Gaining Control
She may have started out known as the little sister of singer Michael Jackson or Jimmie Walker’s neighbor on TV’s Good Times, but on her third album, Janet Jackson crafted her own identity. Despite her reluctance at launching a recording career, Janet Jackson recorded two albums in her teens under the watchful eye of her dictatorial father, Joseph Jackson. In 1984, she married James DeBarge, known as a member of the singing family DeBarge. “The Jacksons disapproved of the relationship, citing DeBarge's immaturity and substance abuse. Jackson left her husband in January 1985 and was granted annulment later that year.” WK
After freeing herself from a failed marriage, she also wriggled out from under her father’s thumb, firing him as her manager and hiring “John McClain, A&M Records then-senior vice president of artists and repertoire and general manager.” WK He “subsequently introduced her to the songwriting/production duo, James ‘Jimmy Jam’ Harris III and Terry Lewis, former Prince associates and ex-members of The Time.” WK
Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis
Harris and Lewis refused to capitulate to Joseph Jackson’s demands that Janet’s album be recorded in Los Angeles. Instead, they insisted on working at their studio in Minneapolis, “far from the glitter and distractions of Hollywood and the interference of manager-fathers.” WK
Jimmy Jam said, “It’s the element of spontaneity that gives a record like Control its energy. The kind of thing that happens naturally during a live recording. You just have to be ready for it and know how to properly bottle it. With Janet, I just wanted to let it happen. I didn’t want to have to tell her what I was after. “ TB
They “tailored their contemporary dance-pop to the emerging personality of Janet Jackson.” AM Their “industrial, aggressively speedy beats (a relatively new concept for R&B at the time) turned Jam & Lewis into pop music’s new visionaries.” SL Their “unique blend of sparse, Minneapolis funk, sweet bubblegum pop, and inventive synthesized vocal treatments” SL were “as decisive as her lyrics – bringing a new wealth of range, power, and grace.” VB It was “an unconventional sound: a fusion of rhythm and blues, funk, disco, rap vocals, and synthesized percussion.” WK
It established them “as the leading innovators of contemporary R&B” WK and won them a Grammy as Producers of the Year. Their sound so defined Janet that she “has spent her entire career working with the duo.” SL As a production team, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis would land 16 chart-topping songs. TB
Janet Defines Herself
The album “has been praised by critics as both an artistic feat and as a personal testament of self-actualization.” WK “Janet makes her mission known from the jump; Control was not going to be a conventional pop record about chasing lovers and dancing. And she stayed true to her word, as Control is an autobiographical powerhouse triumphant in ways that most albums of its era aren’t.” PM It was an album on which “Michael’s little sister demands respect, draws her boundaries, and kicks some nasty butt.” VB
A New Pop Star
“Control was every bit the hit machine that her brother’s Thriller was.” SL Whereas the first two had peaked at #63 and #147 respectively, this one hit #1 on the Billboard charts on the strength of five top-5 pop hits. She “became the first female artist to produce six top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 from a single album.” WK
She was now “one of the preeminent female artists of popular music, rivaling fellow pop star Madonna, as critics began to acknowledge their influence on the record industry and younger artists.” WK
“Control also saw the birth of Janet the music video star, as six of the nine tracks were turned into popular videos that all but announced her as queen of the production dance number.” SL A then-unknown Paula Abdul trained Janet in dance and helped turn her into a video star. Billboard magazine’s Jonathan Cohen said that her “‘accessible sound and spectacularly choreographed videos were irresistible to MTV, and helped the channel evolve from rock programming to a broader, beat-driven musical mix.’” WK
Accolades
“The album went on to receive several accolades, including a nomination for the Grammy Award for Album of the Year and winning Producer of the Year, Non-Classical for Jam and Lewis in 1987.” WK “The album earned a record breaking twelve nomination from the American Music Awards, winning four.” WK “Jackson also won three Soul Train Music Awards and six Billboard Music Awards.” WK
Legacy
This is “one of the defining albums of the 1980s and contemporary music.” WK Control “kicked off a run of five classic albums in a row, released between 1986 and 2001. Few musicians have ever had such a consequential 15-year run, and it can all be traced back to the very first words uttered on ‘Control’: ‘This is a story about control. My control—control of what I say, control of what I do. And this time, I’m gonna do it my way.’” PM
The Songs
Here are thoughts on individual songs from the album.
