Read the swipe and start your debating engines...

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

I love that is a socially conscious record and it has classic songs on it, but the dated production on it prevents it from being seen as timeless in the same way that "What's Going On" is. Is she the most important? I'd hesitate to say that. The article is right in saying she's ridiculously undervalued, given what she accomplished during her run.

http://soundcloud.com/forestbrooks

I play Rhythm Nation and I just here that classic Jam & Lewis sound that I love.

I love Jam and Lewis production, but their style from that era is very connected to that time. Talking Book and What's Going On don't have that issue, mainly b/c that style is so revered by younger generations and it experienced a resurgence. We've yet to really see New Jack Swing production come back en vogue. So, the music of that era remains connected and in some ways confined to that time period. The songs of that era are brought up as nostalgia pieces, but they have not been universally revered as timeless the way the music of the 70s is.

edit: Add to that, Rhythm Nation is probably Janet's most dated album (not counting the first 2). Sure, you could say control, but early/mid 80s music has experienced a resurgence. So, you have new artists out now aspiring to make their music sound like that and I just don't see that with the late 80s/early 90s era of Jam & Lewis production.

http://soundcloud.com/forestbrooks

Well maybe the more up tempo tracks, but songs like Come Back to Me & Lonely will never go out of style...heck even Escapade is too fun to not listen to.

I mean, you can obviously tell that Drake records were made in the 2010s. Are they "dated" as soon as they come out?

Peace,

Spirit (Alan)
http://wutangbook.com

then they will be dated. If, however, there is a resurgence of his pastiches in that time, then his music will be hailed as timeless. That's kind of how this whole thing works.

edit: Aaliyah is a great example of this. Age Ain't Nothing But a Number is a dope album, but it's very dated. Like you can tell from the production, the drum sounds and all when it was made. Fast forward to her last album, Aaliyah, and that album could come out right now and pretty much slay. The techniques used on that album don't sound as time-specific as her first album. So, at least for the time being, it has a more timeless quality.

http://soundcloud.com/forestbrooks

>We've yet to really see New Jack Swing production
>come back en vogue.

i'd welcome it.

and i wonder when all this trap stuff is gonna start sounding dated!

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

Peace,

Spirit (Alan)
http://wutangbook.com

That doesn't change the fact that it has dated production throughout. For example, look at the use of reverb. The way Jam & Lewis used it sounds awesome, but it's not current. You don't really hear any of today's music doing that. Maybe it'll come back, but for right now that technique is really specific to that era, making it dated. I don't know why y'all are acting like dated is an insult.

http://soundcloud.com/forestbrooks

miss you much, love will never do, alright, escapade, a slow song in "come back to me" that would sound fresh today


@rob_starrk

And that's not bad. I still love it just as much as I did when it came out, but you're bugging if you think those songs wouldn't have to be updated to sound current. I'm not saying the songs aren't great, but the production is dated.

http://soundcloud.com/forestbrooks

This criticism is kinda silly.

i can't

________________________________________
who gonna check me boo?!

www.twitter.com/firefire100
http://instagram.com/firefire100
www.philadelphiaeagles.com

>Read the swipe and start your debating engines...
>
>http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/09/the-world-changing-aspirations-of-rhythm-nation-1814/380144/
>
>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.
>
>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.
>
>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.
>
>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.
>
>

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

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

I battled them in an iTunes playlist and Janet won. I like her music more but Madge is more culturally significant. And Janet IS underrated and undervalued. She should be in the RRHOF.

fuck you.

...and say that if Janet was a white chick...things would be different
Madge's cultural impact was due to her complexion for the protection for the collection
She wouldn't have made it past virgin phase being a sista
Let alone the whole catholic/Jesus thing
Or the erotica/porno phase either!!

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

>...and say that if Janet was a white chick...things would be
>different
>Madge's cultural impact was due to her complexion for the
>protection for the collection
>She wouldn't have made it past virgin phase being a sista
>Let alone the whole catholic/Jesus thing
>Or the erotica/porno phase either!!
>
>
Fa sho. I believe most here would agree with that.

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

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

Madge made more impact than Janet. It's undeniable. She made more music and more ppl worldwide are into it than Janet's. Period.

fuck you.

>Madge made more impact than Janet. It's undeniable. She made
>more music and more ppl worldwide are into it than Janet's.
>Period.

Her being white doesn't have a hand in that at all?

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

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

that's kinda a hard argument to buy considering the amount of crossover success achieved in the 80s by acts like MJ, Prince and Lionel Richie - all of whom are Black.

Madge made music and videos the public liked more than they liked Janet's.

it's okay.

fuck you.

