life *breaks another glass*

if they had an album that qualified it would be Reload - 4x platinum (only one disc less than load!), remembered if at all for a marianne faithfull hook, "ARE YOU UNFORGIVEN 2???" and GIMME FUEL GIMME FIYAH GIMME THAT WHICH I DESIRE. Followed by St Anger. But it's hard to give the title to an album that already announces itself as Not Quite A True Follow-Up. I chafed at including Rattle & Hum for the same reason, but there was popular demand.

― da croupier, Friday, 27 December 2013 15:19 (4 hours ago) Permalink

If this is how you're thinking about things, you have a strange idea of how most people perceive New Jersey imo. Bad Medicine and I'll Be There For You are still big memorable singable hit songs that make people nostalgic, even if they're not Living On A Prayer or whatever. Nothing on Reload is like that. I think this might be the center of our misunderstanding.

Also Born to Be My Baby

I was a late arrival to REM and listened over and over to Monster, trying to pick up on what was so great about it ... I never got it. It's the most un-rocking rock album ever.

Hurting, part of this might also be to do with 'legacy' - if you weren't there at the time, have you really had much opportunity to *hear* I'll Be There For You, let alone grow fond of it? I know I haven't. New Jerseys are sales monsters that turn out to contribute nothing essential to a band's package or its text, no reason why you should ever even need to know they exist. I remain convinced that the timelines of promotion are essential here - long campaigns, long enough for the market to transform even as the album keeps selling, so that at the end, there's no stations left looking to play the songs. But I've made this case before.

(In this light, in a weird way, Matchbox 20's Yourself or Something Like You is simultaneously Slippery and Jersey: debut juggernaut, most of whose big hit songs are now radio-homeless, and which has no hope of entering the canon through magazine lists or any other thing. I wonder how much of Rob Thomas's income depends on Santana and ''Meet the Robinsons.'')

Hurting the center of our misunderstanding is there are two threads on the subject more than a year old you haven't read.

Too soon to say what late 90s early 00s bands will enjoy a nostalgia boom. Not like hall and Oates and journey reappreciations were always a given.

Xpost for a rock album Monster is ridiculously, presumably somewhat intentionally, stiff.

Its so fucked up, but I am a fan nonetheless.

Hurting, part of this might also be to do with 'legacy' - if you weren't there at the time, have you really had much opportunity to *hear* I'll Be There For You, let alone grow fond of it? I know I haven't. New Jerseys are sales monsters that turn out to contribute nothing essential to a band's package or its text, no reason why you should ever even need to know they exist

I guess because I was there at the time, it's hard for me to conceive of New Jersey as this empty, big at the time but ultimatley forgotten follow-up record, at least not to a degree that contrasts so greatly with some kind of lasting "legacy" left by Slippery When Wet. In fact I'd say the difference in quality between the hits on Slippery and New Jersey is not all that huge. I feel like true Bon Jovi fans, the ones that make it so Bon Jovi DOES still sell out huge venues, probably dig the New Jersey hits very very much, and don't think of them as relics from some lesser follow-up record. And otherwise I think we're largely talking about people who like doing Living on a Prayer at karaoke. I read the other thread. I increasingly think the premise is kind of silly, and has a lot to do with your individually skewed idea of a band based on your temporal relationship to them.

this whole phenomenon being named after New Jersey cracks me up because an old friend of mine used to, invariably, at any mention of Bon Jovi say something New Jersey and how that was such a big classic album and i'd always be like "really? it seems like the really big songs were on Slippery When Wet," without me ever having looked at the sales figures or chart positions to really authoritatively know that. similarly, my dad used to say Tusk was the Fleetwood Mac album that was the giant blockbuster that ruled the charts for ages, which really confused me for a good long while.

the mere suggestion of Metallica's Black Album is ridiculous -- it's the highest selling album of the SoundScan era, nothing else since 1991 has moved as many units. it's practically Thriller.

It does have several enduring songs, which I guess disqualifies it, but at the same time it felt/feels like the record that signaled their descent into becoming pointless short-haired alt rockers. I guess Load is the better choice for them. I don't think the premise is silly, but I actually think some of these are much better New Jerseys than New Jersey is.

none of these are exact. for instance, there was an instant (early internet) negative reaction to Load from Metallica fans that NJ did not endure from Bon Jovi fans.

The Black Album was more of an It Was Written where an artist tweaks their style and achieves huge success while simultaneously alienating some of their old fans.

On that other thread we went from the initial "EVERY multi-platinum artist has their own New Jersey" to this nit-picky narrow definition.

I've listened to most of'em and ranked'em. What can ya do. I had time to kill.

dammmmmmmn

ranking feels pretty plausible to me, tho i fear i lack the stick-to-it-iveness to actually repeat the experiment. bravo.

Noice. Glad to see that I'm not the only one using his period of self-isolation to trudge through musical mud (currently working my way through an array of previously-unheard pop albums from 1990).

True Colors is maybe the most truly disappointing of that lot. Such a sadly-massive decline.

oooh which 1990 pop albums?

I should check out the Bone Thugs-N-Harmony album.

I bumped yr thread from a few weeks back to address that very question!