FEATURE:
Interlude: Pledge
Saluting the Importance and Legacy of Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814
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IT was only a couple of days ago…
IN THIS PHOTO: Janet Jackson during the Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814 album cover shoot in 1989/PHOTO CREDIT: Guzman
that I did a Lockdown Playlist regarding songs that have been inducted into the Recording Registry. Just after I published it, a news article came out detailing new recordings that are going into the Registry. I am mentioning Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814, as this is an album that has been included – it is one that I think is very important. The BBC reported on the story:
“Spotify recently revealed that 60,000 tracks are uploaded to its servers every day - that's a new song every one and a half seconds.
The US Library of Congress is more picky: admitting just 25 recordings to its Recording Registry every year.
Those works, which are deemed to have historical and cultural significance, are then preserved for posterity.
This year's inductees have just been announced, with Janet Jackson, Winston Churchill and The Muppets on the list.
Nas' iconic debut, Illmatic, was also added to the registry, as was Labelle's Lady Marmalade and Louis Armstrong's 1938 recording of When the Saints Go Marching In.
Janet Jackson's 1989 album Rhythm Nation 1814 is one of the newest records to be added to the registry this year.
The Library of Congress recognised how the pop star had rejected pressure to repeat the commercial success of her previous record, Control, and instead made a record that grappled with racism, homelessness, gun crime and social injustice.
"We wanted Rhythm Nation to really communicate empowerment," Jackson's producer Jimmy Jam told the Library of Congress. "It was making an observation, but it was also a call to action. Janet's purpose was to lead people and do it through music, which I think is the ultimate uniter of people”.
I am not going to go too deep into Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814, though I think it is a hugely popular and stunning album from one of music’s true greats. Arriving four years before her janet. album and three years after Control, I think that Jackson was on this golden run. I think that her music became more political and rawer since her first album or two. Maybe her style and sound changed from janet. onward in terms of its accessibility and not being quite as edgy – though that album is remarkable and one that I really love. Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814, since its release in 1989, has had this enormous legacy. There was this feeling that tackling politics would be dangerous for such a popular artist. I feel that Janet Jackson’s remarkable Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814 opened the doors for other artists and marked her as an icon. I want to bring in a couple of reviews for the album before wrapping up. This is what AllMusic had to say:
“After shocking the R&B world with 1986's Control -- a gutsy, risk-taking triumph that was a radical departure from her first two albums -- Michael and Jermaine Jackson's younger sister reached an even higher artistic plateau with the conceptual Rhythm Nation 1814. Once again, she enlists the help of Time graduates Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis (one of the more soulful production/songwriting teams of 1980s and '90s R&B) with wildly successful results. In 1989, protest songs were common in rap but rare in R&B -- Janet Jackson, following rap's lead, dares to address social and political topics on "The Knowledge," the disturbing "State of the World," and the poignant ballad "Living in a World" (which decries the reality of children being exposed to violence). Jackson's voice is wafer-thin, and she doesn't have much of a range -- but she definitely has lots of soul and spirit and uses it to maximum advantage on those gems as well as nonpolitical pieces ranging from the Prince-influenced funk/pop of "Miss You Much" and "Alright" to the caressing, silky ballads "Someday Is Tonight," "Alone," and "Come Back to Me" to the pop/rock smoker "Black Cat." For those purchasing their first Janet Jackson release, Rhythm Nation would be an even wiser investment than Control -- and that's saying a lot”.
