http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/09/the-world-changing-aspirations-of-rhythm-nation-1814/380144/


The Nation That Janet Jackson Built

Twenty-five years later, the political message and musical innovation on Rhythm Nation 1814 is more significant than ever, though less appreciated than it should be.
Joseph Vogel Sep 15 2014, 11:18 AM ET
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STR New/Reuters

The most culturally significant female artist of the 1980s? Janet Jackson.

I realize that’s a big claim for a decade that included such talents as Whitney Houston, Tina Turner, Annie Lennox, Cyndi Lauper, and Madonna. It may seem even more dubious given the fact that Janet really only emerged as a major figure in 1986 with the release of Control—and only released two substantial albums over the course of the decade. Janet didn’t have the vocal prowess of Whitney Houston, or the poetic subtlety of Kate Bush; she didn’t have Annie Lennox’s penchant for the avant-garde or Madonna’s predilection for shock.

But none of these artists achieved the cross-racial impact (particularly on youth culture) of Janet. And none of them had an album like Rhythm Nation 1814.

In his Rolling Stone cover story, journalist David Ritz compared Rhythm Nation 1814, released 25 years ago today, to Marvin Gaye’s landmark 1971 album What’s Going On—a pairing that might seem strange, if not sacrilege. But think about it, and the comparison makes a lot of sense. Both albums are hard-won attempts by black musicians to be taken seriously as songwriters and artists—to communicate something meaningful in the face of great pressure to conform to corporate formulas. Both are concept albums with socially conscious themes addressing poverty, injustice, drug abuse, racism and war. Both blended the sounds, struggles, and voices of the street with cutting-edge studio production. Both fused the personal and the political. And both connected in profound ways with their respective cultural zeitgeists.

Yet while What’s Going On has rightfully been recognized as one of the great albums of the 20th century, Rhythm Nation’s significance has been largely forgotten. At the time, though, it was undeniable: For three solid years (1989-1991), the album ruled the pop universe, the last major multimedia blockbuster of the 1980s. During that time, all seven of its commercial singles soared into the top five of the Billboard Hot 100 (including five songs that reached No. 1), surpassing a seemingly impossible record set by brother Michael’s Thriller (the first album to generate seven Top 10 hits). Janet’s record has yet to be broken.

During its reign, Rhythm Nation shifted more than seven million copies in the U.S., sitting atop the charts for six weeks in 1989 before becoming the bestselling album of 1990. It was the first album in history to produce No. 1 hits in three separate years (1989, 1990, 1991). Meanwhile, its innovative music videos—including the iconic militant imagery and intricate choreography of the title track—were ubiquitous on MTV.

But its impact was far more than commercial. Rhythm Nation was a transformative work that arrived at a transformative moment. Released in 1989—the year of Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing, protests at Tiananmen Square, and the fall of the Berlin Wall—its sounds, its visuals, its messaging spoke to a generation in transition, at once empowered and restless. The Reagan Era was over. The cultural anxiety about what was next, however, was palpable.

* * *

The 1980s were a paradoxical decade, particularly for African-Americans. It was an era of both increased possibility and poverty, visibility and invisibility. The revolution of the pop-cultural landscape was undeniable. “Crossover” icons like Janet, Michael, Prince, and Whitney shattered racialized narrowcasting on radio, television and film, while hip hop emerged as the most important musical movement since rock and roll. The Cosby Show changed the color of television, as Spike Lee and the New Black Cinema infiltrated Hollywood. Oprah Winfrey began her reign on daytime television, while Arsenio Hall’s hip late-night talk show drew some of the biggest names in America. By 1989, from Michael Jordan to Eddie Murphy to Tracy Chapman, black popular culture had never been more prominent in the American mainstream. Over the course of the decade, the black middle and upper class more than doubled and integrated into all facets of American life, from college campuses to the media to politics.
Janet was determined to use her platforms to do more than simply entertain.

But there was a flip side to this narrative—the decay and abandonment of inner cities, the crack epidemic, the AIDS crisis, the huge spike in arrests and incarceration (particularly of young black men), and the widening gap between the haves and have-nots, including within the black community. By the end of the 1980s, nearly 50 percent of black children were living below the poverty line This was the reality early hip hop often spoke to and for. Chuck D. famously described rap as “CNN for black people.”

It was these voices, these struggles, these ongoing divides and injustices that Janet Jackson wanted to represent in Rhythm Nation 1814. “We have so little time to solve these problems,” she told journalist Ritz in a 1990 interview. “I want people to realize the urgency. I want to grab their attention. Music is my way of doing that.” Pop stars, she recognized, had unprecedented multimedia platforms—and she was determined to use hers to do more than simply entertain. “I wanted to reflect, not just react,” she said. “I re-listened to those artists who moved me most when I was younger ... Stevie Wonder, Joni Mitchell, Marvin Gaye. These were people who woke me up to the responsibility of music. They were beautiful singers and writers who felt for others. They understood suffering.”

A sprawling 12-track manifesto (plus interludes), Rhythm Nation acknowledges this suffering and transfuses it into communal power. It was Janet’s second collaboration with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, the talented duo from Minneapolis who miraculously merged elements of three existing musical strands—Prince, Michael, and hip hop—into something entirely fresh and unique. The Flyte Tyme sound featured angular, staccato-synth bottoms, often overlaid with warm, melodic tops. The sound was tailored to Janet’s strengths: her rhythmic sensibility, her gorgeous stacked harmonies, her openness to new sounds, and her wide musical palette. Jam and Lewis also took the time to learn who Janet was, who she wanted to be, and what she wanted to say, and helped translate those sentiments and ideas into lyrics. On Rhythm Nation, Janet wrote or co-wrote seven of the album’s 12 songs, interweaving social and personal themes.
Rhythm Nation transfuses communal suffering into communal power.

Twenty-five years later, those songs still pop with passion and energy. Listen to the signature bass of the title track, based on a sample loop of Sly Stone’s “Thank You (Falletinme Be Mice Elf Again),” and the dense textures of noise that accentuate the song’s urgency. Listen to the funky New Jack riff in “State of the World,” again surrounded by a collage of street sounds—sirens, barking dogs, muffled screams—as Janet narrates vignettes of quiet desperation. Listen to the industrial, Public Enemy-like sermon of “The Knowledge.” The opening suite of songs feel like being inside a sonic factory: machines spurt, hiss, and rattle, as if unaccountably left on; glass breaks, metal stomps and clashes. All this is juxtaposed, of course, with Janet’s intimate, feathery voice, making it even more striking.

Listen to how she sings in a lower register in the first verse of “Love Will Never Do (Without You),” then goes up an octave in the second, before the chorus nearly lifts you off the ground. The album is full of sudden, unexpected shifts, as when the euphoric throb of “Escapade” transitions into the arena-rock stomp of “Black Cat.” On the final track, following the eerie strains of young children singing (“Living in a world that’s filled with hate/ Living in a world we didn’t create”), the album concludes as it began, with a somber bell tolling, perhaps a reference to John Donne’s famous dictum, “Ask not for whom the bell tolls/ It tolls for thee.”

Taken as a complete artistic statement, Rhythm Nation 1814 was a stunning achievement. It married the pleasures of pop with the street energy and edge of hip-hop. It was by turns dark and radiant, calculated and carefree, political and playful, sensual and austere, sermonic and liberating. If Control announced the arrival of a young woman ready to take the reins of her personal life and career, Rhythm Nation revealed a maturing artist, surveying the world around her, determined to wake people out of apathy, cynicism, indifference. Writes Slant’s Eric Henderson, “Rhythm Nation expanded Janet's range in every conceivable direction. She was more credibly feminine, more crucially masculine, more viably adult, more believably childlike. This was, of course, critical to a project in which Janet assumed the role of mouthpiece for a nationless, multicultural utopia.”

“We are a nation with no geographic boundaries,” declared Janet on the album’s introductory “pledge,” “pushing toward a world rid of color lines.” Just seven years earlier, black artists couldn’t get on MTV; FM radio was dominated by album-oriented (white) rock; and the music industry was largely segregated by genre. Now a black woman was at the helm of a new pop-cultural “nation,” preaching liberation through music and dance, while calling on her audience to keep up the struggle. For all the inroads, she insisted, the battle wasn’t over.
A black woman was at the helm of a new pop-cultural “nation,” preaching liberation through music and dance.

Janet Jackson’s ascendance was significant for many reasons, not the least of which was how it coincided with (and spoke to) the rise of black feminism. Until the 1980s, feminism was dominated, by and large, by middle class white women. They defined its terms, its causes, its hierarchies, its representations, and its icons. It wasn’t, of course, that black feminists didn’t exist before the 1980s. From Sojourner Truth to Harriet Tubman to Ida B. Wells to Rosa Parks to Maya Angelou—black women made enormous contributions in the struggle for racial, gender, and class equality. But their contributions were often minimized, and their struggles marginalized. As Barbara Smith writes in her landmark 1977 essay, “Toward a Black Feminist Criticism,” “Black women’s existence, experience, and culture and the brutally complex systems of oppression which shape these are in the ‘real world’ of white and/or male consciousness beneath consideration, invisible, unknown ... It seems overwhelming to break such a massive silence.”

