Mr. Wonder

This is always a defining question.

Joyeux Anniversaire

There's likely already a vault. There's a few songs from RN we haven't heard, along with a few others from other albums. There appears to be a continuation of the tour next year, so maybe then she'll release something. Would be smart rather than trying to tour overseas with no new music or having done anything in years.

That album ain't coming. I wouldn't be surprised if it was scrapped and they decided to do something else.

It never ends.

CBTM

Did you?

FHTF

janet. is getting a deluxe edition. https://www.udiscovermusic.com/news/janet-jackson-janet-album-deluxe-anniversary-editions/

Kelly covers WITOY.

It's never too late to accept Her into your heart. Welcome.

Runaway LWND

Ya'll got your tickets, right?

Well it's about time. They have to induct Chic/Nike Rogers at some point too.

Skai Jackson dressed up as Janet.

If is the more "dancey" track, if that makes sense. As a dance track, If is better than the other two.

Rolling Stone: The 50 Greatest Concept Albums of All Time 20| Janet Jackson 'Control' 1986 The Concept: The youngest member of the Jackson clan takes ownership of her career, image, music, sexuality, and life. The Execution: No longer willing to simply do what she was told, Janet Jackson fired her manager (her notoriously controlling father) and annulled her marriage in the mid-Eighties. Her new manager introduced her to Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, members of Minneapolis funk legends the Time, and that meeting led to Control, an emancipatory statement of purpose that would go on to influence the development of New Jack Swing. Control is a high-octane pop-soul record — seven of its nine tracks were singles — that features Jackson’s airborne soprano and rebellious spirit not just in the pumping kiss-offs “Nasty” and “What Have You Done for Me Lately,” but on the joyous “When I Think of You” and the stretched-out slow jam “Funny How Time Flies (When You’re Having Fun).” —M.J. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/best-concept-albums-1234604040/janet-jackson-19-1234604445/

Pitchfork: The 250 Best Songs of the 1990s 146. Janet Jackson: “That’s the Way Love Goes” (1993) Ephemeral, transcendent, sensual, groovy—“That’s the Way Love Goes” is less a song than it is a vibe. From the first bouncy downbeat, your back relaxes, your head nods, and you let out a sigh: That is the way love goes. How can one feel so horny yet so chill at the same time? With Jackson’s whispering vocals over Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis’ delicate, soulful beat, it is one of the greatest songs ever released about the overwhelming yet meditative pangs of lust, hypnotic, like desire itself. “That’s the Way Love Goes” was a mega-hit—the longest-running No. 1 single of any Jackson family artist—and the song, like the janet. album it appeared on, exposed us to a new Jackson: still soft-spoken but confident in her sexuality, her body, and her desire. –Samhita Mukhopadhyay 110. Janet Jackson: “Together Again” (1997) On the surface, “Together Again” borders on Hallmark-card triteness: It features a childlike, major-key melody, a peppy disco-house beat, and a hook that goes, “Everywhere I go, every smile I see/I know you are there smilin’ back at me.” But Jackson wrote the lyric about personal friends she’d lost to AIDS, and the song’s co-mingling of plucky cheerfulness and crestfallen grief makes it both winsome and wistful, echoing the spirit of the Supremes’ classic “Someday We’ll Be Together.” In 1997, the world was in the second decade of the AIDS crisis, yet few mainstream pop stars had creatively responded to the epidemic, despite the deaths of musicians like Freddie Mercury and Eazy E, and the disproportionate effect of HIV and AIDS on LGBTQ+ communities of color. By paying tribute to the departed, this No. 1 hit became an intervention, a cause—an upbeat rallying cry when we needed it the most. –Jason King 50. Janet Jackson: “If” (1993) Janet Jackson is staring down an oblivious dude from across the room while thinking some very naughty thoughts. “If you like I’ll go down, da-down, down, down, da-down, down,” she mumbles in a hypnotic monotone, before opening up her voice to underline the innuendo, “Your smooth and shiny feels so good against my lips, sugar.” “If,” the fiercest track from her chart-obliterating janet. album, clears a path for her freakiest fantasies. The production, by Janet and her longtime collaborators Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, is a genre-defying riot—feral guitars that bring to mind prog rocker Robert Fripp smashed together with an artfully flipped Supremes sample and steel-hard hip-hop drums inspired by Public Enemy. Urged on by the turbocharged beat—and a dance-heavy video where Janet memorably pushes a guy’s head toward her crotch—this horny hypothetical of a song is fully realized. –Ryan Dombal https://pitchfork.com/features/lists-and-guides/the-best-songs-of-the-1990s/

Pitchfork: The 150 Best Albums of the 1990s 38. JanetJackson: janet. (1993) Released a few months before Janet Jackson made her film debut in the John Singleton picture Poetic Justice, janet. oozed maturity from a distinctive and ravenous narrator tapping into the intimacy of blues and the expansive improvisation of jazz. Urged on by trusted collaborators Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, Jackson co-wrote and co-produced every song on the record, and her gift for arrangements culminated in a project that was revelatory without pretense and assertive with its candor. A deeply personal undertaking, janet. irrevocably shifted the public and private inclinations of a society raised to visualize and consume: Tracks like “That’s the Way Love Goes,” “If” and “Any Time, Any Place” illustrated the depths and context of her desire and longing for liberation. The record had a seismic influence on artists working inside pop and R&B, as well as a generation that would make pleasure and sexual autonomy a cornerstone of their brands and lyrical signatures in hip-hop. –Tarisai Ngangura 7. Janet Jackson: The Velvet Rope (1997) Having sexually blossomed in public on 1993’s janet., Janet Jackson then turned inward to water her spiritual garden, laying out her open invitation during the title track: “Come with me inside/Inside my velvet rope.” A meta-meditation on her consciousness, 1997’s The Velvet Rope plumbs the depths of Jackson’s mind, from love in retrospect (“Got ’Til It’s Gone”) to love in the metaphysical future (“Together Again”). Here, rope represents not just a relinquished barrier to intimacy, but also a facilitator for bondage play, and the inner world built by Jackson and her trusty collaborators (Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis, and then-husband René Elizondo Jr.) is fully realized. Lyrical and musical themes double back and riff off each other throughout; the proto-footwork snare clatter of “Empty,” for example, reverberates to much different effect in the album’s quiet-storm stunner “Anything.” The resulting cohesion is stronger than on any other Jackson album, particularly during Rope’s back half, a suite of slow jams that mine facets of a full-blown aesthetic of chill. That Jackson would drop such a mellow and musically daring record after signing what was then the biggest recording contract of all time (an $80 million re-up with Virgin) is a quintessentially Janet move: introverted in its extroversion, the quietest of roars. –Rich Juzwiak https://pitchfork.com/features/lists-and-guides/the-best-albums-of-the-1990s/?utm_medium=social&mbid=social_twitter&utm_social-type=owned&utm_brand=p4k&utm_source=twitter

Ya'll talking about the album that's been finished for like a year now?

RN.

She gonna need to invest in production and costumes going forward for obvious reasons tbh.