Tampa Bay Times: "Where have you gone, Janet Jackson? (To Tampa, for starters)"

[SonofBaldwin]

Where have you gone, Janet Jackson? (To Tampa, for starters)

 

 

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Where have you gone, Janet Jackson?

For decades you were among the biggest, baddest pop stars on the planet — as big as Madonna, as big as Prince, maybe even as big as your big brother Michael. None of this is hyperbole — you once meant that much to that many.

And yet when you survey the pop landscape nowadays, it's not always evident what role you played in shaping it. It's far easier to point to artists influenced by Madonna (Lady Gaga), Prince (Janelle Monáe) and Michael Jackson (The Weeknd) than yourself, even though one could make the case that those artists owe you just as much.

There's a simple one-word answer for this: Nipplegate. When Justin Timberlake bared your right breast at halftime of Super Bowl XXXVIII, you became pop persona non grata, your career derailed by an iconic, inflammatory instant. You retreated. The world chose not to follow.

Witch hunts were more in vogue back then; just ask Natalie Maines and the Dixie Chicks. And Timberlake escaped the controversy unscathed, suggesting some collective sexism was at play. That almost certainly would not happen today. Facebook launched exactly three days after Nipplegate. Social media leveled the playing field of public opinion and hastened the cycle of public humiliation. Had Nipplegate happened yesterday, it would already be yesterday's news, with Twitter's hot-takers lining up to your praise your bold, provocative performance.

As it stands, more than a decade later, your career has been, as Joseph Vogel wrote in the Atlantic last year, "grossly undervalued by critics and historians." While Madonna coasted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in her first year of eligibility in 2008, you have never even been nominated. That seems like an oversight for one of the top-selling female artists in history.

But now, you are back. This summer, you received BET's inaugural Ultimate Icon Award for your contributions to music and notched your 40th Billboard Hot 100 single, No Sleeep. Tonight, you'll bring your blockbuster Unbreakable World Tour to Amalie Arena in Tampa. Next week, you'll drop Unbreakable, your first new album in seven years and your first collaboration with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis in nine.

No bones about it: This is your comeback, your statement to the world that you still matter and, more importantly, still have plenty to say. Your fans have long hoped for this moment, even if there were years when it looked like it might never come.

To mark the occasion, we're presenting 30 artists whose careers were directly or indirectly influenced by yours, from Beyonce and Rihanna to Taylor Swift and, yes, even your old rival Madonna.

Where have you gone, Janet Jackson? Nowhere, really. You're all around us. Let us show you where to look.

A NEW TEMPLATE FOR TEEN POP

One class of musicians has always cited you as a major influence: The teen-pop idols of Y2K. We're talking Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Aaliyah, Destiny's Child, Backstreet Boys and N' Sync (there's a reason you and Timberlake were paired up at Super Bowl XXXVIII, you know). These artists may have loved Michael Jackson, Madonna, Whitney Houston and New Edition, but their dancing, their singing, their styling — all of it screamed Janet. You were still a commercial force at this time; All For You, released in 2001, was your last No. 1 hit. But that younger generation inspired mass hysteria around the globe, and set sales records that will never be broken. Every time a new Miley Cyrus or One Direction arises in our culture, it evokes memories of that millennial moment when teen-pop ruled the galaxy. Never forget that you helped make that happen.

EMPOWERED FEMININITY

"This is a story about control. My control. Control of what I say, control of what I do. And this time, I'm gonna do it my way." So began your emancipatory 1986 album Control, your first collaboration with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, and an evolutionary leap forward in your music, all at the ripe old age of 19. Control frequently challenges your would-be suitors — What have you done for me lately? Better be a gentleman, or you'll turn me off. My first name ain't baby, it's Janet ... Ms. Jackson if you're nasty. — but it softens as it progresses, ending with the sparkly wet dream Funny How Time Flies (When You're Having Fun). No female artist, not even Madonna, had ever brought such a scary/soft, tough/sensual dynamic to that wide an audience. The fact that you're African American made this all the more groundbreaking and empowering. It's a template since employed by generations of pop dominatrices who are as likely to seduce you as they are to kick your butt. Just ask Rihanna and Beyonce ... or Ms. Fenty and Mrs. Knowles-Carter, if you're nasty.