Black feminism, however, did just that in the 1980s. From Michelle Wallace’s bestselling Black Macho and the Myth of Superwoman (described by Ms. magazine as “the book that will shape the 80s”), to Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Color Purple (which was adapted into a blockbuster film, directed by Steven Spielberg), black women achieved unprecedented breakthroughs over the course of the decade. In 1981, bell hooks released Ain’t I A Woman; in 1984, Audre Lorde published Sister Outsider; 1987 saw the arrival of Toni Morrison’s Beloved, perhaps the most universally canonized novel of the past 30 years. Appropriately capping the decade was Patricia Hill Collins’s Black Feminist Thought (1990), which documented and synthesized the flourishing movement’s central ideas and concerns. The book, Collins wrote, was intended to be “both individual and collective, personal and political, one reflecting the intersection of my unique biography with the larger meaning of my historical times.”

* * *

If there was one female artist in the 1980s who captured this spirit in popular music it was Janet Jackson in Rhythm Nation. It was an album that positioned a multifaceted, dynamic black woman as a leader, as someone whose ideas, experiences and emotions mattered. It challenged some of the most deeply entrenched scripts for women in popular culture. It also offered an alternative to the era’s other most powerful female icon: Madonna.

While they were not-so-friendly rivals, in certain ways Janet and Madonna helped trailblaze similar terrain. Both were strong, intelligent, fiercely ambitious artists. Neither expressed any reticence about their desire for mass commercial success. Both were engaged in similar struggles for respect, empowerment and agency in an industry dominated by men and male expectations. Both also faced serious pushback from music critics. In the 1980s, music reviews were frequently filtered through a rock-centric (read: white, male, and heteronormative) lens. “Pop creations” like Janet and Madonna were viewed with suspicion, if not outright contempt. The fact that they didn’t conform to traditional singer-songwriter expectations proved they lacked talent. The fact that they had talented collaborators and producers proved they lacked credibility. The fact that dance and image were important parts of their artistic presentation proved they lacked authenticity. As The New York Times’ Jon Pareles wrote in a 1990 review of Janet’s Rhythm Nation Tour: “Miss Jackson seems content simply to flesh out an image whose every move and utterance are minutely planned. Spontaneity has been ruled out; spectacle reigns, and the concert is as much a dance workout as a showcase for songs.”

In spite of such headwind, however, Janet and Madonna became two of the most influential icons of the late 20th century, each offering distinct versions of feminist liberation and empowerment to a generation of young people coming of age in the 1980s and 1990s. VH1 ranked them No. 1 and No. 2 respectively in their “50 Greatest Women of the Video Era.” On Billboard’s 2013 list of Top Artists in Hot 100 History, Madonna was No. 2 and Janet was No. 7. Over the course of their respective careers, Madonna has 12 No. 1 hits; Janet has 10. Madonna has 38 Top Ten singles; Janet has 27 (placing them both among the top 10 artists of all time). Both, meanwhile, have sold hundreds of millions of albums and influenced American culture in incalculable ways.

Yet in spite of their similar commercial achievements and cultural impact, Janet Jackson remains, by comparison, grossly undervalued by critics and historians. Try to find a book on her career, cultural significance, or creative work, and with the exception of her 2011 autobiography, True You: A Journey To Finding and Loving Yourself, which focuses on her struggles with body image and self-esteem, you will come up empty-handed. Do the same with Madonna, and you will find at least 20 books by major publishers.

The disparities are not simply in the amount of coverage, but in how each artist is interpreted and understood. In print coverage, both in the 1980s and today, Madonna is made the default representative of feminism and of the era (in a 1990 editorial for the New York Times, cultural critic Camille Paglia famously declared her “the future of feminism”). Madonna was perceived as somehow more important and interesting, more clever and cerebral. Her sense of irony and play with sexuality made her more appealing to postmodernists than Janet’s socially conscious sincerity. In 1989, Madonna was named “Artist of the Decade” by Billboard and MTV. Since that time, the appreciation gap has only widened.

In 2008, Madonna was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In spite of her trailblazing career, Janet has yet to receive the same honor. She has been eligible for six years. Many believe she is still being punished for the 2004 Super Bowl controversy often referred to as “Nipplegate,” the response to which has been described as "one of the worst cases of mass hysteria in America since the Salem witch trials."​ It is hard to believe, given the controversies surrounding just about every artist inducted into the Hall of Fame, that this would be used as a legitimate rationale for her exclusion. But then again, it’s hard to imagine how an artist of Janet’s stature has yet to be nominated.

Long before Beyoncé, Janet carved out a space for the openly feminist, multidimensional pop star. She created a blueprint that hundreds of thousands of artists have followed, from Britney Spears to Ciara to Lady Gaga. Rhythm Nation 1814 was the album that revolutionized her career and the pop landscape. It demonstrated that black women needn’t be second to anyone. But it wasn’t individualistic. Its rallying call was about the collective we. We could be a part of the creative utopia—the rhythm nation—regardless of race, gender, class, sexuality or difference. It made you want to dance and change the world at the same time. Unrealistic, perhaps. But 25 years later, it’s still hard to listen and not want to join the movement.

fuck you.

I always wondered why she never got props like Madonna even though she had a better run of albums than Madonna ever had IMO (Control through The Velvet Rope). I know race and sex is an issue unfortunately but damn, you can look at the facts, she was running shit for a good minute. Those four albums generated 4 mil in sales in the US alone.

******************************************
Falcons, Braves, Bulldogs and Hawks

Geto Boys, Poison Clan, UGK, Eightball & MJG, OutKast, Goodie Mob

Madonna is just a more significant, important and challenging artist than Janet.

_____________________

http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2010/287/6/c/the_wire_lineup__huge_download_by_dennisculver-d30s7vl.jpg
The man who thinks at 50 the same way he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life - Muhammed Ali

Madonna's cultural footprint is bigger.

fuck you.

on gender, religion, and culture more than Janet ever did. I hardly listen to either one though, just happened to be around at the time.

^^^^^^...


And she's white...Dig her though...But it is what it is....

GOAT of his era......long live Prince.....God is alive....

>
>
>
>^^^^^^...
>
>
>And she's white...Dig her though...But it is what it is....

Yeah I don't think Janet could get away with some of the stuff Madonna was doing as a Black woman.

******************************************
Falcons, Braves, Bulldogs and Hawks

Geto Boys, Poison Clan, UGK, Eightball & MJG, OutKast, Goodie Mob

>I always wondered why she never got props like Madonna

1. the article points out how historically Black women recieved less attention for their contributions (in particular to the feminist and other social causes) and I think the same thing applies here. I can only think of a couple of major differences in their messages

a. sexuality - while madonna was going for shock from day one, Janet was maturing from "wait a while" into the later "velvet rope"-ish "put it all out there" vibe. it was a slower burn. folks who are all into thumbing their noses at the cultural norms preferred the in-your-faceness of madonna here

b. religion - again, madonna's shock value tactics described previously applied here also while Janet was pretty much silent

2. in terms of "allies" (the people outside of the person themselves pushing their agenda/fame) madonna had a much wider net of people telling you how "important" she was

3. there is also the issue of their perceived (public) personalities
Janet was/is considerably more outwardly quiet and demure and way less of a self-promoter - to the point where on-stage Janet and "other" Janet are almost two different people. Madonna gave a much more consistent idol to worship

even now, when both of their musical careers are seemingly either over or mostly there, the pointing out of Madonna as having been put into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame while Janet hasn't even been nominated is telling. likewise the long-term backlash against of the litany of the crazy ish madonna has said/done vs Janet's one: the super-bowl thing (which is even more egregious in that the particular event is less seen as something that was perpetrated upon her by Timberlake, than as something she was the sole person responsible for)

4. finally, there is the unspoken elephant in the room with Janet. would she even have gotten a shot if Michael wasn't her brother (i.e name recognition)? one can only guess here, but it is safe to say that some "deduct points" because of it. This is not to say she didn't take full advantage of the opened door by shining brightly on her own merits, but the door WAS opened and we truly don't know how much of who she was was tied to the benefit of her brother arguably being the MOST famous person in the world during the same period

the music videos of Janet vs the ones of Michael

on the surface you might think its an easy pick

but in terms of the artistic quality (as opposed to social zeitgeist and/or pop-culture impact) if you really were to compare it might not be such an easy pick

then I realized I didn't think it was worth the effort to put together because this place has long moved away from any kind of analysis and more into emotional preference and emotional response

all that aside

Janet was dope

I miss her much (<-- corny)

Michael's videos are for people who either appreciate them as a historical turn in how music as presented/marketed, as "events" (think: MTV and Fox hyping premiers for moths ahead and pre-empting regular programming), or as mini-musicals (movies meant to either inject a visual into the theme of a song, or to literally act out the lyrics). Michael got away with making some "eh" videos simply because he was MICHAEL <-- that means the gap between his best videos and worst is greater than his sister. she was far more consistent in this regard.

