A Neil possibility: Mirror Ball
― da croupier, Monday, 13 August 2012 23:30 (eleven years ago) link
dylan himself said that he made nashville skyline to make ppl not like him anymore, same w/self-portrait
plus nashville skyline has the whole weird voice thing, and I hold that new jerseys can't be stylistic shifts
desire is definitely a new jersey of blood on the tracks, but then again that era spit hot lava all over the motherfuckin' track on the rolling thunder review
i don't think dylan really has one tbh
same w/neil
― Jandek at the Disco (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, 13 August 2012 23:32 (eleven years ago) link
Self-Portrait is merely his first misstep, which every artist gets and lots of fans forgave him for. The two followups were modest gestures and warm-ups for The Next Statement.
― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 13 August 2012 23:32 (eleven years ago) link
yeah i mean anything under 3x platinum is not really a new jersey, it's just fun to yammer about where the greats got close
― da croupier, Monday, 13 August 2012 23:33 (eleven years ago) link
re Neil: an artist can have a couple New Jerseys!
― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 13 August 2012 23:33 (eleven years ago) link
i guess a new jersey for a career/cult artist would be the album that signified the end of their glory period (or a glory period), only it was sold and basically accepted as an ongoing part of the glory period initially.
― da croupier, Monday, 13 August 2012 23:36 (eleven years ago) link
obviously none of these are as fun as a REAL new jersey, which involves hoodwinking more than like a half million nerds
― da croupier, Monday, 13 August 2012 23:37 (eleven years ago) link
we probably need a different label for a critical or cult version of a New Jersey so we don't keep having these 3x platinum reminders.
― Listen to this, dad (President Keyes), Monday, 13 August 2012 23:38 (eleven years ago) link
xxpost
Under the Bushes, Under the Stars?
― Jandek at the Disco (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, 13 August 2012 23:38 (eleven years ago) link
yeah i'm trying to think of a blatantly obvious album that was accepted at glorious that the air has dropped out of - I'm thinking Little Creatures but I bet some people will get sandy vadge about that
― da croupier, Monday, 13 August 2012 23:40 (eleven years ago) link
some people still love that but it was the #1 album in pazz'n'jop and pretty uniformly it's looked at as their weakest album to that point now.
The more culty the act, the harder this gets because you have less and less of a consensus about where they fell off (or if they did so at all).
― Doctor Casino, Monday, 13 August 2012 23:43 (eleven years ago) link
totally
― da croupier, Monday, 13 August 2012 23:43 (eleven years ago) link
...although i guess this thread is proof that the 3x platinum smashes are not necessarily reservoirs of consensus...
― Doctor Casino, Monday, 13 August 2012 23:45 (eleven years ago) link
yeah it's just harder to contradict "that's not how it felt under my rock" belly-achers with STATS
― da croupier, Monday, 13 August 2012 23:47 (eleven years ago) link
True Storires is a better candidate if we drop the 3x platinum.
― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 13 August 2012 23:48 (eleven years ago) link
it does have the "it had a movie!" card and their least critically respected top 40 hit, even the critics had already lept back a bit.
― da croupier, Monday, 13 August 2012 23:50 (eleven years ago) link
How can any artist with multiple generations of fans making their albums hits count as having a New Jersey? Isn't one of the reasons New Jersey is the benchmark for this kind of thing because it represented a perceived fleeting high water mark of cultural relevance that would never be approached again? Or at least the album that signified that the artist was a one era touchstone? Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Neil Young,... all these guys had culturally relevant big sellers long after their initial splash. Isn't half the point that Bon Jovi never again had cultural relevance after New Jersey. Now I'm young-ish, but my impression of all these classic rock dudes is that they fell off for a bit and had a big splash album later, so... that kind of disqualifies them from having a New Jersey at all.
Also, is the fact that Bon Jovi lost all cultural relevance post New Jersey (or is post Nevermind?) central to a New Jersey? Because Talking Heads never really lost that cultural relevance in the same way. Unless there are a bunch of kids out there listening to top 40 hair metal from the 80s and I'm not aware of it...
I like this idea of Pinkertons though... but other than maybe VU & Nico I can't think of anything that would match that trajectory.
― brontosaur, Tuesday, 14 August 2012 00:03 (eleven years ago) link
Because Talking Heads never really lost that cultural relevance in the same way.
