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

if there were we would have to call them newer jerseys

...Or are there now ONLY New Jerseys?

obvious point made elsewhere i'm sure but one of the true New Jersey signs is the fading of the carryover album-to-album enthusiasm that gets the not-rabid fanbase to pick up your album, which is often kind of hard to spot when your rabid fanbase is huge (as Taylor Swift's is currently) and the overall fade is a bit slow and often disguised by other successes.

Like with U2 and their pair of false New Jerseys (Rattle & Hum, POP) which put a temporary dent in their sales (until the more successful actual New Jersey of How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb): Achtung Baby brought them back to cultural relevance and huge sales, but they did lose some numbers between it and The Joshua Tree.

Then they steadily lost more sales until All That You Can't Leave Behind, which was in retrospect less a comeback and more of a "it was nice to see that they can still do that, probably don't really *need* to get the next one though..." And then HTDAAB was a "hit" but powered largely by the fanbase and some stragglers and then it went to the discount bins pretty swiftly. The excitement and the sense that U2 had anything left to say had evaporated after that album.

And that's kind of it, the hardcore fans will always remains and maybe such artists put out a single or two that people will passively enjoy (or not), and they'll still have big tours and sell a decent number of albums, but their moment in the spotlight is gone. often times they embrace it and just do their thing (someone like Bowie did that, Prince too it could be argued) but U2 to this day doesn't recognize that the game is up.

“Every seven years, the cicadas shall return; and we shall judge whether another crop of artists has released their New Jersey.”

It's true.

Re. Pink i don’t even know if she has a thread here, maybe the biggest pop superstar that ilm doesn’t care about? I’ve loved all her recent singles.

Maybe this one has been covered, but Black Keys: El Camino?

re: U2: they can still sell out arenas, right? from their POV 'the game' is probably still just going along about like it's been since pop - they're not the biggest band in the universe but they're big enough that they'll never be small in their lifetimes. of course none of that is mutually exclusive with NJ-dom, just that the "career decline" in the thread premise means different things at different scales of huge-artist-ness.

an anecdotal argument for scorpion's jersey-dom is that i know in my feelings is a huge hit and there's some sort of accompanying challenge but i've managed to somehow avoid ever hearing it whereas one dance and hotline bling were inescapable.

Re. Pink i don’t even know if she has a thread here, maybe the biggest pop superstar that ilm doesn’t care about? I’ve loved all her recent singles.

I like some of her stuff quite a bit and her career longevity is impressive as hell.

I think if you can manage one or more fake out or false New Jerseys then you should be immune to a real New Jersey, like having chicken pox as a kid. I dunno, it just doesn’t feel right to me to call U2’s 11th album a NJ.

^+1

U2 is in a kind of unique cultural space being effectively the Last Classic Rock Band

also "Vertigo" is remembered. saw some punk band cover it last week. people remember "uno, dos, tres, catorce."

It would be geographically a bit droll if Bruce Springsteen's NEW JERSEY was NEBRASKA.

Or even GREETINGS FROM ASBURY PARK, N.J.

Is 'Illinois' Sufjan's indie New Jersey?

Surely not - 'Chicago' is his biggest song? (and I think maybe even still ... his best!)

Again it would be geographically fun if his NEW JERSEY were ... THE BQE.

A lot of people have mentioned The Great Escape, but they had another New Jersey in the shape of 13, which got a huge amount of coverage and hype but was the beginning of Damon writing a lot of meandering, hookless quasi-songs that would come to define his later projects

Great Escape was super popular and had tons of fans - it was one of the records that moved indie/britpop from cult to mainstream status in the UK in the late 90s/early 00s. Many many dreadful records ensued but that Great Escape sound (e.g. Parklife but rockier, sillier and more indulgent) was everywhere for years.

I think Blur are essentially a band for mid-teenagers and each new record coincided with some percentage of their fanbase growing out of them.

