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

shame cmj doesn't have a working archive

haha, life pursuit is like the only belle and sebastian album i listen to, maybe i should give new jersey another chance

Bush's Razorblade Suitcase

Lol, yeah, I still don't think making an analogy to the relative legacies of Bon Jovi albums works so great for cult artists.

"Man, at the 80s prom in my heart, 'Lycanthrope' was totally Thinking Plague's 'Livin' on a Prayer' and 'Love' was their 'Never Say Goodbye'. So disappointing to see them slip into New Jersey territory with In Extremis. I don't see anyone transcribing 'This Weird Wind' 14 years later, eh?"

Don't know if it's at 3x platinum, but if so, Counting Crows' "Recovering the Satellites" seems to fit the NJ bill. I just looked at the singles, and besides A Long December (a song I actually like), the others I couldn't hum even if you threatened to make me hang out with Adam Duritz for a week.

Wow, that was a lot of activity in a couple days. Was The Cult's Sonic Temple a huge event album?

That's going to be weird because I could see long time fans thinking of it as a new jersey but for alot of us kids it was the first time they'd heard them as is probably their biggest seller

Whether kid or long-time fan I think we can all agree that it's the ultimate in 'you are beyond irony' album covers:

http://www.simplysyndicated.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/sonictemple.jpg

http://www.minilps.net/images/stories/shop_image/product/SONICTEMPBAC.jpg

Haven't listened to this in about 20 years. "Edie (Ciao Baby)" still holds up.

I'm really trying to puzzle out what the Cult's Slippery When Wet would be if this was their New Jersey btw.

Whoa, the Tea Party's "Kashmir" rips actually sound more like "Soul Asylum" (the "Kashmir" rip on Sonic Temple, not the band) than "Kashmir" itself.

Coming straight to this thread from a politics thread, I went "Tea Party".... Kashmir riffs...? and was already constructing a world where this was about some link i didn't see to like, a Conservapedia project to create Tea Party friendly covers of classic rock tunes.

lol

I'm sure it exists.

Unliberal (Kidz) Bop

The Cult's is Electric, surely? Love was the big crossover that drew them to public attention, and that's the big-selling follow-up - although it would be easy to assert (as I have before) that pretty much every record gets worse since the outset and Love is the start of the plummet into mediocrity.

Yeah, I'm just very unconvinced by the idea that Electric is the album that everyone still loves whereas Sonic Temple is the album that everyone bought but can't remember why.

Pretty sure "Love Removal Machine" is the only song I ever hear from Electric. (Mostly just hear "Firewoman" from Sonic Temple, "Edie" once in a blue moon.)

adrenalize was probably the most disappointing album of my youth, it's like the ghostbusters 2 of pop metal.

― omar little, Friday, August 3, 2012 1:19 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Every huge artist has their "Ghostbusters 2" - a huge event followup that immediately feels a lot hollow & signals a river of pink slime

Speakerboxx/love below

while personally i shake my fist at the idea either album is hollow and almost wonder if it's becoming underrated (still prefer it to stankonia on the whole), i'll admit for a dense double album it wound up low on hits and def signaled that "outkast" had peaked.

I was looking through the CDs at the public library today, and nearly every one we mentioned here was there. Almost checked out "Storm Front"

Sb/lb should have totally been on the list! D40 otm....oops

SB/LB is mainly just weird because it was a double album that "felt" like a single album IMO - - - two HUGE hits and one moderate one, that is not bad performance at all in the grand scheme of things. Plus the single would be less intimidating to casual fans; I think it'd be really really highly regarded if it'd been carved down.

