Feminism 101 with Janet Jackson
“My first name ain’t baby It’s Janet! Ms. Jackson if you’re Nasty!”
With that line back in 1986 Janet Jackson announced herself as the next great feminist pop star of the MTV era along with Madonna. For the past 22 years Janet Jackson has been one of my favorite female pop stars of all time and despite all her success and acclaim I think she is still severely underrated. I think there are a few reasons why she has been underrated for so long but the biggest I feel it because of her brother Michael. Michael Jackson is arguably the biggest pop star of all time. Despite the controversy that has shrouded him since the early 90s and continues to this day there is no denying that he was larger than life and I believe he overshadowed his little sister as a result. For myself I like much of Michael Jackson’s music, but I am not enamored with it like a lot of people are. I go through phases where I want to hear his music for a few days, maybe even a few weeks, but then I am good and don’t listen to his music for a really long time. Michael’s music is not part of my regular rotation and it never has been honestly whereas Janet Jackson’s music has been part of my regular rotation since 1998.
Of course one of my first introductions to her music was the duet she did with her brother Michael in 1995 called Scream. The video was a huge deal because it was not only the first song Michael dropped after the sexual abuse allegations, but it was also the most expensive music video of all time. I remember it being on TV all the time back then.
Still I wouldn’t get into Janet’s music until the release of the Velvet Rope, specifically the album’s second single Together Again. The song’s bubbly melody caught my young ear, but it would be years later that I found out the song was about the passing of a good friend of hers from AIDS. Like a lot of Janet’s music I was initially hooked by the song’s melodies and production, but it would be the feminism and social awareness that would keep me invested for years to come. I went out and bought The Velvet Rope in 1998 and while I didn’t quit grasp the messages in many of the songs, which discussed depression, abuse and sex, I was drawn to her for much of the same reasons I was drawn to Madonna. Janet Jackson was a feminine pop star who exuded confidence and strength in a world run by the Patriarchy.
It didn’t take long for me to want to dig deeper into her catalogue and I bought Design of the Decade 1986/1996 on CD and later on VHS for all the music videos. She soon entered heavy rotation along with Madonna. Looking back on her career Janet Jackson really broke the mold especially for young black female pop stars in the early days of MTV. Pitchfork recently ranked her 1986 album Control at # 8 for greatest albums of the 80s and their description of its impact sums up the album’s legacy best: “She separated herself from the overbearing men in her life and those who sought to write her narrative, and found more natural collaborators in producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. She did what she needed to do for herself, which remains one of the most revolutionary things a black woman can do. In finding her voice on Control, Janet Jackson cut a path by which future women pop stars could chart their own trajectory.”
Control remains a landmark album for pop music, RnB music and for any woman, black or white, who wants to call the shots. The album is about Janet not only taking control of her life, which had been run by her father up to that point, but also not settling for less and knowing exactly what her worth is. What Have You Done For Me Lately is the original No Scrubs where Janet tells the man in her life that he better give her what she deserves or she’s out. Nasty and Let’s Wait a While musically sound very different from one another, but both are about Janet deciding when the time was right for her to have sex. It wasn’t up to the men to decide for her. The title track of course is the song that drives this point home best where she sings that not only is she in control but that she loves it! Too often that kind of sentiment is not something good girls are taught to say or think. Like Pitchfork said “Revolutionary,” which again is a sad indictment of how sexist our culture was in 1986 and honestly still is in 2019.
Yet as good as Control is Janet topped herself with the follow up Rhythm Nation. Not only did it outperform Control, but Rhythm Nation still holds the record for most top 5 singles off a single album (Seven total with four of them hitting #1). The Rhythm Nation album saw Janet grapple with even tougher subjects like institutionalized bigotry, racism and violence while still finding time for bouncy love songs. Janet could be sweet one minute and a pillar of feminine strength the next.