Hum. Yeah Great Escape was very popular and had many hits but the idea of the NJ that "the gig is up" is kinda obvious with that one.
It has a end of the party/depressive feeling.

Yes, the point is not these albums were not popular but that they were popular?

I meant, “the gig is up” feeling came from a minority of older fans (self included) but for many more people TGE was the start of something else.

Actually I've just check and you're right, the follow-up to Great Escape, Blur, was their biggest selling album and might then be their NJ !

Not sure how you can say that when "Song 2" is probably their biggest hit?

Like it's in permanent Jock Jam rotation all over the States, at least.

blur doesn’t have a new jersey wtf

A lot of people have mentioned The Great Escape, but they had another New Jersey in the shape of 13, which got a huge amount of coverage and hype but was the beginning of Damon writing a lot of meandering, hookless quasi-songs that would come to define his later projects

― Scritti Vanilli - The Word Girl You Know It's True (dog latin), Thursday, August 30, 2018 1:59 AM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

dude a new jersey is not defined entirely by how good you think the music on it is

I mean, there's Pink

― aloha darkness my old friend (katherine), Wednesday, 29 August 2018 18:37 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

o yeah maybe Pink was Boris' New Jersey lol

dude a new jersey is not defined entirely by how good you think the music on it is

― princess of hell (BradNelson), Thursday, August 30, 2018 2:48 PM (twenty-five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think this whole thread has been people arguing over their own definition of what a 'New Jersey' is. I see it as hype/popularity vs quality. 13 is an okay album with about 50% good songs but you knew they were starting to wind it in, starting to get bored of each other, and lo-and-behold Graham leaves before Think Tank comes out (which sounds more like a Gorillaz album than anything that came before)

ugh then post on a "most overrated album" thread or something, what a NJ is, is not up for grabs, and is certainly not just "overrated" which is a tedious and useless notion anyway

re: U2: they can still sell out arenas, right? from their POV 'the game' is probably still just going along about like it's been since pop - they're not the biggest band in the universe but they're big enough that they'll never be small in their lifetimes. of course none of that is mutually exclusive with NJ-dom, just that the "career decline" in the thread premise means different things at different scales of huge-artist-ness.

I mean, Bon Jovi still fills arenas...

if only there was a one-line definition somewhere of what a NJ is

i think an NJ is when an artist has already blown up, bought into their own hype, have this desire to self-mythologize, but haven't yet clearly defined what this myuthology really is, but it's just something BIG y'know -- and the results are predictably kind of embarrassing (but the numbers are there because the band is hot and put the record out on time and the promo was huge and the tour is scheduled etc etc)

well then that's The Great Escape, although maybe the Blur mythology was fairly well established by then?

yeah but i don't think a New Jersey is necessarily terrible or even critical reviled, it can be good and popular etc but there's this inexpressible sense that the era of this artist is slipping away even as they are super popular at the moment.

― Elrond Hubbard (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, August 7, 2012 1:23 PM (six years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well then that's The Great Escape, although maybe the Blur mythology was fairly well established by then?

― Scritti Vanilli - The Word Girl You Know It's True (dog latin), Thursday, August 30, 2018 7:28 AM (forty-seven seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i feel like the record after it has to be where everyone catches on to the fundamental emptiness of the project (aka "the gig is up") and... the s/t subverted that. therefore imo blur has no new jersey

"blown up, bought into own hype, desire to self-mythologize" is more sophomore slump territory -- a NJ is for artists who have gotten past the sophomore slump phase, are stars, and it seems entirely plausible that they might be stars indefinitely -- a feeling that starts fading at the time the NJ. that's the point

(by which Scorpion might plausibly qualify, but every one of Drake's albums since like 2011 seemed like it might qualify)

Did “New Jersey” feel that way at the time (to Jovi fans)?

katherine otm

I mean I'm just quoting the beginning of the thread

Did “New Jersey” feel that way at the time (to Jovi fans)?

