The Music of Janet Damita Jo (Janet appreciation thread)

[ElectricEyes2]

Anyone else see the Alright tribute they did on Strictly? Janet even tweeted about it.

 

[DuranDuran]

This is a new video where Janet talks about some of her music videos

 

[DuranDuran]

Come Give Your Love To Me (1983)

 

[83magic]

I think Janet’s best years were between 1986-1992. though most of my favourite songs are from the ‘control’ album/era. I think she gave her best vocals, visuals, and overall creative concepts when she was on the a&m record label.

here’s my current Janet playlist (mostly single/radio edits where available)

1. ‘what have you done for me lately (single edit)

2. ‘when I think of you’ - one of the few times where I prefer the original album version over the single/video mix. the production was cleaner and the song had more of a sweetness to it. love the way it progresses from lone piano chords, to bass line, then the beat drops.. sounds like something Michael and Quincy would arrange..

3. ‘control (‘7 edit) edited album version which appears on the uk compilation ‘design of a decade 1986-1996’. crisp, compact, and bursting with funk (though I’m usually not a fan of the genre). straightforward lyrics about gaining independence. innovative and intricate production. perfect

4. ‘let’s wait awhile (album version)

5. ‘the pleasure principle (edited album version - see ‘control’) - these lyrics dig deeper than ‘control’. I interpret them to be about recognising a potentially bad situation, and removing yourself before it manifests. most likely refers to her previous marriage, although she didn’t write it. love the metaphor of the meter running up in a taxi. her delivery is robotic and soaring at the same time. one of the first instances of her blending with herself. impressive overall

6. ‘he doesn’t know I’m alive’ - could have easily fit in on her debut album (same could also be said for ‘when I think of you’). lovely bright innocent song with great vocals, melody, groove, and storytelling. all the hallmarks of a classic pop song. she sounds like she’s having fun here could have been a single. I wonder if she ever performed it?

7. ‘diamonds (herb alpert feat. Janet and Lisa Keith - cool summer mix edit) - this is the only version I listen to. I guess it was made too late to be considered for the ‘control’ album? has a cold elegance that matches the tongue in cheek materialistic lyrics. depending on my mood, they could bother me..

8. ‘alright promo radio edit no rap’ - a decent compromise between the overlong album version and the single version. neither one knew how to end the song. this choice could be removed..

9. ‘the best things in life are free‘ - Janet and Luther vandross (uk cj mcintosh 7’ edit no rap) - my favourite version of the song. this unlikely pairing have a great chemistry, and manage to match each other vocally. bouncy house classic for sure

*honourable mention *
‘escapade’ - missed the cut by being too long. also has those punchy snare drums that I dislike. otherwise a decent pop hit. could have replaced ‘alright’ on my list..

 

[DuranDuran]

Every Time (HD version)

this was recently uploaded

 

[83magic]

I love finding footage from the ‘control’ era had no idea Quincy jones attended the album listening party at hayvenhurst.

interesting that she thought ‘captain eo’ was better than ‘thriller’.. then again, she did get the full 4d experience.

 

[83magic]

heard this exact version of one of my favourite janet songs on bbc radio 2 todaysuch a nice surprise

 

[Agonum]

heard this exact version of one of my favourite janet songs on bbc radio 2 todaysuch a nice surprise

It’s a feel good song! Love it. They had chemistry.

 

[Skylover]

A Deluxe Version of Discipline is now available on streaming sites:

Discipline (Deluxe Edition)

Janet Jackson - album - 2008 - 24 songs

www.deezer.com

And the music video for Alright is now on her channel:

 

[83magic]

It’s a feel good song! Love it. They had chemistry.