The group was maybe also pretty overexposed at that point, having followed Stankonia's success up with the hits compilation and "The Whole World" - they sort of hadn't been off the radio at any point since "Rosa Parks," y'know?

tbf that's pretty fucking New Jersey

Stakonia for me was the hollow record

...yeah, now that you mention it. Yeah, it probably counts. Definitely fits in the "not immediately perceived hollowness is harbinger of career decline" - - never would have guessed when "Hey Ya!" dropped that their next album would be basically forgotten by history.

no one mentioned it during the 3 days before the poll went up so my conscience is clear, oddly enough i might have voted for it.

also i love that album so it would never have made my "what was THAT bout?" radar indepedently

Stakonia for me was the hollow record

― Listen to this, dad (President Keyes), Saturday, August 11, 2012 6:44 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that record was their biggest crossover yet. a lot of fans didnt like it as much as the two previous (i prefer aquemini) but stankonia was definitely a breaching-the-mainstream moment for them so hollow or not (i dont think it is but w/e) it's still not an NJ imo

oh yeah, SL/LB is a better NJ. Crazy how much of a big deal people thought it was at the time, and how quickly it was turned on.

SB/LB obv

A couple years ago I saw The Cult play Love in its entirety, and I was thinking I'd rather have heard Electric. And sure enough when they played a couple songs in the end, people really responded. It was the album that really broke in the U.S. Yeah it's an AC/DC tribute album curated by Rubin, but it's great! Just as cheesy as Love's Zeppelin worship, but without the gothy pretension! They played a few from the subsequent albums, and I got bored and left.

Singles from the three albums seems to do about equally well on iTunes, with "Fire Woman" from Sonic Temple at #1: http://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/the-cult/id150548

Microserfs was totally my favourite Coupland book when I was in high school but it's also the lightest and most conventional in narrative. I'm not sure if I'd prefer it to Generation X if I read them now.

what about jay-z's? blueprint 2, black album and kingdom come all feel like they count for a variety of reasons

― max, Tuesday, August 7, 2012 3:22 PM (5 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

No Code was too big a dropoff in sales (and Vitalogy doesn't count because its hits had staying power), so i don't think Pearl Jam has one.

if Jay-Z has one it's Kingdom Come or American Gangster, but post-retirement thing makes that fit weird

― some dude, Tuesday, August 7, 2012 3:25 PM (5 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

everything that came after the blueprint is one epic new jersey

Van Jaygar, IMO

what about jay-z's? blueprint 2, black album and kingdom come all feel like they count for a variety of reasons

― max, Tuesday, August 7, 2012 3:22 PM (5 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

No Code was too big a dropoff in sales (and Vitalogy doesn't count because its hits had staying power), so i don't think Pearl Jam has one.

if Jay-Z has one it's Kingdom Come or American Gangster, but post-retirement thing makes that fit weird

― some dude, Tuesday, August 7, 2012 3:25 PM (5 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

everything that came after the blueprint is one epic new jersey

― protected by viper. stand back. (D-40), Sunday, August 12, 2012 9:16 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

does anyone else notice this thing where they have friends who are jay-z friends that aren't huge hip hop fans for whom the blueprint is basically the FIRST jay-z album that "counts" -- and was usually purchased after they got into jay via the black album?

as someone who considers The Black Album the end, it's always pretty depressing to encounter people who consider it the beginning. tbh i'm ok with Jay being a non-head's token fav rapper more than almost any other rapper, i just wish they knew more of his first 5 albums.

Black Album doesn't really count because at the time it was ostensibly a swansong (lol). Blueprint 2 works though.

Not sure the commercial decline ever really happened there though.

yeah Jay is too much in the "every album is an event" category to really be a factor in a serious New Jersey discussion

you can build "new jersey" narratives for vol. 3, blueprint and the black album, but honestly the guy's done fine for his era and yeah the "every album is an event" thing stands too.

"Every album is an event" may also, in this case mean "still really successful and just wait til the REAL New Jersey comes out"

no, Jay is in the Stones/Springsteen zone, every album will be an event until he stops making them, and if it was possible for him to make an album so bad/unappealing that people stopped paying attention there are a couple that would've done the trick by now.

i think kingdom come pointed down a "who cares" road but he righted himself with a gangster narrative (for the critics) and arena rap (for the Black Album fans)

And a baby (for the ladies)

and an event album (for Kanye fans who care more about eventfulness than anything else)