Not in the same way but they sure did. The nineties were hard for a Heads fan. Chris Frantz was moaning in '99 that the band sold few records in catalog and the band left no heirs.
Things changed in 2002, of course.
― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 14 August 2012 00:04 (eleven years ago) link
Yeah but... 2002 DID happen. Bon Jovi never got a similar chance and I don't see it happening. Also, growing up in the 90s I KNEW Bon Jovi wasn't cool, but somehow Talking Heads seemed cool. And I never owned a Talking Heads album back then, but my first CD was Slippery When Wet (my friend had New Jersey on cassette).
― brontosaur, Tuesday, 14 August 2012 00:22 (eleven years ago) link
― da croupier, Monday, August 13, 2012 7:40 PM (54 minutes ago) Bookmark
sand in the vadge: popular favorites
― Pollopolicía (some dude), Tuesday, 14 August 2012 00:36 (eleven years ago) link
Kate Bush The Dreaming? i mean it was her biggest charting album up to that point.
― piscesx, Tuesday, 14 August 2012 00:53 (eleven years ago) link
it didn't sell well, it's an excellent record, and the followup was huge
― on a scale of 1 to Rhonda how hot are you today? (electricsound), Tuesday, 14 August 2012 00:57 (eleven years ago) link
a huge event album that felt hollow?
― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 14 August 2012 00:57 (eleven years ago) link
Talking Heads had a very brief 5 year window of not being cool in the '90s that affirmed their timeless hipness that coincided with Bill Murray experiencing same
― Pollopolicía (some dude), Tuesday, 14 August 2012 00:57 (eleven years ago) link
sensual world would be my kate pick
― on a scale of 1 to Rhonda how hot are you today? (electricsound), Tuesday, 14 August 2012 00:59 (eleven years ago) link
lol you guys are reaching
― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 14 August 2012 00:59 (eleven years ago) link
The Dreaming, Hounds of Love, and The Sensual World each has substantial cachet.
― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 14 August 2012 01:00 (eleven years ago) link
In a sense Bush was pretty smart to wait a long ass time to make an album after Red Shoes (Her highest charting album in the US)
― da croupier, Tuesday, 14 August 2012 01:01 (eleven years ago) link
a well timed hiatus is basically the best career move in music, as far as engendering goodwill
― Pollopolicía (some dude), Tuesday, 14 August 2012 01:13 (eleven years ago) link
i was thinking maybe DMX had a New Jersey, but the last of his three triple platinum albums, And Then There Was X, was also the biggest and had some of his most enduring hits. pretty big drop from that two The Great Depression's single platinum, though.
― Pollopolicía (some dude), Tuesday, 14 August 2012 01:29 (eleven years ago) link
two=to
skimming through the history of #1 albums in the US and here are some potentials we arguably missed.
Styx - Paradise Theater. 3x platinum. Only #1 album, had two top ten hits and neither are "come sail away" or "babe". next, Kilroy Was here (mentioned earlier in the thread), had hits but only went platinum. someone in their 40s can enlighten because i was told these guys were worse than wings and never had reason to believe otherwise.
Cypress Hill - Black Sunday. 3x platinum, with debut only going 2x platinum. Yes "insane in the brain" but imo barely a patch on the debut and def sign
Wu-Tang Clan - Wu Tang Forever - granted, a 2cd going 4x platinum means they actually shipped around half that, but still.
Korn - Issues. Last multiplatinum, and had two top ten alternative radio hits where Follow had only one. I sure don't recall "Falling Away From Me" and "Make Me Bad" as fondly as I do "Freak On A Leash" and "Got The Life" but maybe someone 4 years younger than me can school this.
Two factoids about not-quite-new-jersiers I discovered during this sift.1) Did you know BOTH big All-4-One songs were covers of songs originally done by John Michael Montgomery?2) Kenny G's first christmas album from 1994 (8x platinum) is named Miracles: The Holiday Album. His second, from 1999 (3x platinum) is named Faith: A Holiday Album.
― da croupier, Tuesday, 14 August 2012 03:15 (eleven years ago) link
Wow, Issues, I think I always thought "Falling Away From Me" was from the same album as "Freak On A Leash" - it was just all part of the lotta-Korn-on-the-radio wave. That seems New Jersey-ish.