Janet's videos were more about PERFORMANCE (the dancing in particular is of a MUCH higher quality overall). She overcame her limitations as a singer through establishing herself as a act you needed to SEE (even more than hear) to get the fullest impact.

which you prefer is usually based on which of those two (performance vs cultural zeitgeist) appeals to you more

the SCREAM video is a very interesting case...Janet out-danced Michael but his star-power was completely overwhelming. the video very much took excellent advantage of her sex-appeal and his "alien-like" quality

I dig the Janet vs MJ idea and I suspect I'd agree that Janet's the more consistent video act. MJ's highs are higher (Smooth Criminal is better than any video Janet ever made) but Janet has more winners than MJ.

I wonder who I'd pick between Janet and Madge. J has the edge when it comes to records (I'm listening to my Janet vs Madonna playlist right now), and I like Janet more. But I can admit Madonna's made the bigger splash and is more important culturally in part bc her work was relatively more challenging and interesting (and on stage Madonna wins). Still, I like Janet more bc I just FEEL more of her records. I dunno about their videos though.

fuck you.

>(Smooth Criminal is better than any video Janet ever made)

I'd don't know if I'd agree here. It would have to be established what the criteria for judging would be. If, in the end, it's just a "what do you like better" based on gut feeling then its a non-starter.

But, I'd love to hear how/why "Smooth Criminal" (in long or short form) is demonstrably better than "Escapade", "Rhythm Nation", or "Alright" (for example)

>But I can admit Madonna's made the bigger splash and is more important
>culturally in part bc her work was relatively more challenging
>and interesting (and on stage Madonna wins).

I touched on this in #8. What about Madonna's work made it more "challenging and interesting"? I haven't heard anyone actually quantify why beyond she is more culturally impaction other than "she was more famous"

>I dunno about
>their videos though.

as far as focusing on their videos, I can't say that any Madonna video had a lasting impact on me. Once I saw any of them I never needed/wanted to see them again. As such its a much less interesting comparison for me, and would probably be better left to someone else (i'd read it though, and comment on the Janet parts)

>I'd don't know if I'd agree here. It would have to be
>established what the criteria for judging would be. If, in the
>end, it's just a "what do you like better" based on gut
>feeling then its a non-starter.

it is.

>But, I'd love to hear how/why "Smooth Criminal" (in long or
>short form) is demonstrably better than "Escapade", "Rhythm
>Nation", or "Alright" (for example)

b/c i like it more. Janet's 'Alright' felt to me like her version of 'Smooth Criminal' (or they were working from the same inspirational source). i really like 'Alright' quite a bit - it's one of my favorite Janet videos. i prefer 'Smooth Criminal' b/c everything about it is tighter - the dancing, the costumes, the set. if SC is a 10/10 then Alright is a 9.5/10. and All Nite (probably my favorite Janet video) is like 9.7/10.

and perhaps you don't know what makes Madge's work relatively more 'challenging and interesting' b/c:

>as far as focusing on their videos, I can't say that any
>Madonna video had a lasting impact on me. Once I saw any of
>them I never needed/wanted to see them again.

maybe you haven't seen enough of Madge's video work to understand why some of us feel like her work is more challenging.

and i say it's more challenging b/c it's more arty. like, it's visually more interesting. there's more going on, there are more ideas behind it.

take 'Bedtime Story' as an example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSaFgAwnRSc

both the song (written by Bjork) and the video are pretty awesome, IMO. i dig the lyrics, the production, the visual effects. it's hard for me to watch b/c of some of the effects in there.

yeah, Janet has videos on this level like 'What's It Gonna Be':

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WikTS8BxFgM

but there the video is fantastic (i love the effects...it just looks cool to me and reminds of acid hallucinations i've experienced) but the record isn't as awesome.

generally, Madonna has made more eye-popping videos than Janet, i think w/o having delved into the idea. i'm probably better suited for the task b/c i don't have much bias against Madge. i like plenty of her records and her videos and i think both have lots of replay value. i'd agree that Madonna is a cutting-edge video artist and might be as important to music video innovation and awesomeness as both MJ and Janet. but i dunno w/o having viewed their work w/this analysis in mind.

fuck you.

hm I make make one of my own. My dad has an Otis Redding Sam Cooke reel to reel

fuck you.

great read! thanks for posting.

Happy 50th D’Angelo: https://chrisp.bandcamp.com/track/d-50

She ain't even on Janet's level imho
Meaning she understood the balance on that record
Not only did she transcend race
But she had both men and women playing her music!!
There's no Bey record or song (that i know of) that's done that
Like the one post said, it was the only record they listened to outside of hip hop

Janet was so good, she had her brother responding to her with his TR partnership on Dangerous

Props to flyte tyme and janet!!!!

Eclectic Soul/Sunday, 2-4 PM est/89.3 WCSB.ORG

>She ain't even on Janet's level imho
>Meaning she understood the balance on that record
>Not only did she transcend race
>But she had both men and women playing her music!!
>There's no Bey record or song (that i know of) that's done
>that
>Like the one post said, it was the only record they listened
>to outside of hip hop
>
>Janet was so good, she had her brother responding to her with
>his TR partnership on Dangerous

I want to say sometimes, that family relation aside, Janet was the closest to "Mike" level appeal that it ever got for a few good years.

Yes, I'm mad. Let's move on.

Jays | Cavs | Eagles | Sabres | Tarheels

PSN: Dr_Claw_77 | XBL: Dr Claw 077 | FB: drclaw077 | T: @drclaw77 | http://thepeoplesvault.wordpress.com

but tomorrows youth will

why the need to compare bey to mike? she's all those artists combined to form a whole new thing. plus she never threw poo at her maids

Beyonce has her own thing and her legacy is sealed
But being the so called heir to MJ's throne was a bit too much for me
And that's based on what i said in the previous post.

Eclectic Soul/Sunday, 2-4 PM est/89.3 WCSB.ORG

i mean...CMON


does it really matter?

vote for bin: http://i.imgur.com/2slpbEo.jpg

we absolutely do not need their validation.
and at this point, maybe because i have over-corrected my psyche on this...

i am skeptical when they give it to us.

like I know rockists like some Black albums/ artists...
but their reviews of them usually come across
as patronizing and damn near insulting to me.

but maybe they could say the same about my z
taste in rock, so maybe that's neither here nor there.

>i mean...CMON
>
>
>does it really matter?
>
>vote for bin: http://i.imgur.com/2slpbEo.jpg

I mean Frankie Beverly ain't in and that's just mind bogglingly wrong to me

But Janet jackson should have been in. I'm having a hard time thinking who got in before her, if Madonna is in and Janet isn't? That's some bullshut


does it really matter?

vote for bin: http://i.imgur.com/2slpbEo.jpg

fuck you.

**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

http://www.tumblr.com/blog/blackpeopleonlocalnews

http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/the-juice/6258726/janet-jacksons-rhythm-nation-1814-revisited-by-jimmy-jam-terry


Janet Jackson's 'Rhythm Nation 1814' Revisited By Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis: Track-by-Track Review

Articles
The Juice
Album Review

By Kenneth Partridge | September 18, 2014 1:50 PM EDT
Rhythm Nation, 1989.

Cover for Janet Jackson's 1989 album "Rhythm Nation"


If Janet Jackson's third album, 1986's Control, was a declaration of independence, the follow-up, Rhythm Nation 1814, was a constitution -- a blueprint for the kind of country that this confident, sexy and newly independent 23-year old woman wanted to live in. At least it was for roughly a third of its runtime.

Released 25 years ago tomorrow, on Sept. 19, 1989, Rhythm Nation 1814 begins with a pledge: "We are a nation with no geographic boundaries, bound together through our beliefs." From there, it goes into the title track, a national anthem for this colorblind utopia Janet has imagined. The four digits in the album's title refer to the year "The Star-Spangled Banner" was written, and with the help of James "Jimmy Jam" Harris III and Terry Lewis -- the production team behind Control -- Jackson gives Francis Scott Key's greatest hit a New Jack Swing remake.

Rhythm Nation stays political for a few songs and then segues into kinder, gentler relationship songs, many of which dominated radio and MTV. An unprecedented seven of the album's singles made the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100, and four of them -- "Miss You Much, "Escapade," "Love Will Never Do (Without You)" and "Black Cat" -- hit No. 1. The album, not surprisingly, topped the Billboard 200, vaulting Janet to a level of pop mega-stardom almost on par with that of her brother Michael Jackson.

In honor of the record's silver anniversary, Jam and Lewis led Billboard on a track-by-track trek down Memory Lane, offering their thoughts on the disc's 13 non-interlude songs. The duo produced and wrote or co-wrote all but one, the hard-rock detour "Black Cat," which Janet penned and helmed herself. Read on to see how these Minneapolis legends remember Janet's breakout LP.

"Rhythm Nation"
Jimmy Jam: It needed to be anthemic. That was the whole point. It was the anchor of the album, the title track. I think we really achieved it. It has a great energy. The thing to remember, as I always say with all of Janet's stuff, is that she's such a visual artist. It's really hard to listen to the song and not think of the imagery and all the choreography that go along with it. That's the bonus we get with a record like that. We get to see the performance that goes along with it.