I agree it’s an odd pairing in paper, but it works on record. there’s balance, and they compliment each other

 

[Annita]

AFTER THE BACKLASH:JANET JACKSON'S MILLENNIAL WORK RECONSIDERED (PART 1)

What better way to ring in the new year than Janet Jackson live in Las Vegas? Teasing her 2023 Together Again Tour, Jackson entertained a party-hearty Sin City audience with a deep catalog of songs...

hitsdailydouble.com

Friday, February 24, 2023

AFTER THE BACKLASH:
JANET JACKSON'S MILLENNIAL WORK RECONSIDERED (PART 1)​

by

Miles Marshall Lewis​

What better way to ring in the new year than Janet Jackson live in Las Vegas? Teasing her 2023 Together Again Tour, Jackson entertained a party-hearty Sin City audience with a deep catalog of songs older than many of the revelers in attendance.
The Wynn Las Vegas came alive with “What Have You Done for Me Lately,” “Love Will Never Do (Without You),” “That’s the Way Love Goes,” “Got ’Til It’s Gone” and more than 20 other surefire chart-toppers from the queen of Black American pop. Judging by the boozy singalong in the wee hours, fans of multiple generations know every last word of her biggest hits.
Dressed in signature Rhythm Nation-era black with chunky combat boots and flanked by four male dancers, Jackson commanded the stage like she’d never left it. At 56, with a celebrated discography 11 studio albums deep, she refuses to let her legacy lie fallow.
Jackson has earned the status of a Diana Ross or a Tina Turner, that of a legend in her own time. Still, her road to becoming a superstar elder stateswoman differs from theirs in one peculiar way.
The “wardrobe malfunction” of 2004’s Super Bowl XXXVIII—when Justin Timberlake inadvertently bared Jackson’s pierced right nipple to 150 million viewers for 9/16ths of a second—has arguably affected the chart success and sales of her work ever since.
Having largely parted ways with longtime collaborators Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, responsible for slam-dunk multiplatinum classics like Control (1986), Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814 (1989), janet. (1993) and The Velvet Rope (1997), to record with celebrated producers like Jermaine Dupri, Rodney Jerkins, Dallas Austin and Kanye West, she thereafter embarked on what remains an unsung period of her career. In recognition of Jackson’s role as an American icon, a reassessment of this work is overdue.

Damita Jo

“I honestly don’t believe she was blacklisted,” says Dupri. “I just felt like enough of the people who were bosses of different corporations and the label, they just didn’t speak up. Now, you got Megan Thee Stallion onstage twerking during the Grammy Awards, the cameraman basically in her crotch the whole time. And that’s cool to see at home, right?”
Contrary to what Dupri surmises, after the Super Bowl, Viacom CEO Les Moonves reportedly banned the broadcast of Jackson’s music and videos from MTV, VH1 and Infinity Broadcasting, which operated more than 180 radio stations nationwide, triggering a snowball effect.
Cast in an ABC biopic of Lena Horne, Jackson was reportedly forced to withdraw. Invitations to perform on the 2004 Grammy Awards (which aired a week after the Super Bowl) and MTV Video Music Awards were both rescinded.
“I was president of NARAS here in Atlanta and I quit,” Dupri remembers. “Because how am I the president of an organization that’s telling my [artist] she can’t come to do the show? That don’t look right. So, I quit. I took that stance because this is what I feel like other people should be doing if you fuck with the person and you don’t fuck with what’s happening.”