It would be the same?
Janet could have got away with the virgin/playboy thing?
The papa don't preach controversy?
The whole Jesus/catholic thing?
Simulating a hand party in concert?
Making a porno book?
And so on and so on?

No cultural impact for Madonna without the controversey

Not her fault for it either...she gets away with it and is praised for it
Bet if it was her tity...it would be chalked up as Madge being Madge

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

let's break down madonna's controversies.

when ppl talk about how shocking madonna was,
they tend to forget that it is only shocking for a woman to act that way.

her music is not raunchier than led zepplin or the beastie boys.
she wasn't scantily clad until recently, either.
considering how tame she was in comparrison to what male rockstars have done since whenever, madonna caught a tremendous amount of hell.

so I don't know that she really got a pass.


would janet have caught more hell if she acted like madonna?
I mean, maybe. maybe even probably.

But madonna just resonated with more ppl.

that's what it comes down to.
ppl love madonna because they love her songs.
she's a bigger artist.


maybe janet could have had Madonna's career if she had those songs.
But she didn't.

Which is fine.





>It would be the same?
>Janet could have got away with the virgin/playboy thing?
>The papa don't preach controversy?
>The whole Jesus/catholic thing?
>Simulating a hand party in concert?
>Making a porno book?
> And so on and so on?
>
>No cultural impact for Madonna without the controversey
>
>Not her fault for it either...she gets away with it and is
>praised for it
>Bet if it was her tity...it would be chalked up as Madge being
>Madge

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

Are those worldwide numbers?

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

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

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

Why? Madge has made more songs and albums that've been embraced by more ppl. If Janet had those same records I dunno that she'd have sold as many units but I suspect she'd have sold more than 51 million records.

Would Janet have gotten away with Madge's controversies? I dunno that Madge got away with them. I think she might've sold MORE without the controversy.

fuck you.

She got those numbers with less albums
Of course Madonna rules
But my point is that she got over on more than just good music
She knew how to sell records
every single one of her records has some "controversey" attached to it
That's her genius IMO because I don't find myself looking deep into the sequencing of I'm Breathless or how great Causing A Commotion is.

....And Yes she got away with everything because her legacy is intact
She didn't lose anything
Janet is forever tarnished all because of tity gate
Madge's career and legacy would have been fine if she pulled her tit out
Backlash? Maybe..doubt it
Career ending and legacy forever fucked?? No
She was on national TV slobbing chicks down when it was kinda still a touchy thing to do on TV...
Nothing happened...
That Jesus thing was huge and....nothing happened
Which leads back to my initial statement...

If shit was played on even fields...both would be recognized as 80's ladies

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

>She got those numbers with less albums
>Of course Madonna rules
>But my point is that she got over on more than just good music
>
>She knew how to sell records
>every single one of her records has some "controversey"
>attached to it

plenty of them did but not all. there was no controversy w/Who's That Girl. or Ray of Light. or Music. or I'm Breathless. or Bedtime Stories. or Confessions on a Dancefloor. but yes, i agree that Madge often pushed the envelope and took controversial stances on certain hot button issues. but that controversy often HURT her sales - like w/Erotica and that Sex book fiasco. Erotica was considered a commercial flop coming on the heels of the Immaculate Collection compilation album. American Life flopped largely due to controversy over the music video for the title track.

>That's her genius IMO because I don't find myself looking deep
>into the sequencing of I'm Breathless or how great Causing A
>Commotion is.

okay.

>....And Yes she got away with everything because her legacy is
>intact
>She didn't lose anything

she lost plenty, i think.

>Janet is forever tarnished all because of tity gate
>Madge's career and legacy would have been fine if she pulled
>her tit out
>Backlash? Maybe..doubt it
>Career ending and legacy forever fucked?? No

no way.

if Madge had had a wardrobe malfunction while playing the SB halftime in 2004 it would've been the end. it would've come in the wake of her worst performing album in years, American Life, and no one would believe she'd done it on accident. b/c she'd shown so much of her body on purpose through the years and had challenged popular notions of 'decency' and what a woman can and can't do w/her sexuality for decades. everyone would've thought she pulled her tit out on purpose and the right wingers would've said she did so b/c she's debased and lecherous and loose. the cynics in the media would've said she did it b/c she was desperate to sell records after American Life had flopped.

>She was on national TV slobbing chicks down when it was kinda
>still a touchy thing to do on TV...

she did that on MTV during the VMAs, an awards show which is known for controversial music performances. that kind of behavior is somewhat expected and relatively tolerated. if she'd done that at the SB halftime show it would've been the end of her career.

>Nothing happened...

again - context.