"State of the World"
Terry Lewis: At the time, we were trying to make some statements about worldly things. The song was created from conversation. We used to talk about everything before we would even engage in starting a song. We went on talking tirades, just conversational tirades, trying to figure out not only what was going on in the world, but what was going on in Janet's head. I don't think it's overtly political. It's just drawing attention to the things of the time. In the history of music, there's always been a social commentary with most artists that were substantial artists. You can only talk about so much love and clubs. You have to bring some awareness and have a voice in the times that you live in. That happens to be one of those songs.

"The Knowledge"
Lewis: We got the song title in London. We were speaking to a cab driver. Over there, every cab driver knows how to get everywhere, because they take a test that's kind of like a map quiz. They know every street every address in London. It's called "The Knowledge." When we heard that title, we wrote it down. When we had discussions about all these different things -- social commentary -- "The Knowledge" just popped up. And with Janet being associated in a lot of different ways with education, it just seemed fitting to use that subject matter and fuse it all together."

"Miss You Much"
JJ: That was the first song Janet heard when she walked in the studio. I remember that when she walked in the studio, I pointed at a note on the keyboard and told her to press that note. She pressed it, and that note ended up becoming the high string line in the chorus to the song. It's the record that got us off and running on the project. I love Janet's attitude on records. I think she sings that song with so much attitude.


"Love Will Never Do (Without You)"
JJ: At one point, we thought about doing it as a duet with Prince. It never happened, obviously. That's the reason she sings the first verse low and the second verse high. It became a duet with herself. It was a thought. I don't know how serious of a thought. This happens a lot -- you're doing a song, and you go, "You know who would sound good on this? Prince would be kind of cool." It wasn't any big thing, like we wrote it for him or anything. But then we thought, "Oh, it's cool the way it is," so we just left it like that.

"Livin' In a World (They Didn't Make)"
Lewis: just thinking about the turmoil that kids go through to become young adults and then adults. We throw so much mess into the situation for kids a lot of times, as a society, because we act without listening; that makes kids very uneasy about things, and rebellious. They didn't ask to be here, which is something we say all the time. They didn't ask to acquire the circumstances you put them in. We say they're our future, but they're our present, and being a kid is our past. We have to be little more mindful of those things, how we incorporate kids into our society. That song was born out of that concept, because they didn't choose to be here. Our responsibility is to teach them responsibility.

"Alright"
Lewis: I love "Alright." I love the swing aspect of it. I love the incorporation of and collaboration with Heavy D . I love the happiness of the song. It's a song that comes on and makes you immediately smile. I love the video for that song. It was one big shot. I think it might have been one or two cuts in the whole video. It was a masterpiece. It's more than friendship in that song; it's just a feeling that song gives: "It's alright. It's OK to be who you are. It's OK to be my friend. It's OK to think what you think. Whatever you're doing is cool with me. I'm not being judgmental.' That song gives you that feeling. Music is all about feeling, even when the lyrics don't say exactly that. But when the words correspond with the feeling, it's especially powerful.

"Escapade"
JJ: I love "Escapade." Janet wanted to have a song you'd hear at basketball games -- big-crowd-type places -- and that's how we came up with the really big beat. The whole "Escapade" idea, that's lyrically hers. The track on that song was just a rough track we intended on redoing, and it never happened. Literally, the track on that song is like one track of drums, a bass line played on my left hand and a keyboard line played on my right hand, with really not a lot of overdubs on there.


"Black Cat"
JJ: Janet was a tough producer. Man, she had me redoing parts a million times. It was her way of getting back at us. We went into the booth at the end to do the "Black cat…" part, and she had us in there for hours. We're going, "Janet, we don't sing." "No, do that again!" It was a great idea, great guitar riff. Jellybean Johnson, the drummer for the Time, who's also a great guitar player, ended up working with her on that and did a great job. If I recall correctly, the solo on that song was actually done by three people … Janet did a fantastic job. It was fun to play on. Janet would ask me, "What do you think?" And I'd say, "Nope, you're the producer." It was cool.

"Lonely"
Lewis: It seemed like one of those songs that would be real comforting. Everyone has moments of loneliness, no matter how many people are around you, or how many people think you're wonderful. When you get in your introverted state, your feel like you're alone, but you're never alone, because there's always someone you can reach out to. That's what that song was all about: "Anytime you need me, call me. When you're lonely, I'll be there for you." Nobody should feel like they're alone. That's probably one of the most feared feelings in the world, which causes a lot of hate and a lot of crime and a lot of everything. Everybody on earth has the same basic needs, and the biggest of these is to be loved and appreciated.

"Come Back to Me"
JJ: At the time we did it, it was one of my favorite songs. I loved the lyrics and the vocal on it. The interesting thing for me was the live strings. I never heard the strings when we were doing it. We'd kept it simple, and Janet said, "It'd be great to get some strings on this." There was a guy in Minneapolis we used named Lee Blaskey, who was an incredible string guy. He arranged a lot of our string stuff. I said, "Hey, Lee, come up with a string thing for this," and he did. We loved it so much that the end of the song, it basically fades out with just the strings as the last thing you hear.

"Someday is Tonight"
Lewis: New love! New love is always great. I don't think you can have enough of those songs. The feeling of that first commitment to someone is always a special one, whether sexually or emotionally. That song is built on that premise. You'll get to it someday, and that some day is right now! It's very special -- especially for young girls. The fact you can hold off and not be ready -- has that in previous songs. And then one day, you just grow and make that commitment. It's a beautiful thing.

Never knew that. That would have been interesting.

>
>"Love Will Never Do (Without You)"
>JJ: At one point, we thought about doing it as a duet with
>Prince. It never happened, obviously. That's the reason she
>sings the first verse low and the second verse high. It became
>a duet with herself. It was a thought. I don't know how
>serious of a thought. This happens a lot -- you're doing a
>song, and you go, "You know who would sound good on this?
>Prince would be kind of cool." It wasn't any big thing, like
>we wrote it for him or anything. But then we thought, "Oh,
>it's cool the way it is," so we just left it like that.
>
>

____________________________________
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>Never knew that. That would have been interesting.
>
>>
>>"Love Will Never Do (Without You)"
>>JJ: At one point, we thought about doing it as a duet with
>>Prince. It never happened, obviously. That's the reason she
>>sings the first verse low and the second verse high. It
>became
>>a duet with herself. It was a thought. I don't know how
>>serious of a thought. This happens a lot -- you're doing a
>>song, and you go, "You know who would sound good on this?
>>Prince would be kind of cool." It wasn't any big thing, like
>>we wrote it for him or anything. But then we thought, "Oh,
>>it's cool the way it is," so we just left it like that.


Prince would have been straight trolling MJ if that happened...

Mike woulda been like, "Oh, u turned down 'Bad,' but u wanna rock with lil sis...fuck u, Skipper!"....

GOAT of his era......long live Prince.....God is alive....

The song was already a hit. But put a Prince and Janet duet together? It would have been #1 for 3 months.

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Major flyte tyme crow eating right there...MAJOR

Eclectic Soul/Sunday, 2-4 PM est/89.3 WCSB.ORG

I can't say that...Remember, in 1989 Prince was back in the mainstream with that Batman soundtrack...dude was no. 1 again (for six weeks) and skating to 4 million plus albums...Also, Jimmy and Terry were already is discussions with P about reforming the Time for the Pandemonium album....

I think it just comes down to Prince being the classic control freak that he is. Back then he wouldn't let ANYBODY produce him, much less the guys who he helped put on....

GOAT of his era......long live Prince.....God is alive....

<I think it just comes down to Prince being the classic control freak that he is. Back then he wouldn't let ANYBODY produce him, much less the guys who he helped put on....>

That's what i meant
In addition to the 1989 ego...He fired those dudes and basically said that nobody will ever hear from them ever again.
(boy was HE wrong on that one)
There's NO WAY he would have allowed to be produced by them....hell I don't think he would be ok with it in 2014 either!!
Even though I think a flyte/paisley collbo would be GREAT right now!!

Eclectic Soul/Sunday, 2-4 PM est/89.3 WCSB.ORG

not only is he EXTREMELY successful, he's NICE to boot, after I shitted on him and fired him.

I can actually kind of see that working, too...

-thebigfunk

~ i could still snort you under the table ~

http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/the-juice/6258728/jimmy-jam-remembers-the-making-of-janet-jacksons-rhythm-nation


Jimmy Jam Remembers the Making of Janet Jackson's 'Rhythm Nation 1814': Exclusive Q&A


By Kenneth Partridge | September 18, 2014 2:25 PM EDT

In 1989, as the world was going to hell, Janet Jackson was coming into her own. The pop star's ascent and the planet's downward slide intersected neatly on Rhythm Nation 1814, a socially conscious, sonically adventurous, commercially massive album released 25 years ago tomorrow, Sept. 19.

Technically, Rhythm Nation is Janet’s fourth album, though her first couple don’t really count. It wasn't until her third, 1986’s chart-topping Control, that the youngest Jackson truly gained creative freedom and stepped out of her family’s shadow, and on the follow-up, she pushed things even further. As with Control, she worked with the songwriting and production team of James "Jimmy Jam" Harris III and Terry Lewis, former members of the Time and architects of the "Minneapolis Sound" popularized by Prince in the late '70s and early '80s.