Damita Jo, Janet’s eighth studio album, released the month after the halftime show heard ’round the world, was her first to drop after the incident. It sold 3 million units―this from a global superstar whose Rhythm Nation had moved north of 12 million, with a record-breaking seven Top 5 singles. Fans still debate how the album and its follow-ups would’ve fared without the intercession of “Nipplegate” and what else might have contributed to her subsequent downward commercial trajectory. The question, of course, is well-nigh impossible to answer.
Damita Jo earned two Grammy nominations, for Best Contemporary R&B Album and Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for “I Want You,” and “I Want You” was ultimately certified platinum. But the set’s relative absence on the airwaves in 2004, along with dismal chart positions, lent it an air of failure. In fact, Damita Jo sold more than five million fewer copies than Jackson’s previous long-player, 2001’s All for You.
For only the second time since entering into a longtime musical partnership with Jam and Lewis, on the career-defining Control, she’d invited other producers to play a lead role. Kanye West, fresh off his debut, The College Dropout, assisted on “Strawberry Bounce” and second single “I Want You” and made a guest appearance on “My Baby.” Babyface laid down his one-and-only Janet production with “Thinkin’ Bout My Ex.” Dallas Austin lent Damita Jo “Sexhibition” and lead single “Just a Little While.” Rap producer Scott Storch (“Island Life”) and Swedish songwriters Bag & Arnthor (“All Nite [Don’t Stop],” “SloLove”) also represented.
Virgin Records serviced three singles from Damita Jo: “Just a Little While,” “I Want You” and “All Nite (Don’t Stop).” The first of these had been leaked and begun to gather steam. But that momentum stalled after the Super Bowl. “Just a Little While” peaked at #45 on the Pop chart, her worst showing for a single since “Come Give Your Love to Me,” from her self-titled debut back in 1982. The Motown-esque love song “I Want You”—co-written by newbie songwriter John Legend—failed to rise above #57. “All Nite (Don’t Stop),” one of the most electrifying dance tracks of Jackson’s career, at least, broke into the Top 40, reaching #33.

So how does Damita Jo sound 19 years later?
The album is an exploration of love and intimacy from different sides of Jackson’s psyche. She was born Janet Damita Jo Jackson, and Damita Jo was conceived as an aggressive alter-ego—not unlike Eminem’s Slim Shady or Beyoncé’s Sasha Fierce. This was Strawberry of “Strawberry Bounce,” who urged listeners to “lose control.”
“A songwriter is like a novelist,” Jackson told biographer David Ritz in a 2004 Upscale story. “You invent characters… I hope Strawberry is a good character. Sexually, she’s on fire. She doesn’t mince words. She has to have it and doesn’t care who knows it. As a writer, I created her. As a singer, I live through her. As an artist, I find her compelling. She might be crazy―she might even be twisted―but her sexual adventures are exciting. I want her music to reflect that excitement.”
This overt sexuality of Damita Jo feels a little strained. “Warmth,” a balladic ode to fellatio co-produced by Rockwilder, is paired with “Moist,” a similarly delicate paean to cunnilingus. Jackson offers metaphors about overflowing oceans, pouring rain and waves of passion.

Indeed, critics charged that she ran a voracious sexuality into the ground on songs like “Sexhibition.” Her evolution from the chaste stance of Control’s “Let’s Wait Awhile” to Rhythm Nation’s “Someday Is Tonight” to the erotic coming-out of janet. seemed a natural progression. But the strip-club titillation of “Strawberry Bounce,” the aforementioned oral-sex tandem and other such moments make one wonder if Janet was trying to co-opt Madonna’s schtick―at what turned out to be exactly the wrong moment.
“Moist” nonetheless qualifies as an underrated classic. So does “All Nite (Don’t Stop),” which managed to sufficiently surmount the media hatchet job to top the Dance chart. A house jam in the mold of janet.’s “Throb,” this energetic Bag & Arnthor production also traveled up the singles chart when Jackson released Discipline four years later.
The “All Nite” video, meanwhile, showcased a squad of back-up dancers rehearsing in L.A.’s abandoned El Dorado Hotel amid a blackout. The choreography is some of the best ever seen in a Janet Jackson video (which is saying something).
As the tentpoles of Jackson’s oeuvre are dance tracks and slow jams, it’s perhaps not surprising that “Moist” and “All Nite,” in particular, did Damita Jo right.
20 Y.O.