>That Jesus thing was huge and....nothing happened

except she lost out on being a Pepsi spokesperson which was pretty huge.

http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20791901,00.html
http://eightiesclub.tripod.com/id135.htm

>Which leads back to my initial statement...
>
>If shit was played on even fields...both would be recognized
>as 80's ladies

they should be recognized as #1s and 2. Madge is the top dog though. it can't be denied.

fuck you.

But J ain't no mutt..which we agree on

We gon disagree that she would have survived pulling her tit out



(But to keep an old school OKP convo going)
The only project that I can think of that didn't have some kind of "Madonna marketing" going on was Music which is one of my favs by her
There was the sean penn thing with who's that
Rodman and the nba was around Bedtime
The Kabbala was Ray of

There's always SOMETHING with her..look at Rebel Heart.
She leaked those tracks
And then those provoking pics...

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

fuck you.

>if Madge had had a wardrobe malfunction while playing the SB
>halftime in 2004 it would've been the end. it would've come
>in the wake of her worst performing album in years, American
>Life, and no one would believe she'd done it on accident. b/c
>she'd shown so much of her body on purpose through the years
>and had challenged popular notions of 'decency' and what a
>woman can and can't do w/her sexuality for decades. everyone
>would've thought she pulled her tit out on purpose and the
>right wingers would've said she did so b/c she's debased and
>lecherous and loose. the cynics in the media would've said
>she did it b/c she was desperate to sell records after
>American Life had flopped.

my initial reaction to the question was "nah, she'd be fine." but yeah, all those reasons make sense.

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

With her history no one would believe it was an accident.

fuck you.

please stop

*************************
your ERA never low enough

and your list serves my point - b/c of those antics no one would've believed she'd accidentally exposed herself, not unlike the way many believe Janet planned to expose herself.

fuck you.

k


don't let that new white man of yours soften you up SW

*************************
your ERA never low enough

and the attempted personal dig is laughably off.

i'd be a fool to continue this. lol

fuck you.

strike a pose snark boy

*************************
your ERA never low enough

b/c Janet is more a hero to MY ppl, love.

i Black.

fuck you.

*************************
your ERA never low enough

good luck w/it.

fuck you.

*************************
your ERA never low enough

It shouldn't be but this is still mind-boggling to me. The fact that audiences loved those black pop stars isn't proof that racism doesnt exist (in the 80s no less lol). It's the same shit as saying "but my best friend is black."

>It shouldn't be but this is still mind-boggling to me. The
>fact that audiences loved those black pop stars isn't proof
>that racism doesnt exist (in the 80s no less lol).

good thing i didn't use it as proof that racism doesn't exist.

It's the
>same shit as saying "but my best friend is black."

oh, i'm sure you think so.

fuck you.

*************************
your ERA never low enough

it's not funny.

FOH.

classless*

*************************
your ERA never low enough

i mean, it should go without saying.

Sade (the band) kicks Jam & Lewis' ass all day except to unrefined ramen & pork & beans eating dummies

*************************
your ERA never low enough

but knock yourself out.

no, really.

run into a brick wall repeatedly.

...eating Omlettte prepared to my WASP specifications*

*************************
your ERA never low enough

well, i AM australian.

us criminals that stole America are a more refined & civilized lot, capable of absorbing the wisdom of our Isis-substitute's giant forehead

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your ERA never low enough

i put her catelog in the argument

talent

songwriting

duets

live performer

rapping square biz free style

Madonna and Janet Jackson are a wash

Whitney in a class all her own though She dominated part 80's and part 90's

if Sade had a couple more releases then she would be in the argument IMO

same with Anita Baker.


however LAdy T in hindsight learned from the Funk Kang and ran thangs,

mistermaxxx R.Kelly, Michael Jackson,Stevie wonder,Rick James,Marvin Gaye,El Debarge, Barry WHite Lionel RIchie,Isleys EWF,Lady T.,Kid creole and coconuts,the crusaders,kc sunshine band,bee gees,jW,sd,NE,JB

Miami Heat, New York Yankees,buffalo bills

eff that c***

*************************
your ERA never low enough

....i agree that she is unvervalued and the fact she isn't in the RRHOA but madonna is is...interesting....

i don't know if i'd say Madonna is the most important either, but it seemed like the "superstar" female artist thing really had legs during the 80's and without some of those ladies you wouldn't have Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, or Beyonce in the same status we see them now...

"yes, sometimes my rhymes are sexist, but you lovely bitches and hos should know i'm tryin to correct it"- hiphopopotamus

Peace,

Spirit (Alan)
http://wutangbook.com

in general

@rob_starrk

Her fortunes swung upward with 2 albums released in the second half of that decade. I think her formula for success is one that's been widely emulated, not unlike how there are a lot of Mike's "children".