As Jam tells Billboard.com, no one went into Rhythm Nation looking to make a political record. The concept emerged as he, Lewis and Jackson watched CNN during breaks in the recording and found themselves shocked by the homelessness, violence, drug abuse, racism and general craziness plaguing America.


"We felt like we had… not a responsibility to say something, but growing up in the '60s, whether it was the Vietnam War or whatever, it seemed like there was always someone commenting on it," Jam says. "And that was a good thing. Why not use the powers we have as songwriters to bring some of those messages across? Rap music was doing it in a very strong way."

Musically, Jam and Lewis were already gravitating toward an edgier sound perfect for the new lyrical content. Clangorous yet syncopated, spliced with rock, hip-hop, and urban sound effects, the music matched the franticness of the modern world. While it derived partially from the New Jack Swing sound pioneered by producer Teddy Riley, Jam and Lewis were essentially updating what they'd always done.

"Growing up in Minneapolis, watching people like Prince, we saw that all ideas are valid, and color lines are blurred," Jam says. "Rock guitar goes over funky beats, and keyboards replace horn sections. It was all of those things put together that became an incubator."

What grew out of the sessions wasn’t quite the straight-up topical album some remember. In addition to reaching No. 1 on the Billboard 200, Rhythm Nation spawned seven Top 10 singles, only one of which, the title track, had any kind of political leaning. The others -- "Escapade," "Love Will Never Do (Without You)" "Miss You Much," "Come Back to Me," "Alright" and "Black Cat" -- were relationship songs that didn’t fit with trio of high-minded "message" tracks that kick off the album. The mix of personal and political, Jam says, was wholly intentional, and the album was sequenced with the heavy stuff up front.

They could have easily called it Escapade, Jam says, and swapped the stark cover shot for a nice color photo. That would have been the safe play, though the execs at A&M Records were fine with the tracklist and monochromatic presentation. In fact, Jam says, they didn’t raise a single objection until Janet needed a boatload of money for the half-hour video for the title track.

"She was asking for a million bucks or whatever," Jam says. "They were like, 'We haven’t heard any music.' The story was that Janet took Gil Friesen, the president at the time, in a Range Rover and drove up the Malibu coast with him and played him three or four songs. I remember she called me three or four hours later and said we got the budget. How could you not give the budget—hearing those songs, riding in a Range Rover with Janet Jackson on the PCH in Malibu?"

Whether blasting out of a Range Rover sound system or streaming through computer speakers, Rhythm Nation 1814 holds up a quarter-century later. Read on to see what else Jam has to say about the album’s genesis and legacy.

Professionally, where was Janet Jackson at this point in her career?
She obviously had a lot of success on the Control album. There was pressure to follow that up, and an anticipation of what the next project would be... The thing that made it good for us was it had been three years since Control. We had no desire to try to follow up Control as much as make a new album. The difference was that when we did Control, we did it in Minneapolis, it took six weeks and nobody was paying attention. When we were doing this record, it took six months, we did it in Minneapolis and everybody was trying to hear something and give ideas. All of a sudden, everyone was interested. This album was much more under the microscope.

Where was she emotionally?
She was in a great place emotionally. She had begun dating Rene Elizondo, who ended up being her husband. Rene was a really good influence on her. She had done the things she talked about on Control. She had moved out on her own. She was making her own way. She was obviously making her own living. She was in a very creatively fruitful place. She had just discovered her writing chops. The mistake I always saw on her first two albums -- or maybe not a mistake -- was she just went into the studio and sang. She had no input into her records at all. A lot of it was probably her dad saying, "You should sing. You have a good voice. You should sing." Rather than her saying, "I really want to sing." The Control record, to me, was her saying, "I really want to sing, and I really want to be an artist." Coming into Rhythm Nation, she's hungry. She's excited, and creative juices are flowing. She can't wait to do this record. Everything had built up to this moment.

Is it true the label wanted her to make a record called Scandal, all about her family?
Honestly, I've heard that story, but no one I can recall came to me and said, "We should do a record called Scandal." I remember people coming to me and saying we should do a record called Control II. Everyone had ideas. It's easy to jump on the bandwagon and have ideas after something is successful. At the end of the day, the creative team was simple. It was me, Janet, Terry and John McClain -- and Rene Elizondo also. Let me include him on the creative mix. If the ideas weren't flowing from that group of people, they weren't really being listened to.

Instead of talking about her family, she commented on issues of the day. The hard-hitting music seems to match the subject matter. What came first?
The very first track we did was "Miss You Much." That was kind of a hard-hitting song, only because I was using a different drum machine. Basically, everything sonically we had done on the Control record, I got rid of everything there, except for maybe one keyboard, called the Mirage. That's the only keyboard I used in common, because I wanted it to be fresh and have a new sound. But "Miss You Much," although the drums are different, it's kind of the same sound we used on "Nasty." I thought it was important there was something that was sonically familiar.

The hard-hitting part -- we were going in that direction anyway, sonically. What really changed with the "Rhythm Nation" part was we then had a purpose. It was more directed. And it became more industrial-sounding. Trashcan lids, glass breaking, feet stomping -- anything that felt like an army of people, that was sonically what we started going for once the lyrical concept started going in that direction.

How did the concept develop?
It really happened because we watched so much TV. There wasn’t Direct TV. It wasn’t 500 channels. There were maybe 20 channels that mattered. You had CNN. You had MTV, BET and VH1. And then you had ESPN. So that was it. That was what you watched. We ended up watching MTV all the time; then we'd switch it to CNN. Then we'd switch it to BET. You couldn’t help but somehow be impacted by the things that were going on. It was a crazy time. The Reagan years were ending. There were school shootings. There were all these unbelievable things starting to happen. We’re all sitting around watching this going, "Man, that’s messed up. Somebody needs to do something about this."

What was it like recording in Minneapolis?
It was comfortable for her. There was no outside interference. There was no, "You need to make it more commercial." It was us in our little vacuum, in the middle of the wintertime. All of that really contributed to what we came up with. The theme of Rhythm Nation came from literally watching CNN and reacting to what we were seeing.

And yet it's not all politics and heavy stuff. The second half of the record is mostly love songs.
That was the great thing about sequencing the album. One of the things I miss about the idea of albums is we were able to sequence the album so "Rhythm Nation" comes first, straight into "State of the World," straight into "The Knowledge." After "The Knowledge," she says, "Get the point? Good -- let’s dance!" It's not all doom and gloom. I thought that was pretty brilliant to do that.

Did you notice a change in Janet's personality, or had she always been aware of these bigger issues?
It's both of those things. She'd always been aware of the world around her, but she then felt empowered to actually talk about it and embrace it in her music. That was the difference. It had a lot to do with her growing confidence as a songwriter, and obviously her confidence in us as producers. Between Control and Rhythm Nation, we'd expanded our studio to a 48-track studio from a 24-track. Technically, we'd gotten better at what we did as producers and writers. Coming back to Rhythm Nation, I felt like we were all firing on all cylinders. We were hungry. We felt like sonically, we had a lot of new things to say.

The video component was key. It seemed like she was catching up to Michael Jackson in a way.
She grew up very similarly, loving musicals. She'd always talk about Cyd Charisse, Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, and the Nicholas Brothers. Interestingly enough, Cyd Charisse and the Nicholas Brothers, she put them in "Alright," one of the videos. She was able to pay homage to all these people she'd grown up listening to and admiring. But Janet always thought outside the box … She always had conceptual ideas of visuals in her head and what dances should look like. All those things were always running through her head. That was from her love of musicals growing up, much as Michael had. But this was her chance to do it. Not so much doing what Michael did, but doing her version of what she saw growing up, using those images to bring the songs across.

A lot of people talk about Rhythm Nation influencing much of the R&B music that followed in the '90s. Do you think it was a game-changer?
Yeah, a lot of music I heard, particularly coming out of Sweden, quite honestly. It's funny -- we're actually working with Robyn on her new album. Robyn talks all the time about the influence Janet Jackson records had on everybody there, sonically and style-wise. A lot of the music coming from Europe definitely embraced a lot of that sound and the sonic textures.

The album is sometimes labeled New Jack Swing, but it transcends that, bringing in elements of the Minneapolis Sound and everything you guys had done before.
We're influenced by everything we hear. We really liked the records Teddy Riley was making at that time. They were fantastic. New Jack Swing -- I always felt like "Nasty" was part of that. It has that feel. "Nasty" actually predates a lot of that New Jack Swing stuff. It’s just that we didn’t make 10 records that sounded like that. We made one record that sounded like that and then we moved on.

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>New Jack Swing -- I always felt like "Nasty" was
>part of that. It has that feel. "Nasty" actually predates a
>lot of that New Jack Swing stuff. It’s just that we didn’t
>make 10 records that sounded like that. We made one record
>that sounded like that and then we moved on.