Of the 25 songs Jackson performed on New Year’s Eve, only one, “R&B Junkie,” came from Damita Jo. Follow-up 20 Y.O. (2006) wasn’t represented at all.
20 Y.O. commemorated the 20th anniversary of Control, which had changed everything for Jackson. Full of hit singles that, one by one, “crossed over” from R&B to pop—“What Have You Done for Me Lately,” “Nasty,” “Control,” “When I Think of You,” “Let’s Wait Awhile”—Control signaled her emancipation from the bubblegum soul of her first two albums as she stepped into her own power at age 20. Hence “20 Y.O.,” a title suggested by Dupri (Destiny’s Child, Mariah Carey, Usher), who produced seven of the album’s tracks.
“I feel like a lot of times Black artists lose that space in their mind and don’t understand: If your base is not fucking with you, you’re finished,” says Dupri. “That’s just how I make music; I make music based on your base. And I feel like with that whole album, what I tapped back into was Janet’s pure, core base.”
The focus was meant to be on the dancefloor, a reprise of the Control ethos. Productions by Dr. Dre, West, Kwamé, The Trak Starz and The Neptunes were ultimately scrapped in favor of Dupri’s steering the album back to Janet’s roots.
20 Y.O. entered the Black albums chart at the top on the strength of 1.5 million copies sold. Its lead single, the midtempo ballad “Call on Me,” featuring guest vocals by Nelly, hit #1 on the Black singles chart. Jackson saw 20 Y.O.’s singles flounder on the Pop chart, however, and promoting the album was like fighting with one arm tied behind her back. “Call on Me” peaked at #25 on the pop singles chart. Director Hype Williams had overseen one of the most expensive videos of all time—with a budget in excess of $1 million—for it, but MTV wouldn’t air it.
20 Y.O. debuted at #2 on the pop albums chart, but sales dropped by more than 74% its second week. The lively second single, “So Excited,” petered out at #90. The Quiet Storm-ready “With U,” a thematic sequel to Control’s “Let’s Wait Awhile,” never cracked the Pop chart at all.
In the end, 20 Y.O. was nominated for the Grammy for Best Contemporary R&B Album and moved a relatively scant million copies.
In part 2: Discipline, Unbreakable and more

 

[Annita]

AFTER THE BACKLASH: JANET JACKSON'S MILLENNIAL WORK RECONSIDERED (PART 2)

Stop! Read Part 1 first. Discipline Having fulfilled her five-album deal with Virgin, Jackson left the label that had signed her for an unprecedented $40 million in 1991 (and doubled down in...

hitsdailydouble.com

AFTER THE BACKLASH: JANET JACKSON'S MILLENNIAL WORK RECONSIDERED (PART 2)​

by

Miles Marshall Lewis​

Stop! Read Part 1 first.

Discipline
Having fulfilled her five-album deal with Virgin, Jackson left the label that had signed her for an unprecedented $40 million in 1991 (and doubled down in ’96 with another $80 million). She signed with Island Def Jam in July 2007 (whatever the figures involved, they did not make headlines). Label head L.A. Reid asked for a new album immediately. Janet canceled rehearsals for a tour promoting 20 Y.O. and got to work in the studio.
One of the first orders of business? The decision that Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis would completely sit out production duties this time around. Discipline would become her first album without them since 1984’s Dream Street. What’s more, Janet wouldn’t write any of the music or lyrics herself, also for the first time since Dream Street.
“I was working at Def Jam as VP of A&R,” recalls producer Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins (Beyoncé, Mary J. Blige, Mariah Carey). “Janet signed with Def Jam, and I started cooking up ideas that could work for her. Then I had the opportunity to meet with her and got more of a specific direction from her. Next thing you know, we’re recording four tracks for that album.” He’d worked extensively with Michael Jackson on 2001’s Invincible. “To be honest, I never really had a doubt I would work with Janet,” he says. “It was just a matter of when.”
The-Dream, Stargate, Ne-Yo and Tricky Stewart helped round out the cadre of producers for an album of hip-hop-tinged R&B and electropop dance―plus a dash of sadomasochism. Jackson been tying up male fans onstage since The Velvet Rope Tour, as if playing out bondage fantasies in public, but all in fun. For the sepia-toned cover of Discipline, the star was dressed in bicep-length black vinyl gloves (graffitied with JANET and DISCIPLINE) and a black bra and skirt. It’s easy to imagine a leather riding crop just out of the frame.
But outside of the title track—which references blindfolding, asphyxiation (“shiver as he grabs my neck, mmm”) and a plea for a lover to “come punish me”—Discipline isn’t actually all that preoccupied with dominance, bondage or even sex. Sonically, Jackson’s 10th studio album pushes more in the direction of a Eurodance sound supporting songs primarily about romance and loving relationships.

