---

Travis: Hello, Tyler. It is I, Travis. Mr. Petersen if you’re nasty.

Tyler: With that, let’s to Control. Janet Jackson’s big-time breakout hit-laden LP from 1986.  Gimme a beat, Travis.

Travis: I doubt I could give you a beat as infectious as many of those on this album. Other than “Nasty” I wasn’t really familiar with this one until recently, more familiar with songs from its followup Rhythm Nation and her music video hits from the early nineties when I’d sit at home during the summer and watch MTV all day when I wasn’t watching Kids in the Hall or The Price is Right. I remember music videos from her Velvet Rope era where I was honestly paying a lot more attention to how attractive and scantily clad she was than the music, and I also remember her collaboration with Michael, “Scream,” with its crazy black and white on-a-spaceship video.

Farther removed from both puberty and being too cool for pop music, I’m glad to have (re)visited this album.

My general impression of Control now is: this album is good, probably even great!

Tyler: “Nasty” was familiar to me, as were “When I Think Of You” and “What Have You Done For Me Lately.” Rhythm Nation 1814 came after I discovered music videos, and I especially dug the video for “Rhythm Nation,” while becoming very familiar with “Escapade” and “Miss You Much.”  The next one, Janet, was a big ol’ bombshell, Janet getting truly erotic, down to the famous topless cover image.  That was some curious shit for a 10-year-old like myself.

After that, I know some hits—“Scream” being just ridiculous—and recall various kerfuffles about her daring to be carnal in her work.

Travis: It was truly a time to be a young dude with MTV, with Janet, En Vogue, Toni Braxton, and others.

Tyler: Toni Braxton did a world of pubescent MTV-watchers a favor when she revealed that “You’re Makin’ Me High” is about masturbation.

Travis: There is a highly believable urban legend that Toni Braxton caused a rift between then members of the Dallas Mavericks, dudes fighting over her and whatnot.

Tyler: Isn’t there a Braxtons reality show now?

Travis: Probably. To kind of connect all this back to Control, I’d say that those hit songs from En Vogue, Toni Braxton, et al would not be possible without the template set by Control. The Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis production with its programmed, hard-hitting drums, loud synthy bass, prominent keyboards, and hook after hook, really seemed to define what contemporary R&B would become moving forward. Thinking of any popular R&B music from say 1987-1995 it seems that there was at least some influence from what’s going on with this album. Which makes sense, because it topped the charts for like a year and seven–SEVEN!–of its nine songs were singles.

Tyler: That is titanic.  This one was a gamechanger, without doubt.  It took a couple of listens for me to sink into the sound, having not bent my ear in some time toward ‘80s R&B pop.  After I got back into that mindset, the joys of the album were obvious.

I gotta say, she’s so young here.  “All grown up,” sure, comparatively.  But the exuberance, the confidence, they’re a hallmark of her bursting into her own persona.  That make sense?

Travis: For sure. This is her third album, but for all intents and purposes, it’s really her debut “as herself,” as the first two were produced and controlled by her manager father Joe, who probably belongs on the Mount Rushmore of abusive creeps. When he heard this album he swore it was going to be a flop. He was wrong. She had fired him as manager and chose to work with Jam and Lewis for this album, and co-produced the album with them and others. She co-wrote five of the nine songs as well. And she was only nineteen. The opener and title track is truly a statement of independence, in both life and in her art.

Entirely different musical vein, but the statement of purpose right there at the beginning takes me back to our earlier discussion of Patti Smith and “Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine.”

Janet Jackson at nineteen: I’m going to make a genre-defining album that is 80% made up of hit singles.

Me at nineteen: I am going to take this pill I found on the ground.

Tyler: Me at nineteen: <hides homesick in dorm room>

Travis: Shall we talk individual tracks? Faves and not-faves?

Tyler: Certainly.  Hell, where does one even start?

Travis: I’ll start with a brief negative. I think it kinda peters out toward the end. I think the ballads that round out the album are fine, but I enjoy them a lot less than the dance tracks preceding. But that is a minor qualm. This is a tight and compact half and hour of music with way more highs than lows. “The Pleasure Principle” stands out to me for its added level of sexiness–I find it hard to believe people who had heard this would balk at her being “too carnal” later in her career other than to willfully misrepresent that there had always been sex in her music. “He Doesn’t Know I’m Alive” has that mix of upbeat music and wistful lyrics I often find irresistible. And the opening run of three tracks, “Control,” “Nasty,” and “What Have You Done for Me Lately” is a hell of a start.

