Breaking Out & Taking Control | Michael & Janet Jackson
It is 1985, overwhelmed and heartbroken after her failed attempt at marriage, Janet asked to be released from her “Fame” TV contract and spent several weeks anxiously thinking about her next move. Jackson family ties had irreversibly broken down since her brothers’ Victory tour. When after months of feuding and battles for control, her brother, Michael, abruptly announced onstage in Los Angeles that the band was breaking up and this was in fact their last show.
Janet described how after ‘Thriller’, her and Michael would never experience the same affinity as they had in childhood. Even though they both still lived in the Jackson family home, Michael isolated himself from the rest of the family, choosing to focus on solo projects like recording for his next album or working on his film collaboration with Disney, Captain EO.
Wanting to break free from her bubble-gum pop star image, Janet decided to make another album — but this time she wanted a whole new sound, that expressed her true feelings. When she expressed this to long-time family friend and A&M executive, John McClain, he recommended Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis to help produce the record.
Jam and Lewis were both, at that point, best known as proteges of 1985’s hottest music commodity, Prince, as they originally played keyboards and bass, respectively, in his spinoff band, ‘the Time’. And after Prince’s steep ascent to pop superstardom, they were now at the forefront of Minneapolis’s burgeoning music scene. However, Janet’s father and manager, Joe Jackson, wasn’t convinced. With the Jackson brothers disbanded and after losing all control of Michael’s future solo projects, the Jackson patriarch was hesitant about loosening his grip on Janet’s fledging career.
Janet’s father requested that the album be recorded in Los Angeles where he could keep an eye on the project as well as his daughter. But Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis refused. The plan was for Janet to record with them in Minneapolis, far from the distractions of Hollywood and the interference of her manager-father. “It was hard for Joe to let go of her” Lewis said in an interview, “we required that they put her in our hands. We felt it was important to get her out of the protective fairy-tale life she had been leading”.
Joe Jackson still wasn’t thrilled with the arrangement but agreed to let Janet go under one condition, “Don’t make her sound like Prince!”.
When Janet Jackson arrived in Minneapolis, she expected to get straight to work, laying down some tracks and recording her vocals. But for the first week, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis decided to take the time to get to know the young Jackson. Having just come out of a personal ordeal and with time to reflect on her marriage, family, and career, so far, Janet was unaware that her new producers were busy taking notes that would later inspire the records overall direction.
Over a period of seven weeks, Janet recorded and co-produced a batch of semi-autobiographical tracks. Outside of her sheltered family life and the showbiz bubble, Janet felt free to “write about subjects I thought girls could relate to, to let them know that they weren’t alone. People feel that this line of work is so glamorous and there’s no heartache and nothing ever happens to you.”
Musically, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis used their trademark jackhammer minimalism, whiplash electronic tempos and lean synthesizer riffs to give a new edge to Janet’s small, birdlike voice. Jimmy Jam said, “All we ever try to do is bring out the personality, Janet was a stick of dynamite, and we lit the fuse”.
In early 1986, Janet Jackson was reintroduced to the music buying public with videos for ‘What Have You Done for Me Lately’ and ‘Nasty’. In which the teenage singer presented a new streetwise demeanour and cocky attitude, that was very much at odds with the Jackson family’s picture-perfect public image.
In preparation for her musical comeback, Janet put herself on a strict diet and chose to differentiate herself from her brothers’ rhinestones by adopting a sleek, all-black attire accompanied with accent jewellery. Most notably a key she would often wear on a hoop earring. A visual statement not unlike the sparkling glove her brother made iconic.
During Michael’s extended musical hiatus after the successes of ‘Thriller’, Janet thrilled audiences with a much-needed dose of Jackson on radio airwaves and on TV screens. Creating music video magic, Janet was able to, with the help of choreographer, Paula Abdul, flaunt her dancing abilities in lavishly choreographed routines not dissimilar to the classic Hollywood musicals her and Michael watched growing up. With his dazzling dance moves, Michael was able to amass an immense following of young fans. And now just a few years later, Janet was able to recruit much of that audience with the same family showmanship but added in her own unique relatability with tales of teenage rebellion. In the days before Michael’s ‘Bad’ album, Janet offered audiences a darker, edgier shade of Jackson.
Named ‘Control’, Janet’s third album made a bold statement and the record’s biographical premise gave an insight into the personal dynamics behind music’s most speculated showbiz family. Janet’s latest invention raised the eyebrows of more sedate members of the Jackson clan, including Michael, who were concerned about Janet changing up her good girl image. Believing that, especially as a young black female, Janet’s aggressive, no-nonsense persona might turn off male DJs and make her unlikeable to mainstream audiences.
However, their concerns were unfounded, as ‘Control’ grew to be a runaway hit. Becoming Janet’s first no. 1 charting album, with five of its singles peaking within the top five of the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, achieving her first no. 1 hit single with ‘When I Think of You’.
After selling 10 million copies worldwide, Janet Jackson was clearly commercially very successful. But having always dreamt of winning high-profile awards, she was also ecstatic to be nominated for three Grammys and nine American Music Awards, winning two for favourite soul single and female soul video. “I feel really wonderful” Jackson said after the show “I’ve always wanted to establish my own identity without my family and I feel so good I’ve done it”.
Ironically, to counterpoint Janet’s stated position that she has seized ‘control’, speculation grew as to who should be taking credit for Janet’s new wave of success, her father Joe, or her A&M Svengali, John McClain. Joe Jackson said “people know I’m the backbone of the Jackson family. The problem comes when others try to steal them away. The wheels had already been set in motion for Janet. Anyone who jumps on the bandwagon now will be getting a free ride… If Janet listens to me and works a little harder, she’ll be as big as Michael”.
Others credited Janet’s newfound popularity to Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis’s Minneapolis sound, or Paula Abdul’s talent in choreographing several of the promotional videos for ‘Control’, as she soon emerged as a star herself with a string of no. 1 hits. The tempting assumption being that Abdul was the real talent — and that Jackson merely benefited in the videos from Abdul’s extraordinary dance sense. Confronted with this Jackson said, “It sounds so selfish to say. But it bothers me that some people think someone gave me an image or told me what songs to sing or what clothes to wear. I’m not a robot. I want people to know that I’m real”.
However, another rumour that persisted within gossip columns and school playgrounds was that Janet and her brother Michael were in fact the same person. That her moonwalking brother was infact orchestrating an elaborate publicity stunt, producing music and videos under the disguise of his sister, Janet. Just one of a whole host of outlandish stories Janet Jackson was questioned about concerning her brother, as she constantly defended Michael’s somewhat bizarre behaviour and changing appearance due to plastic surgery, “You know, so many stars do that, but the press picks on certain people. I think if more people could afford it, they would do it too. I see nothing wrong with it. Aging is a sad thing; I don’t see anything wrong with staying young-looking as long as you can”, the ‘Control’ singer said.
Although Janet felt like her brother’s immense celebrity overshadowed her own successes, later many saw Janet’s influence reflected in Michael Jackson’s ‘Bad’ album and music videos. As both records featured stripped-down, robotic, funk grooves. Jackson also went streetwise and echoed the gravelly, whisper-to-a-screech voice Janet adopted for ‘Nasty,’ as well as his own tough-cookie attitude, like a belated rebellion against the discipline of a childhood spent on stage.