On Feb. 26, 2008, four days after Discipline debuted at #1, Jackson performed “Feedback” live on MTV’s TRL—marking an official end to the four-year-long blacklist. Produced by Jerkins and D’Mile, the futuristic dance track was catapulted into the Top 20, giving Jackson her biggest hit since All for You’s “Someone to Be My Lover.” “My swag is serious/ Something heavy like a first-day period” turned into a risqué lyric du jour, the first time listeners were quoting her lines since The Velvet Rope. The lead single’s sci-fi video, which debuted on MTV that January, saw Janet planet-hopping in a space-age catsuit like a cross between Irma Vep and Barbarella. Asked about his favorite production on Discipline, Jerkins says, “Probably ‘Feedback.’ It was something new for her. It’s one of her most-performed songs when she does her live shows.”
After “Feedback” peaked at #19, Island released the house-flavored “Rock With U,” another of Discipline’s strongest tracks, produced by Dupri and Eric Stamile. Lyrically ultra-minimal, the song was created, Janet told journalists, for the gay community. In spite of Discipline’s strong start and a long-take music video recalling visuals for her 1990 smash “Alright,” its second single failed to chart—and the album slipped.

In hindsight, Discipline deserves to be considered Jackson’s comeback album. Its dance-heavy beginning (“Feedback,” “Luv,” “Rollercoaster,” “Rock With U”) sounds especially strong―modern-day club music like Beyoncé’s RENAISSANCE avant la lettre. Its smooth midtempo ballad “Can’t B Good” brings out the MJ in Janet’s vocal tone. “Greatest X” reprises the heart of 20 Y.O.’s “Thinkin’ Bout My Ex,” then elevates it. Perennial scene-stealer Missy Elliott appears on “The 1,” a Dupri track that throws back to the ’90s to excellent effect.
Overall, Discipline delivered artistically. But it sold only 456,000 copies.
“The label and I haven’t quite seen eye to eye since the ‘Feedback’ single,” Janet told SOHH.com in June 2008. “I’m trying to figure out a way to say this, but… they just stopped all promotion whatsoever on the album. So I don’t think you’re going to hear another single.”
She launched the Rock Witchu Tour, her first trek in six years, in Vancouver that September. But only 14 months after inking the deal with IDJ, it was announced that Janet had decided to go independent.

Unbreakable
Between 2008 and the 2015 release of Jackson’s most recent album, Unbreakable, a lot of life happened: She ended her seven-year personal relationship with Dupri; Michael Jackson died; Janet toured, twice; and she secretly married a Qatari billionaire and moved to London. Returning to her acting roots, she appeared in Tyler Perry films like For Colored Girls and Why Did I Get Married Too? Recordings for a new album with producer Jerkins were shelved. Eventually, Jackson returned to the studio with Jam and Lewis.
Unbreakable, released on her own Rhythm Nation Records, sounds, well, distinguished. Singles “No Sleeep” f/J. Cole, “Unbreakable” and “Dammn Baby” rose to the Top 10 of the adult R&B songs chart. Thematically, this is Janet’s most sincere album since her magnum opus, The Velvet Rope. At times, it feels like her version of Ray of Light, Madonna’s masterpiece of introspection and spirituality.
“She just wanted to be honest and truthful on what was going on in her life,” says Tommy Parker (Muni Long, Ariana Grande, Alicia Keys), who served as producer on six tracks. “I was trying something new on that album with her, just to get a fresh perspective for her telling her truth in 2015.”
At 49, Jackson seemed to cast aside competing with the likes of Lizzo and Jazmine Sullivan—and ignore chart expectations. She returned to the utopian social consciousness of Rhythm Nation on “Black Eagle” and “Shoulda Known Better” but with a more mature outlook. (“Don’t want to be the poster child for being naive,” she sings.) The house-flavored “Night” (“I woke up in Heaven in the morning/ With the biggest smile upon my face”) sounds like a Jam and Lewis-produced Cheryl Lynn song updated for the 2010s.