("State Of The World") is flames doused in extra butane. That was the genuine New Jack Swing song. It sounds like Jam and Lewis listened to "My Prerogative" and then added "their" elements to it (that middle part/bridge...)

I also felt like "Nasty" was a precursor to, but not the official beginning of NJS. It was distinct from many of the other productions they had made up to that point. Don't think there was much out there like it in '86.

Women still have songs today from that blueprint

Eclectic Soul/Sunday, 2-4 PM est/89.3 WCSB.ORG

he hits the nail on the head for me because ordering the songs on an album in such a way that they create a narrative or mood is something that really makes a great work stand out for me

its sad that its done with so little skill most times

Come Back to Me may be my favorite Janet song ever...for that and Lonely to come after a hard song like Black Cat...I can't say enough about this album or any of the work JJ & TL did with Janet (or overall, they are easily in my top 3 favorite production duos)

Which got me thinking, how come this album never got the reissue treatment???

Happy 50th D’Angelo: https://chrisp.bandcamp.com/track/d-50

Key Tracks: Jimmy Jam on Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814


By Chris Williams

19.09.2014 interview
The legendary producer goes deep on the 25th anniversary of Janet Jackson’s groundbreaking album.

By the end of the 1980s, Janet Jackson rebounded from the underwhelming performance of her first two albums, Janet Jackson (1982) and Dream Street (1984) to deliver a multi-platinum smash record with Control (1986). After the release of Control, Jackson cemented her place among pop music royalty. It provided the fertile platform to expand her global reach on her next album. She would capitalize on the opportunity in the stellar fashion and launch her promising career into another stratosphere. On September 19, 1989, Rhythm Nation 1814 was released by A&M Records and it became her second consecutive record breaking album within the decade. The record would spawn seven singles, including six number one hits “Miss You Much,” “Rhythm Nation,” “Escapade,” “Alright,” “Black Cat,” and “Love Will Never Do (Without You’).” The other single, “Come Back to Me” landed in the number two position on the Billboard Music Charts.

Behind the boards during recording were the titanic producing tandem of James “Jimmy Jam” Harris III and Terry Lewis. They played a pivotal role in taking Jackson’s career to the next level beginning with Control and three years later with Rhythm Nation 1814. Through their technical precision and huge talent, they were able to craft sounds that would capture the socially conscious theme of the album. Due to their contributions and the ravenous work ethic of Jackson, Rhythm Nation 1814 became her highest selling album to close the 1980s. For the album’s 25th anniversary, we spoke with Harris about crafting one of the most definitive records in the latter half of the 20th century.




You and Terry Lewis began working with Janet Jackson in 1985 on her third album, Control for A&M Records. How were you introduced to her?

We started working with her between the spring and summer of 1985. One of the things we did initially was to fly her out to Minneapolis to work with us at our Flyte Tyme studio, so we had her all to ourselves. It was a great way to get to know her, and to get her comfortable with the process and make her feel included in the creative process rather than just singing songs that people were putting in front of her. We wanted her to be a part of the process and kind of shape what that album was going to be. We had no idea what the album was going to be at that point. We just knew we wanted her input, and we did that with other artists’ we worked with back then. We felt like she had something to say, and it turned out that she did.

There is a story where you’ve recounted saying that you and Terry Lewis pointed to Janet Jackson’s name at the same time after John McClain asked the both of you what artist you wanted to work with on A&M Records. What was the thing that made you believe your union with her could potentially become a fruitful one?

As songwriters, you try to think of your muse so to speak. We always thought about what artist did we want to write songs for or artists we could imagine singing songs that we’ve created. Terry always called it “the combination” like it’s a lock, because there is always a certain combination that can get that lock to open, and not everyone knows what that combination is. And this was the analogy for Janet. She had done two albums before the Control album, and we loved her voice. We thought she was fine as heck, and we thought she was nice as a person from what we knew of her from back in our Time days. We felt like the records she made on her first two albums were made by producers, and she just sang them. She didn’t have any input on the songs.

We felt that Janet had a great singing voice, but we knew that her attitude was what was missing from her records.

I used to watch her on TV doing the Mae West impressions on The Jacksons television show. And you could see that she had a lot of attitude, and that attitude wasn’t coming across on her records. We recognized her attitude. Terry and I were couple of years removed from the Time, and we were used to dealing with Morris Day and Prince. We were used to people exuding attitude on a record. We felt that Janet had a great singing voice, but we knew that her attitude was what was missing from her records. By involving her into the creative process, I think we got her excited about making a record and excited about being an artist. If you remember, she was doing the FAME television show. When we started working with her, she got excited about being a singer. It wasn’t something that her dad wanted her to do or the record label; she was like, “I want to give this a shot and be serious about it.” So, we were also very fortunate to catch her at that time.




Following the multi-platinum success of Janet’s Control album, what direction were you and Terry Lewis trying to take her sound in for Rhythm Nation 1814 after a three year hiatus between albums?

Even before the creative process started on this record, there were three years between albums, and it was a good thing for us, because it gave us separation from the Control album. So we approached it as a new album, rather than a follow up album. Looking back, the other thing that was significant was the fact she never toured off her Control album. She was very smart because she felt like she didn’t have enough songs to do on a tour. She wanted to have a bunch of songs to perform before she went on tour. I think, because of that, we went into it with more hunger. We felt like Control was nice, but it was just the beginning of the story and not the end of it.

We wanted to do the record in Minneapolis, and basically, nobody was invited to join us. We wanted to insulate ourselves and go make the record we wanted to make. The A&M Records folks were cooperative with that, probably reluctant, but they were very cooperative. It was interesting because a lot of the album was recorded in the winter of 1988. It was one of the coldest winters that I can remember in Minneapolis. It was brutally cold. We had no desire to be outside, and we got a lot of work done. I have a lot of memories from the record, but one of the memories I have is Janet arriving at the studio, and when we opened the door, she threw herself to the ground and started making a snow angel in the snow. She told us, “I’ve always wanted to do that!” We were like, “Get it in here. You’re going to catch a cold. We’re trying to get started here. You’re going to mess your voice up!” It was so funny. I think that snow angel stayed on the ground the entire winter.

When we opened the door, Janet threw herself to the ground and started making a snow angel in the snow.

For us, the years between Control and Rhythm Nation 1814 were really good years creatively. We did Herb Alpert’s album, The Human League’s album, and New Edition’s Heart Break album. New Edition’s Heart Break album was important because it was the first album that we worked on at our old studio. At our old studio, we turned our garage into a second studio, so we could get more work done. At that time, it was analog recording, so we had a 24 track machine. Back then, what you would do is you would take two 24 track machines and link them together, so you could have 48 tracks to record. We upgraded our studio and upgraded our technology to have 48 track analog recording. So by the time Janet came back to record Rhythm Nation 1814, I think we were better as producers and more technically efficient in getting sounds.

I remember that she hadn’t seen that we expanded our studio. So, when she walked in the door, I was working on the track that would become “Miss You Much.” I remember we were playing the track super loud, and she walked in and I pointed at the keyboard, and she looked at me like, “Me?” and I was like, “Yeah!” I pointed to a note on the keyboard, and I told her to hit that note. I counted her in 1, 2, 3, 4, and she hit the note. It ended up being the high string patch on “Miss You Much” when it goes into the chorus of the song. It was the very first thing we did. When the song ended, she was like, “WOW! Is that for me?” We told her, “Yes. This one is for your album.” She said, “I love that! I love that!” This is how we got started on the album, and it was a great way to start.




Rhythm Nation 1814 is a record that stands out for its multifaceted approach to both subject matter and your production work. How was the collaboration process between you, Terry Lewis, and Janet throughout the making of it?

Well, the Rhythm Nation 1814 concept didn’t come up right away. I think the idea was to go in and make some songs. When I spoke earlier about getting different equipment and starting to experiment with other keyboards and drum machines, “Miss You Much,” “Love Will Never Do (Without You),” and “Escapade” were all done on a SP-1200 drum machine, which was a new drum machine to me. It was popular at the time in hip-hop music, but I hadn’t used it, because I’d been a more of a Linn Drum Machine guy. Control was almost all on Linn drum.

She said, “That sounds like one of those beats you hear at a basketball game, and everybody gets up and starts cheering.”

“Escapade” happened because I plugged in the drum machine and started playing a beat, and she said, “That sounds like one of those beats you hear at a basketball game, and everybody gets up and starts cheering. I want a song like that.” So, we were like, “Cool.” She came up with the lyrical ideas for it, and it just had that type of feel. I want to add one other person to the creative process and that is Rene Elizondo. Rene was Janet’s boyfriend at that point in time. Rene was an interesting guy because he was very creative, but he wasn’t a musician or a singer. Conceptually, he was so creative. The Rhythm Nation concept is something that she brought, but he would talk about it all the time.




We would have conversations all the time, and he would tell me what the song should sound like, but he didn’t know how to do the song. He would say, “It has to be done ethnic, but it has to be funky.” He was also a dancer, so conceptually he had ideas in his mind. Musically, we had no idea what that was going to be. But what had happened with me is that we were sitting in a restaurant in Minneapolis having dinner and there was music playing in the background. I remember them playing “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)” by Sly and The Family Stone. I was kind of paying attention, but not really, because I’ve heard it a million times. It’s one of my favorite songs.