In taking down notes on this album I found myself unironically just writing “this is a banger. This is also a banger.”

“When I Think of You” has strong Prince vibes, which makes sense since Jam and Lewis cut their teeth as members of Morris Day & The Time.

Tyler: I find myself thinking that a final album-closing banger after “Funny How Time Flies (When You’re Having Fun)” might’ve let those ballads pop a bit more upon repeated listens.  But then I think, like, who the fuck am I to ask for another hot track?  You accurately list the many that are already on here.  “When I Think Of You” is terrific, “Nasty” slaps, “Control” is ballsy and defiant, “What Have You Done For Me Lately” went ahead and pissed off Eddie Murphy in Raw.  That’s four all-timers right there.  This shit holds up.

“He Doesn’t Know I’m Alive” doesn’t quite pop for me?  I mean, talking down on anything here feels dumb.

Travis: That’s fair. It was one of the two songs on here that wasn’t released as a single, so maybe you have a better ear for radio than I do.

Tyler: My two semesters as a weekly early-morning college radio deejay honed my skills.

The station reviewed each album and pasted the review on the front of the CD case.  The Liz Phair self-titled they had was so riddled with vitriol that I just took it home.

Travis: She wrote a pop song about cum. Let’s be appalled. Also, one of the biggest bands of the nineties was called Pearl Jam.

Something I found funny when doing research about this album was that Janet didn’t even want to be a singer. She wanted to break out of the family mold and just be an actress, and had appeared on Different Strokes and Good Times and a few other shows. Her father forced her into music with those early albums. Then she wound up being arguably the most successful sibling, in terms of the mix between commercial and artistic success and sanity.

She played here in St. Louis this spring and it sold out in like minutes.

Tyler: I do believe she and Taylor Swift had shows on the same night in Atlanta earlier this year.

Travis: Taylor Swift: also probably someone who wouldn’t have the success she has without Control, as unlikely as that might sound.

Tyler: You’re talking truth there.  Janet’s empire laid the groundwork for a giant like Swift.  Not to mention Beyonce.

Have you seen Poetic Justice?

Travis: Bits and pieces.

I think I was disappointed it wasn’t Boyz N The Hood.

Tyler: Boyz N The Hood: film I watched well before I could comprehend its message and themes.

Travis: Yes, I too was too young to get that Doughboy wasn’t actually cool.

Tyler: Poetic Justice must have some level of magnetism to it.  Janet Jackson and Tupac Shakur?  I mean, they could be dreadful at line-reading, but both are just so natural onscreen.

Travis: Yeah I would imagine it’s worth a watch.

As for further listening after Control, I tried out Rhythm Nation and it’s pretty much Control 2: Controller. It’s bigger, longer, more unwieldy but still has a ton of great songs in this same vein, as well as some more far-out tracks. There’s also a little bit more of a rock and roll swagger to some of it, as evidenced by the hit single “Black Cat.”

It has some hints of “difficult second album” but plenty of hits.

Tyler: “Miss You Much” and “Escapade” are pretty tremendous.

Travis: The music videos also presage some of the weird fascist imagery Michael would use in his HIStory era, for better or worse.

Tyler: Um, I believe you mean HIStory: Past, Present, and Future: Book I.

Travis: I do mean that.

Featuring the aforementioned “Scream,” which is in fact a Jam & Lewis joint.

Tyler: That MJ statue making its way around the world.  Absurdity.

Travis: Weird space jai alai all up in the video

Tyler: Oh yeah!  What is up with that part?  Or any of it, really.

Travis: No idea. But in a random note all of this Jackson exploration reminded me of Chris Rock’s bit about seeing Jermaine Jackson on TV amidst the Michael trial controversy and saying “I thought we was done with Jermaine.”

Tyler: Not to rehash, but I thought of Raw a few times, and reflected on how mountainously offensive Murphy’s material is in retrospect.

The African immigrant wife sequence?  Hoo boy.

Travis: Twas a different time. It’s almost weirder to find things that DO hold up. Like the hit album Control by Janet Jackson.

---