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

going back there's Nebraska

Nashville seems to let its stars do low-key vanity albums every once in awhile-- your bluegrass, gospel, Americana-like, instrumental guitar records etc

Pink kinda did that on her third album - she got together with Tim Armstrong from Rancid and wrote 10 songs in a week, then padded the album out with a couple of Linda Perry leftovers and a song with Peaches. Everyone hates it, but it's my favorite of her albums.

I would assume most major artists' contracts preclude them from ditching the whole circus and making a terrific record on the cheap somewhere

― sick, fucking funny, and well tasty (katherine), Tuesday, May 9, 2017 4:21 PM (nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well yeah, but what are those contracts like? 3-4 record deal? by the time an artist reaches this theoretical point, they would've presumably already run out their contract.

360 deals, surely

xxxp alpine static it may not have been done on the cheap but ANTI is the all-time 'Fuck it' album by a pop star ever.

in what universe does an album that hones in on the most successful part of its all-over-the-place predecessor ("Pour It Up"), has well-curated features including fucking Drake, and generally hews to sonic trends qualify as a "fuck it" album

like I know that's the marketing but come on

when did 360 deals become the norm?

that's a great point, i didn't think about that - those deals are insane. touring? merch????

are they 10 year contracts or something

^^ When Ticketmaster became LiveNation.

I would assume most major artists' contracts preclude them from ditching the whole circus and making a terrific record on the cheap somewhere

― sick, fucking funny, and well tasty (katherine), Tuesday, May 9, 2017 1:21 PM (two hours ago)

indeed, i would assume this, too; as flappy bird said, i meant "when they end a contract / have an opportunity legally" but didn't say it!

fun responses ... i probably should've started a thread

I was going to also say that she seemed to be actually aping Gaga, specifically the "Alejandro" video, but I looked it up and the "Not Myself Tonight" clip actually dropped a couple months earlier! Huh.

It was pretty obvious (and intentional I'm sure) that she was aping the "Express Yourself", "Human Nature", "Like A Prayer", and "Freedom 90" videos, but with a 10th of the budget.

Gaga was aping "Express Yourself" and "Vogue" for "Alejandro", hence the similarities.

360 deals became the norm when album sales fell off a cliff. paramore was one of the first bands to be famous for signing one; u2 and madonna were trumpeted to have signed them with live nation although they didn't fully close because LN was lacking in label infrastructure.

i love this song from LOTUS. it's very similar in feel to charli xcx's semi contemporaneous "superlove"

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TeHR0IrTDcI

there's a dearth of female pop personalities on the radio right now and the struggles gaga and KP have been having are a symptom of that. rihanna is the exception that proves the rule

but this week the only woman in the top 10 is selena gomez, who's on a kygo song. the other women on radio right now all have bland names (mostly mononymic) and sound like they're on the verge of sneezing fits - daya, etc. even halsey was sanded down into the chainsmokers dink's mirror image for her big chart topper. the better to fit into a chainsmokers or louis the child track i guess but it sure makes everything sound boring.

the other women on radio right now all have bland names (mostly mononymic) and sound like they're on the verge of sneezing fits

lolol love U

i find myself wishing stars like Christina would just say "fuck it" and ditch the whole circus and go make a terrific record on the cheap somewhere. what are some examples - if any exist - of a star that big doing something like that?

What is Radiohead's "What a Girl Wants"

yea this only applies to popstars mired in bad contracts and label politics

oh man i hope this thread can become the seedbed for ANOTHER topic where people endlessly propose acts and situations that don't even remotely fit the premise

(<3 you all but really)

nelly furtado sort of put out a record like that this year

i find myself wishing stars like Christina would just say "fuck it" and ditch the whole circus and go make a terrific record on the cheap somewhere. what are some examples - if any exist - of a star that big doing something like that?

how important is the cheap part? feel like Frank Ocean did something like this but Blonde cost a couple million iirc

yes, how dare people stray from the laser-focused premise of "super popular and even more popular than the albums that preceded it but there's some sense that the gig is up"

ok lol but tbf there was a lot of hashing out of nuance from there, and the thread does describe something specific enough that it got really silly when people started trying to submit things like the eighth Boredoms album or whatever. like there's probably a thread where it would be very fun to talk about niche acts and their respective arcs, but submitting them here was like saying "i haven't read anything in the thread and only half the words in the title but how about this one folks?"

Feel like with all the clowning on Drake nowadays it's increasingly clear Views was a New Jersey

Somehow skipped this thread for four years... just spent like 3 hours reading the whole thing.

Laughed at this

all rap new jerseys are actually called new jeruz

Some rap New Jeruz that haven't been mentioned I don't think:

Master P - MA da Last Don
actually his highest selling album (4 mill) but clearly the end of the line for him. and no memorable songs.

Wyclef - The Ecleftic: 2 Sides II a Book
sold quite a bit based off the success of the carnival, had that one song w the rock. 911 still a jam tho.

LL Cool J - 14 Shots to the Dome & GOAT think he had two .

Luda - Release Therapy

DMX - The Great Depression

Ice Cube - War n Peace

Witness.

Nelly - Sweat/Suit

people keep forgetting this part: where it's still super popular and even more popular than the albums that preceded it but there's some sense that the gig is up.

i.e. witness would not be a New Jersey, but Prism might

Yeah I thought we had already decided that Prism was a NJ

surely Bee Gees 'Spirits Having Flown' is one of these? it featured 3 US number 1s, shifted 16 million copies. the follow up Living Eyes sold 750,000.

Got discussed way back in the early days of the thread iirc! I agree with you.

is boyz ii men's (inappropriately-titled) evolution one of these? opened at number one, spawned a number-one lead single and follow-up top ten hit, but also marked the beginning of their shockingly precipitous decline

I'd say so.

thought for sure this bump was gonna be about Arcade Fire

^^

I think the last one was

yup

Ice Cube - War n Peace

was this really a "huge event" album that spawned hits? I don't remember hearing a single song from it.

Yeah he'd been gone for awhile at that point and there wasn't a lot of excitement about his comeback. I'd say Lethal Injection was the start of the decline.

Not familiar with "Pushin' Weight", but I am familiar with "You Can Do It" from War & Peace Vol 2.

you can do it was pretty big but yeah maybe yall are right

I'm also discovering that You Can Do It became a hit in the UK in 2004, of all times, which seems a little weird.

probably a video game or something?

Britishers ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Would El Perro Del Mar "Love is Not Pop" qualify? It seems to be her last successful album over all. The next one "Pale Fire" did have a minor hit in "Walk On By" but the latest didn't even register at all.

I love them all though.

Mr. Short Khop 4 eva

got credit his hussle a little bit

Mr. Short Khop, (pronounced "short chop") or simply Short Khop (born Lionel Hunt) is an American rapper. He encountered Ice Cube in front of a 7 Eleven convenience store in South Central, California. Ice Cube eventually struck a deal with the newcomer, and soon Short Khop made guest appearances in Ice Cube's 1998 War & Peace - Volume 1 (The War Disc)

Willenium