So, we get into a conversation and I forgot that the song was playing, and then all of a sudden, for some reason, it was the first time I heard this one part as its own part, but when it got to the guitar breakdown in the bridge of the song, I heard that. And I said, “Oh my God. That’s it! I got the idea.” They were like, “What are you talking about?” I said, “I got the idea for the ‘Rhythm Nation’ track. Listen to that! Listen to that right there!” They said, “Oh yeah. That is funky.” I said, “Yeah! When we get back to the studio, I’m going to lay it down.” I remember I went into the studio and all I did was take a two bar guitar loop and put it in and started putting Linn drums over top of it. It was all I really had, and then, the little string line came and the song came together. Once this happened, we all knew what the direction of the record would be.




When you’re sitting in the studio for long hours, you tend to watch a lot of television. Back then, there were probably 50 channels. You had to have MTV, BET, VH1, and CNN. These channels were constantly playing on our TV in the studio. We would flip between MTV to watch music videos and CNN to see what was happening in the world. Somehow, it almost became a blur to us. We would see something tragic happening like a school shooting or gang violence. These images became one thought and it was kind of a no brainer that this was going to be the theme of the album. “State of the World” and “The Knowledge” come to mind.

The title to “The Knowledge” stems from a trip Terry and I took to London, England. We were taking a cab somewhere in London, and we got into a conversation with the cab driver because we were giving him different addresses, and he knew exactly where everything was. So, we asked him, “How do you know exactly where to go? Because when we’re in the States, the cab drivers never know how to get anywhere. There always asking for directions.” The guy replied, “Oh. It’s the knowledge.” We asked him, “What do you mean by ‘the knowledge?’” He said, “The knowledge. It’s like the test you have to take to become a cab driver. You have to know all the streets and addresses before you can become an actual cab driver.” At that point in time, Terry and I kept what we called a book of titles where someone made a phrase or we heard anything and we liked it, we would just write it down and file it away. When he said, “the knowledge,” we just like the way it sounded. That’s where the idea for that song came from, but obviously, Janet expanded upon it lyrically.




At the end of the day, you end up with an album full of songs, but it’s all little things here and there. “Livin’ in a World (They Didn’t Make)” was created due to the school shooting that happened at the time. Janet knew what she wanted to say, but couldn’t figure out exactly how to say it. We were in the process of building a new studio, and Terry walked into the old studio where we were working at, and he had these wallpaper and carpet samples for me to look at. He asked us, “Hey, what do you guys think about this carpet with this wallpaper?” I told him, “Terry, no. no. no. We got this song. We got this concept for this song, but we need lyrics. We need to figure out what it is.” Terry replied, “Okay. What is the song about?” We go into this long dissertation about how it’s not the kids fault because it’s an adult’s world and blah, blah, blah. After we talked to him for ten minutes trying to explain what the song should be, he said, “Oh yeah. Living in a world they didn’t make.” And we said, “Yes. That is it!”

About ten minutes later, he had the lyrics done for the song. He handed them to us and said, “Here you go.” We were like, “Wow. Okay.” And then he asked us, “So, do you think this carpet goes with this wallpaper?” We told him, “Go away. We’re not messing with you right now.” That was the way it all came together. That song was one where she knew what it was supposed to be, but she couldn’t figure it out. But Terry came to the rescue. I call him “lyric master” because he’s able to take long ideas and put them into short phrases that all make sense together. That is his gift amongst many gifts that he has.

Another important part of setting the stage for the sequencing of the record was the interludes. It really set the mood and direction for what was coming next. They made for a great complementary piece.

Well, it was back in the days of making an album, so you were making a piece of work. The idea of stringing it together in some sort or fashion was cool. I think a lot of people who are listening to the record now and that are new fans maybe haven’t heard that done and may think it’s something new. No. Not really. It’s like we’re introducing our songs in a way. The way the record was sequenced, and remember, back then, when we were sequencing records, we were sequencing for side one and side two. So we were able to end the first part of the record with “Livin’ in a World (They Didn’t Make)” and then kick off the second side of the record with “Alright,” which was a celebratory song. So we were able to create moods and take people through ups and downs through the pace we thought was best. We ended with the sexy songs because that’s what we liked to do on those records. We had the opportunity to produce the whole album. Those opportunities are few and far between today, particularly and unfortunately in black music.



This record is one of the last albums that really addressed social issues in such a profound way. It seemed like the music was a perfect complement to the theme of the album. Take me through the process of crafting the music for this album.

This album is totally relevant to what is happening today. It’s weird. It seems to get more relevant the farther we get into the record. It’s really interesting to me. But one of the things we did early on, and the best example I can use is Janet’s song “Nasty” from the Control album. It had this loud, aggressive, industrial type of sound. Those kinds of sounds and sonics were always reserved for either hip-hop music or rock music and usually not with a female artist, and certainly not a female artist that most would think of as a soft spoken female artist.

Once again, as I mentioned earlier, attitude was the key. Because Janet had so much attitude, she could pull off a song like “Nasty.” Her rhythmic sense of singing was so perfect that she became of the funkiness and the instrumentation of the song. It’s akin to the way a great rapper becomes part of the rhythm of a song. Janet had the ability to do that. Going into it, we felt like we could be as aggressive as we wanted to be musically and sonically, and she was going to be able to handle it. So the idea was the use a lot of sounds that were street sounds and sound effects that we would chop up and make and use for drum loops. We used glass breaking, trashcan lids, and stomping feet to create the imagery for the record.

The album needed to sound angry, stark, and have wind blowing in the middle of nowhere. We knew Janet could handle it.

We went back to something that Prince told us a long time ago when we were working with him on the Time records. He always said, “You guys need to make these visual records.” At that time, he wasn’t a big fan of music videos. He felt like music videos put a visual in your mind. He expressed that it should be the music that puts a visual in your mind. We always kept that in mind, in particular, with Rhythm Nation 1814. The album needed to sound angry, stark, and have wind blowing in the middle of nowhere. We had it sound that way because we knew Janet could handle it.

But we were also able to have fun and do “Come Back to Me,” which is one of the most beautiful songs she has done. It was her idea to put the live strings on that record. I never heard strings on the record. I just heard it as a very simple song. She said, “Don’t you think strings would sound great on this?” I replied, “I don’t really hear them.” She said, “No. They would sound beautiful.” We had a gentleman in Minneapolis named Lee Blaske, and Lee had done strings for us on other projects. We gave it to him, and we told him, “Okay. String arrangement!” Lee said, “What do you hear on it?” We said, “We have no idea. Janet wanted strings on here.” He came up with this beautiful string arrangement. If you listen to the end of the song, we actually ended it with just the strings, and we faded the music out. We let the strings sing because it was amazing what he came up with.

Do you believe it was Janet’s intent to leave an indelible mark in recording history with this album?

I think she always had the aspirations to do such an album. The comparison that we always hear about is to Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On album from 1971. In our minds, we wanted to make something significant, but at the same time, we knew the way to reach people was through dance, because that was the thing that Janet did really well, and she understood that. So while lyrically it was important to reach people, it needed to be dressed up in a way where people didn’t know they were learning something. It was our sense to do that and how to achieve both things, and I think we were able to do it.

Imagine a beautiful colored picture of Janet on the cover, the album is entitled Escapade... Would we have made the same impact?

Beyond the making of the record, the presentation of it was just as important as the making of it. If you think about the sequence of the record, it makes total sense to me to start with “Rhythm Nation” because that’s the theme of the album. We go straight into “State of the World” then to “The Knowledge” and the three songs segued together and that was perfectly done. Then we go into “Miss You Much,” which was a number one hit smash for four weeks. Now, think about this for a minute. I think it was gutsy on her part and on A&M Records part to allow us to go with those three songs up front with black and white imagery and a long film, but all of those things worked well together.

If you take the same album – and this would’ve been the safe way to go – imagine a beautiful colored picture of Janet on the cover, the album is entitled Escapade, we start the album with “Miss You Much” then to “Love Will Never Do (Without You)” then to “Escapade,” and we put all the fun songs up front, and then, on side two, the last three or four songs would’ve been “Livin’ in a World (They Didn’t Make),” “The Knowledge,” and “Rhythm Nation” and they would’ve been an afterthought. They’re the same songs, but would we have made the same impact?




Can you talk about the film a bit?

It took us about six months to do the album. The only person who heard anything that we were working on was John McClain. I remember at one point there was this guy named Rich Frankel. Rich Frankel was the art director for A&M Records. He was a super talented guy. He created the artwork for the album. He had the artwork for Rhythm Nation 1814, which all of us wanted to see. As the album was finishing up, we knew in our minds, conceptually, what it should be. It should’ve been black and white imagery. We wanted to know what he came up with.