THE BLOCKBUSTER POP ALBUM

You might think Michael Jackson's Thriller is the undisputed king of the all-killer, no-filler pop album, having produced five Billboard Top 5 singles. But here's a fun fact: Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation 1814, released seven years later, produced six. No album before or since has produced more. In today's albums-are-dead, singles-rule-all universe, you can practically hear artists reaching, yearning, killing themselves for that kind of chart dominance — Katy Perry on Teenage Dream, Taylor Swift on 1989, the Black Eyed Peas on The E.N.D., The Weeknd on Beauty Behind the Madness. These are some of the biggest, most inescapable, most hit-filled albums of the past decade. And none of them have touched Rhythm Nation.

THE BLOCKBUSTER POP TOUR

You didn't invent the blockbuster pop tour. But as Taylor Swift is proving this year, an A-list pop tour doesn't matter if you don't pull out all the stops. You did not tour after Control, so by the time you announced a slate of shows after Rhythm Nation 1814, your fans were in a frenzy, gobbling up tickets to many shows within minutes, making it the most successful debut tour in history. By the time the tour hit St. Petersburg's then-named Suncoast Dome in 1990, it was a fully realized freight engine, popping the eyes of 19,000 fans with lasers, confetti, costume changes and immaculate choreography. If you think artists like Pink, Lady Gaga and — dare we say it? — Madonna don't look back to the Rhythm Nation Tour for inspiration when plotting their own spectacular roadshows, think again.

GROUNDBREAKING CHOREOGRAPHY

A key component of your live shows and videos is your choreography, which — while not quite as revolutionary as your brother's — still raised the bar for a generation of performers. Your body snaps with militaristic precision, your limbs jutting and cracking with fierce fury. As the New York Times wrote following your Unbreakable World Tour kickoff, Jackson "can suddenly sync an entire room to her angular moves." Among those who have praised your moves are Jennifer Lopez, Usher, Jason Derulo and Justin Bieber, who in 2009, at age 15, tweeted, HOLY CRAP....JANET JACKSON IS IN THE SAME DANCE STUDIO AS ME!!! I NEED TO MEET HER.

EVOLVING STYLE

Like all the best pop chameleons, you have evolved your style over the decades, influencing generations of later performers. The tough, almost masculine wardrobe and attitude you adopted during the Rhythm Nation years captured a certain futuristic androgyny without sacrificing sexiness, an approach later co-opted by the likes of Lady Gaga, Janelle Monae and Sia. For 1993's Janet and 1997's The Velvet Rope, you became much more comfortable in your own skin, provocatively baring (cupped) breasts and midriffs left and right. Over the years you would see that look pop up on countless pop artists — not just Britney Spears, Rihanna and Beyonce, but also Keri Hilson, Ciara and Selena Gomez.

THE FUTURE

And so we come back to the original question: Where do we see your influence today? How are new artists in 2015 pulling from what Jackson gave the pop world nearly 30 years ago? Well, you can hear echoes of her soft, airy voice and strong sensuality in a new generation of R&B singers like Tinashe and Jhene Aiko. The Control/Rhythm Nation/Janet years are a touchstone era of pop and R&B for more experimental artists like FKA Twigs or singer-producer Dev Hynes, who contributed to Carly Rae Jepsen's acclaimed new '80s pastiche Emotion. We'll have to wait a week to see how Unbreakable will impact on the pop world, but the first two singles, Unbreakable and the J. Cole-featuring No Sleeep, are classic Janet, slinky bedroom grooves that could've come from any decade. We're lucky to get it in this one.

Contact Jay Cridlin at cridlin@tampabay.com or (727) 893-8336. Follow @JayCridlin.

Janet Jackson

The singer's Unbreakable World Tour takes place at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Amalie Arena, 401 Channelside Drive, Tampa. $46.25–$126.25. (813) 301-2500. amaliearena.com.

[DarkStormSC]

I'm LIVING for all the (mostly positive) press she's been getting.  And she still hasn't even sat down with a magazine or done a radio or tv interview. 

[SonofBaldwin]

I'm LIVING for all the (mostly positive) press she's been getting.  And she still hasn't even sat down with a magazine or done a radio or tv interview. 

YES.

I am most glad that people are starting to wake up to Janet's contributions to culture. Maybe now they will stop trying to erase her.

[The Sacred Prostitute]

Clap for this hooker! 

[Bailey]

im going to make an induct her tee-shirt to wear at the shows.....R&R should put her in