In another positive review, Pitchfork made some interesting remarks about one of the finest albums of the 1980s:
“This would thrust her career into an adult sensuality—by 1993, at 27, she would be posing topless on the cover of Rolling Stone. But Rhythm Nation’s arc was also explicitly historical. After much speculation about what the “1814” in the title stood for, Jackson later confirmed that it referred to the year Francis Scott Key wrote the “Star-Spangled Banner,” firmly asserting this was her new national anthem. In the “Alright” video, a song that worked alongside “Escapade” as an explicit reprieve from the social ills she addressed on the album—the permission to get loose after all that stress, a pop structure that still proves useful today—Jackson wore a zoot suit and cast ’40s and ’50s icons Cyd Charisse and Cab Calloway, the former a dance legend of the silver screen, the latter a music director who spent much of his early career as the gifted entertainment for wealthy whites in Harlem’s segregated Cotton Club. “Alright” was a pop art homage to those old timey musicals, and an implicit vision of what the world could be like, should her utopia be instated. The melody was forward-looking and comforting, a love song and with more swing and the synth horns that signified a kind of aspiration among an orchestra of agreeance. She sang:
Friends come and friends may go
My friends you’re real I know
True self you have shown
You’re alright with me
That some dismissive critics then thought the politics were separable from the love songs was an incorrect reading. Jackson’s further assertion of self was as personal-as-political as the era demanded, reflecting in part her relationship and eventual marriage to René Elizondo, done in secret to keep both the press and her former dadager at bay. She was fully growing into herself as a human, exploring her internal territory and reconciling it with the world outside, while pushing herself musically more than ever. “Black Cat,” which she wrote entirely herself, was the fully manifested example of this internal and external congealing. She threw down a slinky, sexy snarl over a rock guitar shred that was also wildly jiggy, making an unlikely dive-bar banger that spoke to both gang members and the wronged women who loved them. Another nod to history—topically, the bad boy lament could be traced back to Big Mama Thornton, the black blueswoman who invented rock’n’roll—Jackson was proving to the world she was as versatile as any other chart-topper of the day, and no move she made was without substance. Perhaps by presenting her self-made utopia, she also envisioned that the real-life dystopian one would recognize her not for what it wanted her to be, but for who she was”.
I think that Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814 thoroughly deserves to be honoured and marked as one of the most important albums ever. Over thirty years since it was released, then songs still sound so relevant and impressive. Some may say Janet Jackson released better albums: I do not think she recorded a more important one.
The final article I want to introduce is from Albuism. They discussed the strength of Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation 1814 and its legacy after all of these years:
“Just as the album opened with a trio of songs focusing on social consciousness, the album closes with another trio of songs, this time focused on relationships, love and sexuality. “Lonely” leads the pack with a slow-jam of densely stacked harmonies and swaying melodies. “Come Back To Me” is a pleading ballad of lament and longing, and “Someday Is Tonight” is the sexual climax of Control’s “Let’s Wait A While,” where Jackson delivers on the promise of being “worth the wait.” Sensual and breathy, Jackson seduces and pulls you in, setting the tone for her more sexual slow burn songs that would close out many of her albums that would follow this.
Rhythm Nation 1814 is perhaps the most perfect encapsulation of Janet Jackson. In many ways it became the blueprint for her albums that would follow both in structure and sequencing. And despite the fears of her record label, it was an unqualified smash success, surpassing the sales of its predecessor and cementing Jackson’s place within the superstar sphere.
Accompanied by a powerful and engaging 30-minute mini-movie, Rhythm Nation 1814 found Jackson wearing her heart on her black military inspired sleeve and dared to make a difference. In what would soon be iconic black and white imagery and oft repeated dance moves, Jackson created a look, feel, and sound of a whole generation to feel a part of.
But more important than the millions of sales and countless Top Ten hits, the album made an impact in people’s lives. It opened eyes. It gave voice to the issues of the day. It encouraged its listeners to make a difference in the world and their own lives. It made them care.
And it made a difference. If music has the power to connect us to an emotion or feel a part of something bigger, then Rhythm Nation did that. Kids hearing “The Knowledge” were inspired to stay on in school or seek a college education. People wary of differences became less fearful and embraced them. It inspired a generation to believe, to have hope, and feel that they could make a change. It engaged and connected with the listener. And it gave the listener a feeling of belonging, a place to feel good, to feel empowered.
Thirty years on and Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814 is still a landmark album. It still resonates. And sadly it still reflects many of the ills that plague us. It’s both a time capsule and a mirror. A movement for the heart and mind. It’s a near flawless album. One that pulled Jackson once and for all out of the shadows of her elder siblings and made her a bona fide superstar who can still sell out arenas to this day. It’s an important milestone not only in Jackson’s career, but in the musical landscape in general. And when talk centers around great albums with a social conscience, it deserves to be included”.
Congratulations to an iconic artist on having one of her masterpieces inducted into Recording Registry by the U.S. Library of Congress. I was keen to salute Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814. After almost thirty-two years after its release, it remains such an important and…
PHENOMENAL record.