“What Have You Done for Me Lately”
Janet comes “across as an aggressive, independent woman, notably on What Have You Done for Me Lately,” AM a “female-empowering” SL song “which was originally penned for one of Jam and Lewis’ own records…The lyrics were rewritten to convey Jackson’s feelings about her recent annulment from James DeBarge.” WK
It was chosen as the lead single because “Jam and Lewis felt it best represented Jackson's outlook on life.” WK “The song was compared favorably to similar recordings of female empowerment released by black women, such as ‘New Attitude’ by Patti LaBelle, ‘Better Be Good to Me’ by Tina Turner and ‘Sisters Are Doin’ It for Themselves’ by Aretha Franklin” WK supporting the Eurythmics.
“Nasty”
The second single, “Nasty, which in Jackson’s opinion was the most innovative song on the album, was inspired by one of her experiences in Minneapolis when a group of men made crude advances towards her outside of the hotel she resided at during the recording of Control. She recalled: ‘They were emotionally abusive. Sexually threatening…I took a stand. I backed them down.’” WK The song “is one of the primary examples of what inspired the new jack swing sound, mixing funk with contemporary R&B in addition to its triplet swing beat.” WK “Critic Jon Bream noted ‘the songwriters have slyly juxtaposed a nasty-sounding groove and the repetition of the word ‘nasty’ with a subtle antinasty message.’” WK
“The explosive ‘gimme a beat’ vocal pyrotechnics she unleashes all over ‘Nasty’ (which turned ‘Miss Janet if you’re nasty’ into one of those lines everyone sings along to)” SL go a long way in dismissing critics’ attacks that her voice was too thin.
“When I Think of You”
“The pensive, alternating piano chords of When I Think of You rival the opening strains of Madonna’s ‘Borderline’ for precocious, innocent ’80s pop.” SL As the third single, this marked the commercial peak for Janet’s album. The album climbed to #1 as this song was heading to the pinnacle as well. Her “Touch of Evil-channeling one-take clip for ‘When I Think of You’ was her first successful attempt at creating a video around a specifically cinematic concept.” SL
“Control”
“The title track opens the album with its herky-jerky start-and-stop beats, but in retrospect, it almost seems like a curtain call (the brazen, forthright lyrics make a lot more sense coming from a woman who’s just gone multi-platinum, not one who’s coming off of two flop albums).” SL
“Let’s Wait Awhile”
“Let’s Wait a While was centered around safe-sex and abstinence, a subject of significant social commentary at the time. Jam commented that it is common practice for songwriters to use current events as a means of inspiration for lyrics and that the AIDS pandemic had raised awareness about sexually transmitted diseases.” WK The “tremulous hesitance” SL in the song fits perfectly with its theme.
“You Can Be Mine”
“Despite sounding as impenetrable as a tank, the Jam-Lewis formula wasn’t completely infallible, and even an album as terse as Control has a few less-heralded underdog tracks, to be diplomatic. You Can Be Mine is a bombastic misfire that sees Jam & Lewis putting their drum patterns and faux orchestral hits into autopilot overdrive, to the point that during the final minute Janet seems to take the reigns, demanding, ‘Fellas help me out, can I hear that line one more time?’”SL
“He Doesn’t Know I’m Alive”
This song “is bouncy and bottom-heavy where the rest of the album is tightly-pitched and precise, is the album’s darkhorse, with a probably too-overt application of mid-’80s pop-jazz schmaltz. Though it’s the only track on Control that puts Janet in passive mode, it’s still marked by her gamest attempt at vocal acrobatics.” SL
“Funny How Time Flies”
The album tends to “drift away in the final stretch into a languid ballad blah-blah-land…’Let’s Wait Awhile’ would’ve been a great place to end the album, but Janet, Jam, and Lewis make the perverse decision to immediately proceed into Funny How Time Flies (When You’re Having Fun), a song that sounds like the accompaniment to the first stages of heavy-petting.
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