Rich decided he was going to come to Minneapolis to show us his artwork. I remember Rich gets to the door of the studio. I opened up the door and said, “Hey Rich, how are you?” He replied, “Good. How are you?” He was freezing his tail off and just shivering. In his hand, he had an envelope. I asked him, “Is that the artwork for the album?” He said, “Yes.” I took the artwork from his hand and I said, “Thank you very much.” And I closed the door. Rich never got in the door to hear the record. He flew all the way in the town just for that. I tell that story to say that we were pretty much done with the record, and we were in the mixing stage. Nobody from the label has heard anything. They knew Rhythm Nation 1814 was the concept because they had to start doing the artwork for the album and generating photo sessions.

If you listen to the beginning of “Nasty,” underneath the drums on that song, there is this wind sound. That same sound is in some of the drums at the beginning of “Miss You Much.”

Janet wanted to do this short film to incorporate “Miss You Much,” “The Knowledge,” and “Rhythm Nation,” and tell the story of the album conceptually. Janet went to the record company and asked them for one million dollars to do the short film. The record company told her that they haven’t heard any music and you want us to give you one million dollars. Janet called me and said, “They want to hear some music. What should I do?” I remember at the time she just brought a brand new Range Rover, and she was living in Malibu. I asked her, “Who do you need to play the music for?” She said, “I need to play it for Gil Friesen.”

At that time, Gil Friesen was the president of A&M. I said, “Okay. Here is what I would suggest. Pick three songs that you think that are cool. Don’t go to his office. Pick him up in your brand new Range Rover and drive him down Pacific Coast Highway. You’ll have the ocean at your side. Blast the three songs that you like. If sitting in a brand new Range Rover in Malibu looking at the ocean with Janet Jackson playing you songs that nobody has ever heard, doesn’t get you your million dollars then nothing is going to get your million dollars.” That was my theory. Janet called me back three or four hours later, and she said, “We got our budget.”

What musical instruments and equipment did you and Terry Lewis utilize to craft the overall sound on each record on the album?

I already mentioned the SP-1200, which was a significant drum machine. I thought the drum sounds were a big part of the Control album. We always thought that “Miss You Much” was going to be the first single. If you think about the way that song starts out, it’s just the drum beat, but it has this sound underneath that comes from a keyboard called the Mirage, and that sound was the only sound left over from the Control album that we used on the Rhythm Nation 1814 album. It was about creating a different landscape sonically, but having one thing to tie it together. If you listen to the beginning of “Nasty,” underneath the drums on that song, there is this wind sound. That same sound is in some of the drums at the beginning of “Miss You Much.” In a subliminal way, I thought it was great way to bridge Control to Rhythm Nation 1814 and not look back. The Mirage keyboard was the only one that got used from the Control album. The Mirage sound was also in “Escapade” and “Love Will Never Do (Without You).”

There was a lot of sampling. Nowadays, you can make a sample as long as you want it because everything is digital recording. But back then, I had an AMS delay that had six seconds of sampling on it. I would do it either by hand just by pushing the button and triggering the samples or I would feed the kit drummer something on the one, so it could trigger the sample. It was very old fashioned. I had to not only sit there at the control and turn the wheel up to let the pulse come in to it to start the sample, but then I would turn the wheel off. Somehow it worked. There were other ways to do it, but I wasn’t technically proficient at sampling, but I did know how to get things into the AMS.

I never sequenced any of the keyboards.

There was a drum machine that a company called Sequential Circuits made. It had these great sounds like trashcan lids and all that. It wasn’t supposed to sound like that, but if you tuned it, that’s what it sounded like. So we ended up using a lot of that, and I played that by free hand. I never sequenced anything on those records back then. Everything was on analog tape and nothing was sequenced, although I would put a sequence in the drum machine, but then I would switch by hand from part to part, but I never sequenced any of the keyboards.

This drove people crazy because when we put something out for a remix, they would ask, “What’s the start time? We would say, “We don’t know.” We would just turn the tape on and start playing, and it drove people crazy. We actually devised a way to get people the information they needed. There were a lot of great remixes to this record. Shep Pettibone did a lot of great stuff on that record. Frankie Knuckles did some stuff for us on that record as well. The usage of live strings on “Come Back to Me” and “Livin’ in a World (They Didn’t Make)” was really cool. I had the Oberheim 8 (OB-8) keyboard in the studio and that was my go-to instrument.

We mixed Rhythm Nation 1814 at our new Flyte Tyme Studios. We bought this new board called a Harrison Series 10. We were the first ones to have it. The whole studio was basically saw dust and shambles except for the mix room. The mix room was immaculate. It was the first record we did at our new studio. Technology-wise it was about as state-of-the-art as we could get.

After the success of Control, Janet was still regarded as Michael’s little sister and a one album wonder. Can you delve into Janet Jackson’s work ethic and talent during the making of this album?

She outworked most of the people we worked with. Janet did all of her background vocals and not just the lead vocals. The idea with her has always been that she does all of her own vocals, so that it’s totally a Janet record. If you think about the way we did the harmonies for this album, I think about the song “Love Will Never Do (Without You),” which had some of the most intricate harmonies, particularly at the end of the song, where things are overlapping each other.

Once Janet goes in the room to sing, she is not coming out until she’s done. She may be in there three to four hours or sometimes longer.

There may be 32 tracks of vocals at that point in the song, where we would take a four part harmony and we have her do each note four times, which would be sixteen takes. If we had to put another part on top of that, we would do the same thing, so then there would be 32 vocal takes not counting the leads. What we would do is we would do the backgrounds first to get her voice warmed up, so when it came time to do the leads, it was simple, because her voice had warmed up. It takes a lot discipline and work ethic to do that. To me, the only person close to Janet in that regard is Ralph Tresvant from New Edition.

Once Janet goes in the room to sing, she is not coming out until she’s done. She may be in there three to four hours or sometimes longer and we felt really bad, but she wanted to stay in there. So, she would work and hit every note. Sometimes, I would give her a harmony where the notes would be right next to each other and they would sound horrible. It just wouldn’t work. I would say to her, “These two notes may not sound right until I get the next note on here, but trust me it’s going to work.” She said, “Okay. I trust you, Jimmy.” She would sing it. Then, when we put the next note on it, it would be this harmony, and it would turn out crazy in a good way. Janet was totally committed to everything. She worked long hours.

We would watch her transform the last two months of doing the record. She would be in the snow running, or on the bike in the studio. She worked her butt off.

Away from the studio she was still doing the business of being Janet Jackson. She was setting up the tour, because she knew she was going to go on tour behind Rhythm Nation 1814. She was going through artwork and credits that needed to be done. There were several deadlines outside of the recording of the record. The other thing she did and I liken her to a fighter between fights, Janet loves food between fights, but when it came time to take those pictures and make those music videos, Janet would shut all that down.

She would work out every single day with her trainer, Tony Martinez. She would be on a limited number of carbs she could eat, and we could always tell when she was doing that, because she wasn’t quite as nice as when she was allowed to eat what she wanted. But she would work. We would watch her transform the last two months of doing the record. She would work so hard to lose the weight and there weren’t any tricks involved. She would be in the snow running, or on the bike in the studio. She worked her butt off, so when you talk about work ethic, it’s not only about what she did in the studio, but it was her handling the business of being Janet Jackson.



As you look back 25 years later, how do feel about the long lasting impact the album has made on popular culture, and how it transformed production methods for both pop and R&B music thereafter?

The album has taken a life of its own and it’s still current. It’s a reflection of how music is heard today. It did statistically well. All those statistics are the last things that Terry and I worry about because we don’t think it tells the whole story. At the end of the day, you have a bunch of number one records, top five records, and you’re on the charts for three different years. They’re great stats, but it’s all the little stories and little things that all go to what the result that Rhythm Nation 1814 became. It goes to not only the choices that were made, but the ones that weren’t made.

Steve Hodge, the engineer, was in an absolute zone, because he mixed Janet’s Control album, then he started working full-time for us when we started working with The Human League. Everything fell into the right places. A&M Records was in a great place. Charlie Minor was a great promotion man. I mentioned Rich Frankel before. Herb Alpert was great. John McClain, who is a genius in my book, was important to this record. We just had all the right people involved. It was the right time. We’ve been fortunate the have this happen to us a few times. Rhythm Nation 1814 was one of those albums that had the hand of God on it, for whatever reason. The mistakes we could’ve made; we didn’t. I’m very proud and humble to have played a part in making this album.

Original link http://www.redbullmusicacademy.com/magazine/jimmy-jam-interview

Happy 50th D’Angelo: https://chrisp.bandcamp.com/track/d-50

i must have listened to this a million times when it came out

ive not heard it in about 20 years but it was jam and lewis taking all those industrial ideas in 80s music and making it into a sort of cyber R&B... not the whole thing obviously, but for at least half of the album. they did some serious work on the sonics. im sure they were listening to what PE had been doing.

im not sure about nasty being like new jack swing, like jam and lewis say. again, thats pretty heavy, blocky, and mechanically funky (in a good way i mean), whereas NJS was more just about being funky... jam and lewis seemed closer to the electro side of things than the hip hop side of things, i.e. njs. but i loved alright and always saw it as a swingbeat record. but if they mean janet was singing with attitude, then yeah, i definitely see the comparison. NJS was about singing with hip hop attitude, which janet was doing on control, even if the beats werent all that hip hop influenced.