Wu-Tang Forever probably counts although its fans love it, a lot. But event-wise, it was more the centerpiece of the suddenly gigantic Wu empire than the album itself, y'know? It's the Avengers movie, not Iron Man 3 or Thor 2 or whatever.
hahahaha re: Kenny G
― Doctor Casino, Tuesday, 14 August 2012 03:28 (eleven years ago) link
one thing i will give Korn is that they haven't let commercial decline slow them down one bit. that dubstep album last year was their sixth studio album since Issues, no major label rock band churns 'em out like them.
― Pollopolicía (some dude), Tuesday, 14 August 2012 03:57 (eleven years ago) link
someone in their 40s can enlighten because i was told these guys were worse than wings and never had reason to believe otherwise.
Understatement.
― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 14 August 2012 04:03 (eleven years ago) link
wu is hard though because i consider all of the work that took place from the release of 36 chambe & all the solos albums to be "wu tang" stuff in general, i think that initial era is all wu tang no matter who's name is on the cover
that said, wu tang forever definitely signalled the end of that era so that bolsters its new jersey credentials
fwiw, I waited in line at midnight outside of a record store to get Wu Tang Forever, if that helps in the "event album" sense
― Jandek at the Disco (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, 14 August 2012 15:24 (eleven years ago) link
See my post upthread about Bon Jovi's sales, radio play, and tours post-NJ. They are far from having lost all cultural relevance. (They got plenty of new country airplay around the time of their last album.) JBJ even appeared on 30 Rock. "Livin' on a Prayer" was probably one of the most popular songs on the course listening when I taught rock music in Buffalo btw. Karaoke staple at student pub nights etc.
― EveningStar (Sund4r), Tuesday, 14 August 2012 15:35 (eleven years ago) link
the problem with the avengers movie analogy is that it's actually a sales-peak "reunion" album, which I don't think anyone rates over their first, rather than a "supergroup" debut.
― da croupier, Tuesday, 14 August 2012 15:37 (eleven years ago) link
relevance is a weird word for a group like Bon Jovi--yeah, they don't make the cover of Spin anymore, but they'd probably fill a stadium faster than a bill of the last 20 rock bands to get a BNM from p4k.
― Listen to this, dad (President Keyes), Tuesday, 14 August 2012 15:49 (eleven years ago) link
"It's My Life" is also notable for its line referencing Frank Sinatra: "My heart is like an open highway / Like Frankie said / I did it 'My Way'." Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora apparently had a disagreement over those lines, with Bon Jovi recalling:[3]
I had just come home from making U-571 and I said "Sinatra made 16 movies and toured 'til he was 80. This is my role model". He [Sambora] said, "You can't write that damn lyric. Nobody cares about Frank Sinatra but you." And I wrote it anyway.
― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 14 August 2012 16:07 (eleven years ago) link
Sambora really clinging to his cultural relevance there
― da croupier, Tuesday, 14 August 2012 16:09 (eleven years ago) link
Bon Jovi had consistently impressive sales in the 2000s.
― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 14 August 2012 16:11 (eleven years ago) link
yeah once they hit that 2x platinum lower plateau they kept it going
― da croupier, Tuesday, 14 August 2012 16:14 (eleven years ago) link
I mean, I'm looking at the sales of Crush, Have a Nice Day, and Lost Highway and – wow, what a plateau.
― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 14 August 2012 16:15 (eleven years ago) link
and I always forget what a touchstone they are in England
― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 14 August 2012 16:16 (eleven years ago) link
in the 90s they still had videos on MTV "gimme something for the BLUES!" then came "It's My Life" and then their subtle shift towards country...only real misstep was his Destination Anywhere album in the late '90s but that was really an indulgence slapped onto an audition reel mini-movie co-starring Demi Moore and Whoopi Goldberg that I remember catching on VH1.
― da croupier, Tuesday, 14 August 2012 16:18 (eleven years ago) link
numbers have diminished a bit in the last decade, but not at a rate any more precipitous than the music industry itself.
― da croupier, Tuesday, 14 August 2012 16:19 (eleven years ago) link
while definitely a cheesy cross between roots-rock and hard rock, they've served up that cheese consistently without demanding the audience respect them or anything.
― da croupier, Tuesday, 14 August 2012 16:21 (eleven years ago) link
Their song "Who Says You Can't Go Home" has been omnipresent on Country radio stations for 6 years, though I doubt many of us have heard it.
― Listen to this, dad (President Keyes), Tuesday, 14 August 2012 16:22 (eleven years ago) link