― stan in the place where you work (morrisp), Thursday, August 30, 2018 9:33 AM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

new jersey came out in 88 and yeah at that point they were still HUGE, obviously slippery when wet was this insane phenomenon

but by 88 it was like they were getting passed by on both sides, Appetite for Destruction was out and just seemed like a different beast more visceral and badass, on the other side Def Leppard Hysteria was still going strong and seemed like the ultimately 80s pop metal statement in some ways

plus thrash (metallica, anthrax etc) was getting bigger and more popular the whole pop metal thing felt like the air was going out of it slightly

this sounds like there's also a genre component, where the wave that helped one reach megastar status is now cresting. (by which Gaga would qualify, Drake not so much)

at the time it felt like New Jersey was released very soon after Slippery When Wet, like the exhausting hype of the previous record / tour hadn't wound down yet when new hype was trying to build

(since every Drake album that's been mentioned has been generally ahead of trends, not at the very end of them)

where is da croupier, we need him/her/them

The record had a gigantic rollout for sure. Sam Kinison was in the "Bad Medicine" video!

Might be worth looking at what the industry thought at the time. Billboard review of "Bad Medicine" (9/24/88):
BON JOVI
Bad Medicine (3:52)
PRODUCER: Bruce Fairbairn
WRITERS: J. Bon Jovi, R. Sambora, D. Child
PUBLISHERS: Bon Jovi /New Jersey Underground /PolyGram /Desmobile /SBK April, ASCAP
Mercury 870 657 -7 (c /o PolyGram)
Heavy metal thunder, complete with a furious guitar break, sounds more like Van Halen than the polished rockers that moved 8 million copies of "Slippery When Wet "; with the Bon Jovi name attached to it, however, single could sound like Metallica and still have a good shot at No. 1.

and of the album (10/1/1988):
BON JOVI
New Jersey
PRODUCER: Bruce Fairbairn
Mercury 836 345
Uneven album ranges from the inspired heavy metal /gospel peak of "Lay Your Hands On Me" to such valleys as "I'll Be There For You," which is an outright steal of the Beatles' "Don't Bring Me Down," and the overblown, anachronistic "Living In Sin." That said, Fairbairn's adroit production gives even the weaker cuts appeal, and when the guys hit their stride, as on "Love For Sale," "Wild Is The Wind," and the single, "Bad Medicine" (in a slightly extended version here), the result is rock'n'roll heaven. May not move 8 million but won't fall much short.

i feel like the record after it has to be where everyone catches on to the fundamental emptiness of the project (aka "the gig is up") and... the s/t subverted that. therefore imo blur has no new jersey

― princess of hell (BradNelson), Thursday, August 30, 2018 3:31 PM (sixteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Then... how does 13 not qualify? Big, hyped album with big hyped bloated lead single (Tender), loads of filler, next album is lightweight and doesn't really sound like a full band effort?

Paul Grein's Chart Beat column 10/8:
BON JOVI's "New Jersey" enters the Top Pop Albums chart at No. 8. It's only the second album to debut in the top 10 this year, following Van Halen's "0U812," which bowed at No. 5 in June. "New Jersey" is off to a faster start than Bon Jovi's previous album, "Slippery When Wet," which took four weeks to reach the top 10. Bon Jovi isn't the only metal-oriented band making noise this week. Metallica's " ... And Justice for All" leaps to No. 6 in its third week on the pop albums chart, which is by far the band's best showing to date. Its previous best mark came last year when it hit No. 28 with "The $5.98 E.P.: Garage Days Re-Revisited." On the Hot 100, Def Leppard lands its first No. 1 hit with "Love Bites." It's the fifth single from the band's "Hysteria" album, which holds at No. 2 after spending six weeks at No. 1. Each of the "Hysteria" singles has climbed higher than the one before it. "Women" stalled at No. 80, "Animal" reached No. 19, "Hysteria" made No. 10, and "Pour Some Sugar On Me" hit No. 2. Def Leppard is the third metal band to land a No. 1 hit in the past year, following Whitesnake ( "Here I Go Again ") and Guns N' Roses ( "Sweet Child O' Mine "). Guns N' Roses hit No. 1 just three weeks ago, which means that Bobby McFerrin's a cappella smash was sandwiched at No. 1 between two hits by metal bands. Also: "Love Bites" is the second No. 1 hit of 1988 for producer Robert John "Mutt" Lange. It follows Billy Ocean's "Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car."

