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The Janet Jackson Accomplishments Thread


Mr. Wonder

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47 minutes ago, eli's_rhythm said:

No, I didn't. Imagery and success don't always impart more influence. Janet is her most successful album, after all. Does that make it more influential than the other three?

You did. 

"It justwasn't as huge as RN or Control, and its imagery isn't as iconic, so it's harder to place in her cannon of essentials."

This is why TVR isn't ranking next to RN1814 or Control. Not only were they much more successful, but they're herald as Janet's signature albums. And dare we not even talk about significance. 

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3 hours ago, Mr. Wonder said:

You did. 

"It justwasn't as huge as RN or Control, and its imagery isn't as iconic, so it's harder to place in her cannon of essentials."

This is why TVR isn't ranking next to RN1814 or Control. Not only were they much more successful, but they're herald as Janet's signature albums. And dare we not even talk about significance. 

 

They are definitely her signature albums. But TVR is just as acclaimed and just as influential. We are talking about different things.

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5 hours ago, eli's_rhythm said:

They are definitely her signature albums. But TVR is just as acclaimed and just as influential. We are talking about different things.

I'm talking about Control and RN1814 being her signature albums, the most iconic, and hold the greatest significance in Janet's career and shaping the progression of popular music. You're talking about something different. ^_^

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  • 1 year later...

The 80 greatest albums of the 1980s by Rock Hall Inductees

 

 

 
8ef_controljanet.jpeg

9. Janet Jackson – “Control” (1986)

 

If you posed the question "What is Janet Jackson's best album?" five, 10, even 15 years ago, hands down the answer would be "Rhythm Nation 1814." But as time goes on, those songs don't stay with you as much as the ones from Janet's coming out party "Control." Jackson's third album overcame a lot. It made people forget about its two lackluster predecessors and effectively removed her from the shadow of her famous family. More importantly, Jackson (along with producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis) reshaped R&B into a pop and dance driven format that would lay the groundwork for New Jack Swing. By the 1990s, everyone, including Janet's big brother Michael, was jacking her style.

 

 

a89_janetrhy.jpeg

58. Janet Jackson – “Rhythm Nation 1814” (1989)

 

Because it was such a creative leap forward, "Rhythm Nation 1814" is often considered Janet Jackson's most iconic album. The  concept focused on social issues with Jackson proving herself a formidable commentator. R&B and pop had never quite seen an album like this; not with its dance grooves that helped establish New Jack Swing.

 

https://www.cleveland.com/life-and-culture/j66j-2020/03/dab97c695a9775/80-greatest-albums-of-the-1980s-by-rock-and-roll-hall-of-famers.html

 

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More importantly, Jackson (along with producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis) reshaped R&B into a pop and dance driven format that would lay the groundwork for New Jack Swing. By the 1990s, everyone, including Janet's big brother Michael, was jacking her style.

That  ladies and gentleman is called IMPACT. INFLUENCE. CHANGING THE MUSICAL LANDSCAPE. PUSHING MUSIC FORWARD.

C11uVY8.gif

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5 hours ago, Lenzo88 said:

Rolling Stone has re-released their 500 Greatest Albums of all time. While Rhythm Nation (#339) and The Velvet Rope (#318) remain, Control was added at #111!  And yes, both RN and TVR went down on the list, originally #277 and #259 respectively. 
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/best-albums-of-all-time-1062063/

Meant to do this earlier, but alas. 

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On 3/23/2020 at 9:28 AM, hotboy06 said:

 

 

That  ladies and gentleman is called IMPACT. INFLUENCE. CHANGING THE MUSICAL LANDSCAPE. PUSHING MUSIC FORWARD.

C11uVY8.gif

YES. Changing the actual sound of music itself. I love when artists push the boundaries of music. Janet, Jimmy Jam, and Terry Lewis created a whole new subgenre that influenced the next decade of pop and r&b. Not many artists can say they inspired a whole generation of acts MUSICALLY, and not just because they were a big star.

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On 9/17/2018 at 10:36 AM, Mr. Wonder said:

You did. 

"It justwasn't as huge as RN or Control, and its imagery isn't as iconic, so it's harder to place in her cannon of essentials."

This is why TVR isn't ranking next to RN1814 or Control. Not only were they much more successful, but they're herald as Janet's signature albums. And dare we not even talk about significance. 

 

Yes it is! With both those albums on Rolling Stone’s Greatest Albums of all time. 🙄🙄😲 Not to mention numerous other best albums of all time lists! In fact, the biggest highlights have always been showcased by Control, RN and TVR in terms of her timeless impact on pop culture history! Janet. may be her beat selling album but that era is comparable to the inventive reinventions of those eras clearly.

