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

Watch the Throne.

I feel like Drake's Scorpion is the most pure, true example of a New Jersey that we've had for years.

It's a huge event, and it's very successful with hit singles, huge numbers etc, but there's just something in the air that feels like he's just slipped a bit off the peak...
...(obv the Pusha thing was the first time he felt like there was some weakness there)

ultraviolence by lana maybe

dont know the stats, but it seems born to die was huge, ultraviolence was a sleeper record in the mazzy star vein (little bit of a portishead feel too)

but like each subsequent album seems to have been a bit of a drop off commercially, honeymoon for example. the new one may have performed better im not sure, but it seems that she is more of a cult artist now in a mainstream way if poss

Her last album debuted at #1.

Del Rey's first couple albums before Billboard included streaming + sales, so interpret it that however you like.

but in however many years, will we remember God's Plan? maybe. Nice for What? definitely. but only time will tell.

I've still never heard a whole Drake song. It's a streak I hope never breaks.

The endings are the good parts

I keep feeling like every Drake album is a New Jersey.

but in however many years, will we remember God's Plan? maybe. Nice for What? definitely. but only time will tell.

― flappy bird, Friday, August 3, 2018 11:44 AM (forty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Bon Jovi still closes their main set with a New Jersey song - and then the 2nd encore with another

https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/bon-jovi/2018/centre-bell-montreal-qc-canada-4bede382.html

the drake album is like the new jersey of "albums" in general

Drake's career is rap's New Jersey

Ahah people trying to tag each new Drake release as a « New Jersey ». At some point they will be right, though !

the fact that I've been wrong about this multiple times in the past only confirms how right I am now

the idea of a double album is just kinda anachronistic now (*deep thoughts*)

Not really, albums are getting longer because of streaming. the new Frankie Cosmos album is 18 songs or something? so even if it's not a proper double album (over 80 minutes), they are getting longer for a practical rea$on.

yeah but i just mean calling something a double album when people don't buy discs anymore

proper double album = it's on 2 discs

should be called a Long Stream

ew

the change would benefit my dick

(uh, for those unfamiliar POLE: My Dick's Double Full​-​Length Release by My Dick)

that's the only great album of this century

18 song albums were common place in the CD era

xp otm

I still buy CDs. It’s still the CD era! CDs rule, streaming dr00lz!

i buy friends' bands' CDs. But I don't have a CD player anywhere in my house or on my laptop.

So your car then! That’s where I crank it, 1990 style...

i live in nyc. no car.

So apparently, it's still not Drake's "New Jersey" since he has 3 n°1s from Scorpion for now (and maybe more to come !) :

In 2015, “Hotline Bling” hovered at Number Two but failed to top the Hot 100, making it seem like Drake might never get his own Number One. That’s hard to remember in the wake of “One Dance,” “God’s Plan,” “Nice for What” and “In My Feelings,” emphatic multi-week chart-toppers.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/drakes-madison-square-garden-show-was-one-long-victory-lap-715419/

as was brought up in the thread regarding the Eagles sortation "surpassing" Michael Jackson as the best selling album of all time, the new way charts are calculated w. streaming, and the fact that artists like Drake, Migos etc are releasing these huge bloated albums to take advantage... and the fact that US Spotify was Drake: The App for like a week.... it's impossible to compare to the time when, say, Thank You came out

also New Jersey was HUGE, have I taught you nothing? you still aren't even getting he concept... we can speculate about New Jerseys now but they won't be revealed until years later....

"The album was the follow-up to the band's third album, Slippery When Wet, and reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart in its second week of release after making its debut at No. 8. It remained at No. 1 for four consecutive weeks.[3] It produced five Billboard Hot 100top ten hits, the most top ten hits to date for any hard rock/glam metal album, including "Bad Medicine" and "I'll Be There for You", which both reached No. 1. The album was certified 7x Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. The album also debuted at No. 1 in the UK and was the band's first UK No. 1 album. "

but Scorpion might not be a New Jersey

Drake is resilient (for real)

Might be too early to say, but I feel like reputation will ultimately be a New Jersey.

Hum yeah, the concept of New Jersey has always been a bit blurry !
Anyway, I get what you mean about sales etc but I have a hard time thinking of an artist's biggest selling/most successful album (and, re: Scorpion, as far as I'm concerned, one of his best so far) as a New Jersey... but that's what a lot of the discussions on this thread have been about I guess !

yeah honestly I think I was wrong about Scorpion, feels like too much genuine enthusiasm about it

the charts thing is really weird now it's hard to judge

triggercut - I was just about to type that about Reputation, that's probably the biggest contender right now

isn't Reputation more a flop than a NJ ?

oof no I'm wrong, it was the 2nd highest selling global album in 2017

I couldn't get into the album and didn't encounter it in the wild very much but it only got beat by Ed Sheeran in 2017 so yeah NJ

yeah Look What You Made Me Do wiki says

The song broke a string of records, including the record for the most plays in a single day on Spotify. Commercially, "Look What You Made Me Do" has topped the charts in Australia, Canada, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Greece, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Lebanon, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Slovakia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. It has also received Platinum certifications in Australia, Canada, Italy, Sweden and the United States. It also received Diamond certification in Brazil.

but yeah definitely didn't feel like an album that really had legs....

Yeah, Reputation does feel like a NJ.
It seems even TS fans on ilx don't like it/discuss it a lot !

Time will tell, but I wouldn’t bet against her.

1989 fits better, having actual hits

Btw, she’s a “free agent” at the moment, renegotiating her contract w/Big Machine; and part of their calculations around Tay’s demand for ownership of past albums is weighing her potential future success against the value of controlling her old catalog. So they’re trying to peer into the same crystal ball.

so we might have finally found a way to monetize all the time spent on this board into consultancies

Time will tell, but I wouldn’t bet against her.

― stan in the place where you work (morrisp), Wednesday, August 29, 2018 9:37 AM (thirty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i mean, in general, with very rare exceptions it's smarter to bet against a pop star, most careers generally have a trajectory...not that she's going to be like playing small clubs again or anything but the odds of staying a phenomenon are pretty small for the most part

Point taken... but this is probably why I’m not a gambling man, or label head (I’d go with my gut over logic)

Katy Perry's Prism, on the other hand, with a few years' distance...

yeah I see no sign that in 2018 we'll look at 1989 and think, "Wow, here's when we knew the next album was going to be Keep the Faith."

― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, January 10, 2015 6:50 AM (three years ago)

(posting for no reason other than timeliness/relevance to current discussion)

I think Swift's post-megastar career (whenever that kicks off) will probably resemble something like Madonna's or Springsteen's... though she also has the option of scaling back and going "rootsy" again, as an aesthetic strategy (as did Springsteen, in fact).

yeah a "return to country" move forswearing pop and all its empty promises would be a smart move, plus country audiences are more loyal in the long term

Do you think they would "take her back," though? I guess it depends on how she does it...

I could also see her occupying a kind of middle ground -- a mainstream singer-songwriter with appeal across various audiences (rock, adult-oriented pop, country)... a mode that isn't so popular anymore (at least at that level), but maybe she could pull off.