And one week later:
BON JOVI's "New Jersey" leaps to No. 1 in its second week on the Top Pop Albums chart. It's the second album to hit No. 1 in just two weeks so far this year, following Van Halen's "0U812." The fact that both of the fastest-breaking albums of the year are by pop /metal bands should come as no surprise, because metal is shaping up as the hottest genre of the year. Metal or metal-leaning bands have monopolized the No. 1 spot on the pop album chart for 15 of the past 17 weeks. Def Leppard paced the pack for six weeks; Guns N' Roses and Van Halen did it for four weeks each. Since late June, only two non-metal acts have had a No. 1 album: Steve Winwood and Tracy Chapman. In fact, this week marks the second time in less than three months that the top three spots on the album chart have been dominated by metal bands. Bon Jovi has sprinted up the chart much faster than it did with its 1986 breakthrough album, "Slippery When Wet," which took seven weeks to reach No. 1. The folks at PolyGram must be delighted with the metal explosion: The label has two of the top three albums.

one of the fascinating things about a NJ is that one COULD hypothetically, satisfy the definition without the contents of the album itself being bloated and self-indulgent. we've developed so much the theory of how the records are promoted and sold, and the variables we've most parsed out and weighted most heavily are the quantifiable things that are basically label-side: overall sales, number of singles, performance of those singles in the short-term, long term airplay presence and streaming footprint. and none of that would SEEM to exclude a 36-minute album of restrained acoustic reflections, or even "it's like the last album but we all wanted to dial the production down, just slightly."

and YET, there's a tremendous correspondence, if you look at the canonical polled list (to which I think we've probably added, at most, three or four true new jersey discoveries over the past six years), between a "numbers" new jersey and a "content" new jersey. the albums are overstuffed and overlong. the songs are overstuffed and overlong. the production is overstuffed and exhausting. why? a big part surely is the "numbers" stuff affecting the "content" : the band is being pressed to do mega-tours, plus promotional crap (video shoots, tv appearances) for each of these numerous singles. they're tired. they're abusing stimulants to keep it up. their egos are bloated so they trust yes-men. they don't have the resiliency or creative power of the beatles or the motown headliners under similar pressures. to the extent that producers and songwriters are more key to the creative process, they may feel explicit pressure from the label to convey "event"-ness to match the marketing, and they look to what conveys "event" and for most genres under consideration, in the era under consideration... and that means loud, big, long, layered. something that - when the band appears out of smoke in the seven-minute video - it feels like it goes with that grand unveiling: THE BIGGEST BAND IN THE WORLD IS BACK, OH SHIIIIIIIIT!!!!

so, the songs fit the same mold as the last record, but they're just not *quite* as good, and harder to fit into radio playlists, and in the long term that makes them not *quite* as necessary to the band's text or to the seduction of fans buying catalog records.

btw, given how much i do believe this all has to do with the marketing and practices of the cassettes-and-CDs-and-MTV era, my conviction is that THE MASSACRE is the last "core" new jersey. everything after that is a much looser fit because all the indicators and label strategies of an "event" release have shifted, and the creation of "event" aura is much harder. they do still punch through when an artist is coming off of a big enough run of hits, has a clear enough status as one of the biggest acts in the world, and has not overly diluted the potential impact of THE WAIT IS OVER, THE NEW ALBUM IS HERE by constantly releasing stuff that's not on their albums. BORN THIS WAY and PRISM just about manage it imho. jury's out on taylor swift. rihanna is a bigger star than any of them but even her event album releases aren't events in quite the same way, imho, because she's such a ubiquitous presence on other people's hits.