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

Also maybe I am misreading its legacy but it feels like one of the core Pearl Jam albums and admirably risky instead of being a disappointing bland behemoth

exactly -- Pearl Jam don't belong in this thread

PJ have worked on undercutting their popularity since at least 1994

Vitalogy is NOT a NJ in that it's not an Afterburner or Fore! -- it deliberately WANTS to shed fans.

Bingo. Also Vitalogy has, afaik, one of their biggest songs, Corduroy (fans and live, not charts).

I bet Pearl Jam would do an awesome "Bad Medicine."

Xpost yea they opened with Corduroy first time i saw them

Didn't know Corduroy was so loved. I like it but always heard it as a deep cut

just made a long Spotify playlist of my fave Pearl Jam songs and Yield was the only album where I couldn't miss any of the tracks, to my surprise. I like them all.

I want to say every Pearl Jam album has a bunch of beloved songs that are always in circulation in their sets. While I admit I don't entirely grasp the "New Jersey" concept, I do agree that Pearl Jam intentionally downsized their appeal, or tried to, by not making videos, by trying to go around Ticketmaster, by making more aggressive, or weirder, or less explicitly commercial music (which often got played anyway), and so on. If anything Pearl Jam is in the category of bands whose debut albums were so huge it's more or less fueled their entire career. Talk about live staples, it's remarkable the galvanizing impact all those early songs still have on a PJ set.

they have a bunch of Christmas songs up on Spotify at the moment btw

PJ is one of the few bands for whom their entire catalog is of equal worth; they've disowned nothing. You're as likely to hear "Lukin" or "Pilate" as you are "Alive" or "Wishlist." It's not like when the Stones debut, say, "Worried About You" or dust off "She Was Hot."

actually the deliberately shedding fans is a grunge era pathology i didn't really think about

however,

Bingo. Also Vitalogy has, afaik, one of their biggest songs, Corduroy (fans and live, not charts).

― Mazzy Tsar (PBKR), Tuesday, December 10, 2019 7:34 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

again, Corduroy being a big song does NOT disqualify it, in fact I think a New Jersey has to have some big hits or it would be a Fairweather Johnson

Bon Jovi still does a bunch of New Jersey in its live sets

https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/bon-jovi/2019/estadio-nacional-lima-peru-439c7ff7.html

also not really relevant but DAMN Vitology is more of a slog than I remembered

yeah dog latin otm about the sequencing. but that also helped it feel like a big box of goodies, along with the packaging i think. it's going for "white album" maybe - it just doesn't quite have the sonic variety to match, versus something like Mellon Collie where you really get different sounds or even different genres as you go on the journey. whereas Vitalogy is maybe four cut songs away from being a very strong "Vs. II." the choice to not do that makes the world more interesting. and also makes it have less of a New Jersey "feel," vis-a-vis conscious shedding of superstardom, even tho i agree that it ticks several other boxes.

"better man" still has life on radio stations that play grunge hits. idk can't see vitalogy as a nj at all

although i guess that's a point in its favor

NJ had five top tens including two #1's and except for "Bad Medicine" they've all vanished from the face of the earth

― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, August 7, 2012 11:55 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I agree that PJ does not belong on this thread

Bon Jovi sucks, but I was curious and looked up the track list of New Jersey, and there are three songs off that I could hum. The rest I don't recognize by title, but three is not bad!

I just came across a recent interview with Desmond Child, who co-wrote "Livin' on a Prayer" (among others). He says last year it got streamed half a billion times, and that netted him all of $6,000. My question is, where is my cut for hearing it so many times?

Does he get a cut of karaoke licenses, though?

That is a fucking pittance. Songwriters and musicians really need to go on strike like back in ‘42.

I just came across a recent interview with Desmond Child, who co-wrote "Livin' on a Prayer" (among others).

I mean, Bad Medicine for one!

There's one song on "New Jersey" co-written by Child *and* Diane Warren! Talk about hedging your bets.

Any band that ever co-wrote with Child should have their instruments destroyed

Aerosmith

"Heart's Done Time"
"Dude (Looks Like a Lady)"
"Angel"
"What It Takes"
"Flesh"
"Crazy"
"Hole in My Soul"
"Ain't That a Bitch"

That is DIRE

pretty bummed that i can still more or less remember how those Nine Lives deep cuts go

Don't forget his sultry, magnificent work with Ricky Martin.

Haha I remember Nine Lives well

Any band that ever co-wrote with Child should have their instruments destroyed

by the time desmond child arrives, that's almost assuredly already happened.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLcWHU9tKjg

Wow, lay off the Dudes of Wrath, man.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9N2HJWAyiE

lol i watched shocker for the first time last week. fuckin rules

Nice!

Garth's Vegas show is apparently just him in sweats with a guitar and atool. I'd like to see that.

― Earth, Wind & Fire & Alabama (Eazy), Wednesday, August 8, 2012 12:37 PM bookmarkflaglink

(stool)

― Earth, Wind & Fire & Alabama (Eazy), Wednesday, August 8, 2012 12:37 PM bookmarkflaglink

I'd see him with just a guitar and stool. Proper pants would be a nice touch, though.

― alpine static, Wednesday, August 8, 2012 12:38 PM bookmarkflaglink

a guitar and a tool

― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, August 8, 2012 12:38 PM bookmarkflaglink

Magic Garth

― Earth, Wind & Fire & Alabama (Eazy), Wednesday, August 8, 2012 12:39 PM bookmarkflaglink

He'd like to see that.

― some dude, Wednesday, August 8, 2012 12:39 PM bookmarkflaglink

haaaaaaay y'all what's going on?

― Elrond Hubbard (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, August 8, 2012 12:40 PM bookmarkflaglink

i just want to watch garth brooks sit on a stool naked

― max, Wednesday, August 8, 2012 12:42 PM bookmarkflaglink

thanks for killing the thread

― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, August 8, 2012 12:49 PM bookmarkflaglink

traveled down the road and back again
your heart is true
you're a friend and a confidant

― keeping things contextual (DJP), Wednesday, August 8, 2012 12:50 PM bookmarkflaglink

inspired run

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EnGoFU4XIAA1wWy?format=jpg&name=small

available on 12" CDV!

“The music that put rock on the map”
Good lord

Was convinced someone had revived this to suggest 'Positions'..

No one knew precisely where rock was located before this.

Some had foolishly contended that the heart of it was in Cleveland.

xpost put rock on what map? the map to buttrock town?

the map is available on a 12" CDV

“The music that put rock on the map”
Good lord

― calstars, Wednesday, November 18, 2020 8:03 AM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

LMFAO

that is a perfectly reasonable dad joke tbf

that is a perfectly reasonable dad joke tbf

for New Jersey's core audience of 22 year olds with two kids

Harsh but fair

whoa oh

Desmond Child's laziest songwriting effort. It's where @cmolanphy's theory comes in: the track's popularity was, in a way, the public's referendum for the success of Slippery When Wet. The public was primed to buy ANYTHING Bon Jovi in 1988, and they bought this hot garbage. https://t.co/MkeNmqrf7R

— Adrien Begrand (@AdrienBegrand) June 9, 2021

That's what you get for falling in love obv.

Actually, I don't really know what makes this more garbage-like than most of SWW.