I still think as far as her exposure as an artist/entertainer is concerned, Madonna's eclipsed hers in that particular decade. Janet didn't quite start causing controversy until the decade following, for example.

But she definitely showed you how you can "fix it Ralph" your career. Even more so when you have a family member that might be the most famous person to ever exist. LOL.

________________________________________
who gonna check me boo?!

www.twitter.com/firefire100
http://instagram.com/firefire100
www.philadelphiaeagles.com

she & flyte tyme were one of a kind....madonna is not sonically cohesive enough to beat janet. no how, no way

________________________________________
who gonna check me boo?!

www.twitter.com/firefire100
http://instagram.com/firefire100
www.philadelphiaeagles.com

I'm not even a Madonna-stan; while I dig many songs, I was totally metal with a sprinkle of Hip-Hop when she was in her prime so believe me, this has nothing to with standom.

However, the idea that Janet was even remotely on the same level must be some strictly US thing that disregards that there's another world out there. From *my* perspective, Janet might as well be Kylie Minogue compared with Madonna; I feel like I'm in bizarro-world reading shit like this and I like many Janet songs, both in the 80's and-especially-the "Janet" and "elvet rope" albums in the 90's when I was more receptible to this type of music than i was in the 80's and also an era when she probably was more relevant than Madonna who had hit something of a rough spot career wise then even if "Ray of light" brought her back.

Still, I never hear Janet anymore, I hear Madonna all the time. And "Black Cat" is some bullshit, that shit is not better than Warrant, Poison or Winger as far as I'm concerned; even En Vogue's "Free your mind" was a better cock-rock song than that one...

Michael Jackson, Prince, Madonna (replace the order of the last two if you want; I'm going more by artistry-if it's pop-culture status, Madonna beats Prince)-those were *the* icons of the 80's musical world and there's NO competition, not Janet, not Cindy, not the fucking Boss or Huey Lewis (LOL!) or whoever; ask anyone about the 80's and it's those three and if we want to make it race-related, well, two are black, people need *all* of them to be black? Not to sound like an asshole but yeah.. Since Madonna is the only female on the list, do the math...

BTW, Annie Lennox had avant-garde credentials? I always viewed her as the female Sting or at best Peter Gabriel... More MOR edgy than anything else...

so it's not just an american thing.

Janet was big in sweden too but not before "Control" and Madonna already had three massive albums out then...

Anyway, the american thing I'm refering to is the concept of her being on the level of Madonna in the 80's, not that she was big, I know she was (Kylie too outside of the US)...

i just checked the ARIA charts.

She was THE shit in 1990!!!
20 million worldwide for RN
14 million worldwide for like a prayer
And this was when some folks say madonna was at the top of her game
Janet was the biggest selling artist in 1990
Hell....she sold another 20 million for Janet
She was outselling madonna, Prince, Whitney and her brother!!
That doesn't warrant her to be in the conversation?
Sure madonna wins BUT....
She deserves to be in the conversation
Titygate has erased her from the conversation

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

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_Jackson%27s_Rhythm_Nation_1814#Certifications

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Like_a_Prayer_%28album%29#Certifications

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_Jackson%27s_Rhythm_Nation_1814#Weekly_charts

Rhythm Nation sold more copies than Like a Prayer in the USA. but LAP won in just about every foreign territory. check those charts.

RN - 9x plat in USA. LAP - 4x plat in USA.
RN - 1x plat in UK. LAP - 4x plat in UK.
RN - 2x plat in Aus. LAP - 4x plat in Aus.

RN peaked @ #1 on albums charts in USA, Aus, and S. Africa. RN didn't crack the top 10 in several European nations.

LAP peaked @ #1 on albums charts 'everywhere', except Aus.

that's probably why ppl who weren't in the USA for Rhythm Nation don't recall it being as huge as it was here. b/c it wasn't.

fuck you.

We discussed this before
Again we all know Madonna wears the crown
But Janet deserves her props for her accomplishments as well.
She wasn't just a big selling US act..she was global just like Madge
I'm not gonna act like Janet wasn't on her heels or surpassed her in the race a few times.
...and in 1990, Janet was ahead.
That seems to be forgotten these days
..and that was the point of the article and my point as well.

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

fuck you.

but it was only a fleeting moment.

i dont have colors
my mmsic:
www.soundclick.com/sylana
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Brb8g8f18xE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NgNuVHrEKI

That's another one that doesn't get the credit that she deserves...
She will get mentioned
Janet on the other hand has been completely erased from the conversation

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