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  • 10 months later...

The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time

475. Janet Jackson, 'Rhythm Nation'

WRITER(S):James Harris, Janet Jackson, Sly Stone, Terry Lewis

Jackson’s socially conscious Number Two hit came together late in the sessions for her blockbuster LP Rhythm Nation 1814. Co-producer Jimmy Jam recalled being in the studio and “switching between MTV and CNN. Watching music videos on one side and watching atrocities on the other. Somehow they all merged together. The idea for ‘Rhythm Nation’ was you can dance, but we can also do something more intelligent.” When Jam heard Sly and the Family Stone’s “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)” at a restaurant, he raced to the studio to sample it.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/best-songs-of-all-time-1224767/janet-jackson-rhythm-nation-3-1224862/

 

 

 

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On 9/17/2018 at 11:23 AM, eli's_rhythm said:

They are definitely her signature albums. But TVR is just as acclaimed and just as influential. We are talking about different things.

idk why i'm just now seeing this but TVR is definitely not just as acclaimed as Control and RN, like at all. Maybe in the JanFam but not the general public

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On 9/15/2021 at 12:05 PM, Mr. Wonder said:

The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time

475. Janet Jackson, 'Rhythm Nation'

WRITER(S):James Harris, Janet Jackson, Sly Stone, Terry Lewis

Jackson’s socially conscious Number Two hit came together late in the sessions for her blockbuster LP Rhythm Nation 1814. Co-producer Jimmy Jam recalled being in the studio and “switching between MTV and CNN. Watching music videos on one side and watching atrocities on the other. Somehow they all merged together. The idea for ‘Rhythm Nation’ was you can dance, but we can also do something more intelligent.” When Jam heard Sly and the Family Stone’s “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)” at a restaurant, he raced to the studio to sample it.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/best-songs-of-all-time-1224767/janet-jackson-rhythm-nation-3-1224862/

 

 

 

the fact they RS has 3 Britney songs ahead of Rhythm Nation sends me smh

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  • 8 months later...

Slant: The 100 Best Dance Songs of All Time

 

29. Janet Jackson, “The Pleasure Principle” (1986)

It’s human instinct to seek pleasure and avoid pain, but Freud argued that the matured ego “no longer lets itself be governed by the pleasure principle, but obeys the reality principle,” or, more simply, defers said pleasure. Janet Jackson certainly followed this paradigm in her musical career, delaying her sexual satisfaction until the very end of her first two blockbuster albums and not fully submitting to it until 1993’s janet. While she took the reins of her professional life on her 1986 breakthrough, Control, the album’s final single, “The Pleasure Principle,” found her taking control of a personal relationship by refusing to settle for loveless materialism: “What I thought was happiness was only part time bliss.” Written and produced by one-time Prince keyboardist and Jam and Lewis cohort Monte Moir, the entire song parallels a fleeting love affair with a ride in a limousine, while the synths bump like busted shock absorbers and the electric guitar screeches like rubber on pavement. Janet (vis-à-vis Moir) invokes “Big Yellow Taxi,” a song she would more blatantly call on for 1997’s “Got ‘Til It’s Gone,” while Moir, Jam, and Lewis pave over every soul tradition to put up a clanking, whirring, smashing industrial park. Cinquemani

 

24. Janet Jackson, “Rhythm Nation” (1989)

 

The sonic playroom that Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis built for their pet wind-up pop star Janet Jackson and her do-over debut, Control, already sounded like the Minneapolis sound declaring war on quiet storm R&B. So it was almost a given that the junior high ethics lessons of the Rhythm Nation project ended up literalizing Jam-Lewis’s drum programming-as-armament. “We are a nation with no geographic boundaries,” Janet drones without a trace of humor, “pushing toward a world rid of color lines.” Get the point? Good, now let’s dance with nunchucks. “Rhythm Nation” snatches an indelible sample of Larry Graham’s “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)” bass licks, but shifts Sly Stone’s guarded political optimism into a direct attack on the 1980s’ culture of indifference. Janet’s interest in the state of the world only lasted for about half an LP side, but maybe that’s part of the statement. First beat justice into the system, then lean back and let the escapades begin. 

https://www.slantmagazine.com/music/100-greatest-dance-songs/

 

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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

 

 

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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/

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 10/5/2022 at 9:56 AM, Mr. Wonder said:

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/

I'm really surprised they like "If" better than her 2 other classic no.1s. Actually I like "If" better than "Together Again" anyway

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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/

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