JANET   JACKSON

BY STEREO WILLIAMS

1993

Since her 1986 breakthrough, Janet Jackson had been on a historic run. Having spent seven years on a remarkable pop tear that saw her become one of the biggest stars in music, by 1993, Janet was heading in a new direction. Her previous album, the titanic Rhythm Nation 1814, featured topical subject matter and thematic videos, and saw Janet’s image draped in semi-androgynous fashion sensibilities. But she’d hinted at what her next phase would be with the Herb Ritts-directed music video for 1990’s “Love Will Never Do (Without You),” which famously dropped the squared jackets and baseball caps of Nation’s earlier videos -- instead showcasing a svelte and sexy Janet in the desert. 

That image shift would inform her 1993-94 janet. album and campaign. Also, she’d taken a more direct hand in the songwriting process this time around. Her blockbuster contract with Virgin in 1991 led to chatter that she was coasting on her hitmaking producers and famous last name; but it goaded her into taking an active role in the writing and production on janet. And the singular album title was also intended to reflect her singular focus and a dismissal of any associations as the source of her success. This album is presented as “janet -- PERIOD.” 

She announced her 1993 return that spring, with a sultry, James Brown-sampling jewel called “That’s the Way Love Goes.” Janet had to face the daunting task of living up to the blockbuster success of Rhythm Nation 1814, an album that maintained a chart presence for the better part of three years and navigating the shifting musical landscape in R&B circa 1993. Janet Jackson’s sound would move away from the industrial new jack swing of Nation to something earthier, acknowledging mainstream R&B’s shift into both Toni Braxton-led smooth urban contemporary and Mary J. Blige-esque hip-hop soul. 

Her look was sexier -- but Janet’s image shift was more than just cosmetic. She’d embraced a “round-the-way-girl” aesthetic that suddenly presented her as the superstar-next-door, lounging with her friends and dancers in the omnipresent music videos for “That’s the Way Love Goes” and 1994s “You Want This,” confidently rocking her braids (adopted for Poetic Justice, the John Singleton-directed romantic drama she starred in that July) and other hairstyles that were more evocative of the neighborhood than the glam styles she’d sported in the 1980s and early 1990s. It was the kind of persona most megastars of the previous decade wouldn’t have been able to pull off with such sincerity. 

And her commercial clout was as formidable as ever. As so many other ‘80s superstars became embroiled in various controversies or experienced slippage in sales and/or chart success, Janet Jackson was soaring. janet. sold four million copies in the United States in 1993, and the album would yield six top 10 hits, two of which (“That’s the Way Love Goes” and the Poetic Justice torch song “Again”) hit No. 1. It would go on to become Janet’s best-selling studio album, surpassing 7 million copies sold in America. She’d opened the decade riding the wave of a monstrously successful album, but it was 1993’s janet. that cemented Janet Jackson as one of the defining artists of the 1990s.

Wrapped in quotes cuz JoeJoe.

 

 

BILLBOARD THE GREATEST POP STAR BY YEAR (1981-2019) 

1990

Birthday party at a roller rink? Yes. High school dance in a gymnasium? Yes. Suburban car ride with your mother to the dentist? Yes. All over MTV, inspiring you to try out militaristic fashions? For better or worse, also yes. Everywhere you looked, or listened, in 1990, Janet Jackson was there, soundtracking every moment in your life -- from the magnificent to the mundane -- with the socially conscious, message-laden smashes from her pop and R&B powerhouse of a fourth album, Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814. 

It arrived in September 1989, more than three years after she blew open the doors of modern R&B with the funky, in-your-face statement piece (and call for her own independence) that was Control, her first collaboration with her now-career-spanning producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. But while Control found Jackson self-reflective, she turned the mirror around on Rhythm Nation to show images of poverty, racism and substance abuse. The messages shared threads with those coming out of hip-hop at the time from Public Enemy, Salt-N-Pepa and N.W.A, but unlike those contemporaries, Jackson’s music came in a pop and R&B package whose call-to-action was twofold: pay attention, but also dance. 

If you were lucky, you got the Rhythm Nation black cassette tape to pop into your Walkman for Christmas in 1989. But even if you weren’t, the songs were inescapable through 1990, yielding her a record seven top five hits on the Billboard Hot 100 from 1989-1991, with four of those -- “Miss You Much,” “Love Will Never Do (Without You),” “Escapade,” and “Black Cat” -- going all the way to No. 1. Jackson’s album had already reached platinum status by November 1989, and the accolades kept coming with four Grammy nominations for the then-23-year-old, including producer of the year, announced right after the new year.  

She collected her first Grammy in February for the 30-minute Rhythm Nation music video, and only days later, embarked on her first-ever concert tour.. The international headlining venture was a huge step for Jackson, who never played shows for Control, despite its multi-platinum status. Some speculated it had to do with nerves, but as she told MTV at the time, she wanted to wait to tour until she had more songs under her belt. The tour wrapped in November after nine months, grossing $28.1 million for 89 shows. 

For those who couldn’t see her on the road, MTV kept fans sated with tour updates, performances -- including a bra-bearing rendition of “Black Cat” at the VMAs in September -- and of course, stunning music videos. In addition to 1989’s choreography-heavy black-and-white clips for “Miss You Much” and “Rhythm Nation,” MTV’s Janet-filled rotation in 1990 also included the dreamy close-ups of Jackson in Paris in “Come Back to Me”; the carnival-like, colorful atmosphere of “Escapade”; Jackson breaking it down in a zoot suit, with a guest appearance from Cab Calloway, for “Alright”; the fierce live concert footage assembled for “Black Cat”; and a return to B&W for the gorgeous Herb Ritts-shot (and Antonio Sabato Jr co-starring) “Love Will Never Do (Without You).” 

By the end of 1990, Rhythm Nation’s meager platinum count from 1989 was multiplied by five, making it the best-selling album of the year. The Grammys also weren’t done with her quite yet, adding three more nominations for her Rhythm Nation material, but no more wins, at the 33rd annual ceremony in 1991. Those nods included one for best rock vocal performance, female, for the Jellybean Johnson-produced (and Janet solo-penned) “Black Cat”: a nomination that proved Jackson, consistently labeled R&B, was too versatile to be contained to one category. She might have released Control in 1986, but 1990 felt like the year she truly took it.

https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/list/9338589/greatest-pop-star-every-year