Serendipity & Janet Jackson
The PB&J of our times!
Serendipitous learning, that sort of independent study we get to direct on our own every day if we want to, is so rich. It’s easy to categorize that kind of learning as a bit of a drag when it has to do with the daily work of adulthood – How do I waterproof these suede sneakers? Should I learn how to change a tire? Is my grandparents’ beautiful service for 12 worth selling or should I just put it into daily rotation already, because why wait?1 – is kind of magical when it’s something you pick yourself. It’s as much play as it is work, sort of Montessori for grown-ups. The self-direction, the focus, the time we spend, the layering of knowledge and skill – intrinsically motivated learning, baby! Never goes out of style.
Relatedly, I’ve been on a real How We Made It / Why This Catchy Song Is Also Important-style music podcast kick lately. Yes, even more than usual! Having only recently started listening steadily to 60 Songs That Explain The 90s (and its successor, 60 Songs that Explain The 90s: The 2000s) & One Song, I can pick an episode at random and know I’ll have fun & learn some fascinating and new-to-me detail about a song I love any time I hit play.
This week, though, the serendipity of the radio – terrestrial radio! In the car! – pushed me in the right direction. I heard “Nasty Boys” one day tootling around town, and something about the fed-up-to-here way she spits out “It’s Janet” caught my ear in a way it hadn’t in a while. (We can probably credit this to my car speakers being way better than what my phone offers.)
The next thing I know, I’m saying out loud “ooooh, two episodes of One Song about Control? In conversation with Jimmy Jam?!” Into the queue with those, thank you very much. Next, the “Together Again” episode of 60 Songs – which is, in Rob Harvilla’s trademark style on the show, also about Janet’s entire career, the way she deploys her own laughter in her songs, and how “Together Again” will forever be a god-tier entry in the list of really fun songs that can also make you sob buckets.
All week, I’ve been marinating in new-to-me and great-to-be-reminded-of-that Janet knowledge. The One Song episodes in particular, because co-hosts Luxxury and Diallo Riddle ask a very forthcoming Jimmy Jam tons of good questions that illuminate the process of writing and recording Control provides a lot of granular detail, and broader context. Janet was about 19 when they made this album, but she’s also the baby of The Jackson Family – by that tender age, she’d already seen and heard what her older siblings had experienced during their own careers. She’d had an annulled marriage (to El DeBarge! I’d forgotten that entirely!), she’d released two other albums, she was ready to strike out on her own artistically and personally.
By that age, too, she already had such a sophisticated understanding of the gifts and the limitations of her voice, along with the skill and creativity to deploy both, effortlessly and artfully. We get all those colors on Control: it opens with an assured declaration of independence, followed by “Nasty”’s shouted command to give her a beat (someone better give this woman a beat, or she will know the reason why. Make it crisp, make it industrial-grade levels of funky, do not stint in any way, because that beat must be ferocious!) and only improves from there. Janet is taking all her talent for a spin and seeing what it can do. No one who could tell her no is going to interfere, because she’s working with Jam and Terry Lewis in Minneapolis, and anyone who might have a mind to get involved (that is, her legendarily controlling father Joe) and prevent her from sounding like she’s in Minneapolis (that is, influenced by that controversially, filthy and funky and skinny motherf*cker with the high voice who was at that point enjoying his imperial phase) is not in the land of 10,000 lakes, so we get to hear her shout and croon, coo and whisper, growl, go lavishly staccato, sing out, hold back, and even giggle exactly how and when and where she wants to. So much of what distinguishes Janet as a singer is coming into bloom on this album.
Through all of the episodes I’ve been listening to over the course of the week (re-listening, in some cases) and the songs they highlight, I’ve been (re)learning more about the artistic process Janet used with her producers, and about how interesting art emerges from constraint at least as much as from freedom. I’m loving the reminders of how a work it’s easy to regard in hindsight as singular is actually part of both a lineage and a cohort including The Jacksons, Depeche Mode, Prince, The Time, funk, industrial, house, and New Jack Swing.
That lineage also includes the Age of Whispery Singers. Aaliyah used to be the one true heir I’d point to, but there’s so many of them out there now, either adding feather-light vocals to their repertoire, or leaning into that vibe altogether. which brought us Billie Eilish, Phoebe Bridgers, H.E.R. and has influenced Taylor Swift, Gracie Abrams, Arlo Parks, even Olivia Rodrigo, and many others who aren’t leaping to mind immediately. With the rise of Chappell Roan and the release of Wicked this year, we seem to be emerging from the most intense phase of that era, but it’s worth noting how many of the women who’ve been dominating the charts are running plays either directly from or inspired by Janet’s book.
Now, Janet is a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee, she had a baby on her own timeline, and she toured last year (Dame Karen went & it was great!). As someone whose Spotify year-end playlists have included “When I Think Of You” in 2018, 2019, and 2021, it’s clear I need to see her live the next time she comes through Philly.
Should you, too, wish to enjoy a deep dive into Janet Jackson, her artistry, and her legacy, you already know I’ve got a list of podcast episodes for that.
One Song: Control Deep Dive, Part 1 & Part 2
60 Songs That Explain The 90s: “Together Again”
NYT Popcast: a 2016 conversation between Jon Caramanica and Wesley Morris on the legacy of Control
You’re Wrong About: on the Super Bowl debacle2
Hit Parade: an in-depth look at Janet’s career, with a particular focus on her album Rhythm Nation 1814 and the seven Top 5 singles it produced (a record that stands today)
Switched On Pop from It’s Been A Minute: More on the legacy of Control
Taking them in order: Follow the directions on the waterproofing spray you just bought; AAA exists, but probably yes; Start using those dishes! Your grandparents didn’t give them to you to let them sit in a cupboard waiting for a “fancy enough” occasion!
It all makes me think, too, of the chart success & general good public opinion she was robbed of – for years! – by Justin Timberlake. If you can stand to be made angry anew, the You’re Wrong About episode on the conclusion of the 2004 Super Bowl Halftime Show and what followed is very much worth a listen. I won’t pretend to know what that experience made her feel, but she was “Nasty”-level tired of getting harassed in public at 19; can you imagine the entirely justified fury she may have felt when her breast, exposed to millions by a man without her permission to do so, became a persistent topic of conversations that cast her as a slutty villain, rather than the survivor of a massively public sexual assault?