Michael Jackson opened his final studio album with a track called “Unbreakable.” Janet addresses the loss of her brother on “Broken Hearts Heal,” an uplifting tribute graced by childhood memories. The album acknowledges pain: of abusive relationships (“Lesson Learned”), of public falls from grace (“After You Fall”). And though Cole drops a fire 16 bars in the middle of “No Sleeep,” which topped the adult R&B song chart, Unbreakable does not, in fact, sound made for the charts.
With 109,000 copies sold, it is the weakest-performing album of Jackson’s career. In terms of the music, though, it stands up to anything she’s ever released.
Launched in August 2015, the Unbreakable World Tour hit a snag in April 2016; Janet Jackson was pregnant. Weeks shy of her 50th birthday, she gave birth to a healthy baby boy.
Black Diamond?
Most people don’t know that Nipplegate inspired YouTube; PayPal tech bros Chad Hurley, Steven Cehn and Jawed Karim, who’d commiserated over the difficulty of finding that 9/16th of a second online in 2004, debuted YouTube in 2005. Jackson’s briefly bared breast entered the Guinness Book of World Records in 2006 as the most-searched content in Internet history.
In 2018 Les Moonves stepped down as head of CBS in disgrace amid sexual-misconduct allegations that ultimately cost the network $30.5 million.
Janet Jackson, meanwhile, remains a national treasure.
Her Together Again Tour with special guest Ludacris will kick off April 14. A long-rumored album called Black Diamond is expected this year.

 

[Annita]

Janet Jackson performs "Scream" on her Together Again Tour - MJVibe

For her first show, she gave her fans over 30 songs and medleys including her duet with her brother Michael, "Scream".

www.mjvibe.com

Janet Jackson started her new tour in Hollywood last night and called “Together Again”.

For her first show, she gave her fans over 30 songs and medleys including her duet with her brother Michael, “Scream”.

Wearing simply jeans and a “Rhythm Nation” T-shirt, Janet performed in a simple stage with 4 dancers and massive LED screens showing the famous video of the two siblings.

While the vocals sound very similar to the “Up Close & Personal” tour performances of the same song, she does not performed the routine and she did not complete the song moving swiftly to “Black Cat”. However, fans present at the Hard Rock Live Hollywood really enjoyed it.

 

[Zack44]

I just saw her at Madison Square Garden in NYC last night. It was an amazing show! The energy was high the entire night, amazing stage production, the dancers were fantastic, and I was singing all night!

Also, Busta Rhymes made a surprise appearance! Not only did they perform "What's It Gonna Be", but Busta gave her a birthday cake (since her birthday is next week) and wished her a Happy Mother's Day!

Here's my personal video of it (and sorry in advance for my bad singing):

 

[Hot_Street]

R&B Junkie is underrated.

 

[Skylover]

FIFTY FIFTY song from the upcoming Barbie film is sampling Janet's Together Again:

 

[DuranDuran]

1984

 

[Skylover]

 

[Annita]

 

[Maxym]

Listening to The Velvet Rope to decide if I like it and include it in some cheap CD order or not. (I don't think I'll include it.)

One thing that struck me is how the verses in God's Stepchild are reminiscent the verses of Joan Baez Where's My Apple Pie? ... (which itself has its chorus inspired from a traditional song, I don't know about the verses).

 

[Skylover]