The title track was a call to arms for all those who have felt the hatred and fear that comes from bigotry in all its forms (sexism, racism and homophobia). One of my favorite lyrics on the title track comes right at the start where Janet sings “With music by our sides to break the color lines let’s work together to improve our way of life.” That line brilliantly reflects what I have loved about music at its very best, which is that music sometimes can change hearts and minds more easily than protests and marches for the simple reason that it can normalize people and ideas just by giving people on the outside visibility.
Of course my favorite songs growing up in middle school were the fun bops like Escapade and Miss You Much, which I would prance around my bedroom to and practice the dance moves to the music videos as well. Janet could somehow walk that tightrope between social conscience and fun that has eluded many artists over the years.
By 1993 Janet was ready to explore her sexuality fully with release of janet. In a lot of ways it was not as shocking as it could have been since Madonna had broken down the doors a year before with Erotica, but I think that worked to Janet’s benefit. Whereas Erotica was a polarizing album whose controversy and ensuing backlash overshadowed the real artistic merits of that album, Janet’s 1993 self-titled album was welcomed with open arms by music critics and the general public. Another multi-platinum smash with 7 top 10 hits. her 1993 self-titled album once again showed how Janet was unstoppable at that point and it became another heavy rotation album for me when I purchased it in 1998.
By the early 00s Janet Jackson was an icon and was still releasing some of the biggest hits of her career with Doesn’t Really Matter and All For You. It seemed she could do no wrong…and then the wardrobe malfunction occurred.
The ensuing controversy that surrounded Janet Jackson’s performance at the 2004 Superbowl Half-Time Show is a perfect example of how women are punished much more harshly than men for their supposed transgressions. Despite Janet and Justin Timberlake both being held responsible for what happened it was Janet Jackson who paid the price. She was banned from the NFL, her songs stopped getting as much support from media outlets and her star, which had burned bright for almost 2 decades, nearly went out. Justin Timberlake on the other hand went on to even greater fame as a solo artist with smash hits like Sexyback, appeared in multiple films, became a recurring player on SNL and oh yeah he was invited back for the Superbowl Half-Time show just a few years ago! Justin Timberlake was forgiven because we always forgive men of privilege. To be fair Justin Timberlake acknowledged this when he said a few years later: “If you consider it 50-50, then I probably got 10% of the blame. I think America is harsher on women. I think America is unfairly harsh on ethnic people.”
To be fair too Janet’s 2004 & 2006 albums were not her best, but they had their moments and her 2008 album Discipline had some of the best songs of her career especially Feedback, which only became a minor hit. Had it been released before 2004, Feedback would have been another # 1 hit for Janet. Still Discipline, along with Britney Spear’s Blackout, became the soundtrack to my senior year of college and like Madonna’s Confessions on a Dancefloor I remember dancing to songs like Feedback both at the gay clubs and the dance parties my roommates and I used to host in our apartment at college. Discipline will always have a place in my heart as a result.
Still the album wasn’t the comeback Janet had obviously been hoping for and she seemingly disappeared shortly thereafter. Her brother Michael died the following year, which absolved him of all his sins for the time being (until Leaving Neverland) and it got him back on radio where he was heavily rotated for the first time in years while Janet’s music kind of disappeared from the airwaves.
For most of the 2010s Janet’s legacy seemed to be overlooked and forgotten as younger pop stars blazed a trail that Janet had helped pave for them. But in recent years the tide finally seems to be turning in Janet Jackson’s favor again. She started receiving lifetime achievement awards from all over the world including finally being inducted into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame. Younger pop stars such as Beyonce, MNEK and Janelle Monae started paying tribute to her and acknowledged that Janet’s success had inspired them to have music careers on their own terms. Janet then toured all over the world for the first time since 2001 to ecstatic audiences, which proved she still had a huge international fan base.
For me I have always loved Janet Jackson and her music. Her music can sometimes just provide fun escapism (Escapade was played at my wedding), other times it can empower me as a Queer person thanks to her messages of social justice, civil rights and feminism. Janet Jackson isn’t just a pop star she’s a force to be reckoned with and it’s about damn time that people are finally acknowledging that again.
