10.23.2006
JANET JACKSON CELEBRATES 20
TWENTY YEARS AFTER TAKING CONTROL AND CONQUERING THE POP WORLD, JANET JACKSON MARKS THE OCCASION WITH A LIGHT, FUN NEW ALBUM
There has been sniggering at the title of Janet Jackson’s latest album, 20 Y.O. "Surely, she doesn’t believe we think she’s only just turned 20," one review opined, though Janet’s actually said on Oprah that she should be having kids soon, as she’s already forty. And, surely, Ms. Jackson knows her listeners can count.
Control was indeed a turning point in her career. After her first two albums were received by an unimpressed public, Control came along and did more than turn their heads. With the hits, "Nasty," "When I Think Of You," "What Have You Done For Me Lately," and "Pleasure Principle," the album went straight to number one in 1986 and established Janet as one of the biggest female pop artists of the 80s and 90s. Control was also the album where Jackson started working with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis -- her secret weapon production team, who have co-produced all her albums since then, including 20 Y.0.
It was a turning point for her personally, as well. "I was young, I was 19 when I made the album, 20 during the middle of the release, and I was very shy, very sheltered," she relates. "I made a lot of changes in my life -- I had been married and the marriage was annulled a little after a year of being together. I’d experienced things that at least I felt a lot of young adults my age hadn’t and I wanted to share those experiences with the world. And there were many times that I felt very alone and I just wanted other kids to know they’re not alone and it is okay to feel these feelings." She was also stepping out of the intimidating shadow of her family, in more ways than one. "I was moving out and being on my own and that was frightening. Especially being the baby of the family... A really big thing for me was firing my father who had been manager up until then and that was really tough for me to do." She claimed that their relationship actually improved after the incident, and she had really come into her own.
20 Y.O. isn’t exactly a summation of the last twenty years, though there are songs that recall certain periods in Janet Jackson’s career. It’s also the least emotionally/ politically/ sexually fraught album she’s ever made. "Where I am now in my life, I always write about life experiences, and it’s not a socially conscious album," Jackson points out. "Some people thought that maybe I should tap upon a few issues -- I didn’t want to do that. I know I want a little bit of escapism with what’s going on in the world today, and I think there are others that feel as I do, so I just have to follow my heart and go with what my gut tells me to do."
One of those gut decisions was inviting her boyfriend, Jermaine Dupri, as the fourth co-producer of 20 Y.O. "It was great for him because he always talked about how Jimmy and Terry have inspired him as a writer and as a producer and he just charmed right in," she beams with pride. It could have been chaotic having four different points of view working on the album, despite the fact that three of them have been working together the last twenty years and the fourth was elemental in the success of Mariah Carey’s comeback album, Charm Bracelet, but on the contrary, it turned out to be quite easy. "It was truly a collaborative effort. He would come into the studio and he would say ‘you know I had this idea,’ he said ‘you remember the song you guys did in such and such year, with such and such, and you used such and such sounds,’ he goes ‘we should do something like that’."
She continues, "Creatively speaking, the four of us, Jermaine, myself, Jimmy, and Terry, it was great working in the studio. I mean nothing's changed, we hadn’t skipped a beat -- always worked the same way we always do. And Jermaine being the new kid on the block, it was great, because, for one, I am very impatient and he is very fast in the studio, so it was perfect for me. And I’d never seen him create before, so I saw him create for the first time working on this project. And it was very easy, very smooth."
Jermaine Dupri got Nelly on board for the first single, "Call On Me." "Jermaine asked me, who did I want on this album and the first person I told him was Nelly," Jackson relates. "Jermaine and Nelly are best friends, but before Jermaine and I got together, I had the pleasure of spending time with Nelly. You know you meet different people at different functions and he was always such a nice guy and you know fun to hang around." Working with him was really good for the album too, as she continues, "He has a great energy, I’m very big on people’s energy and surrounding yourself with positive energy and he has a wonderful spirit about him and I always thought he was very talented, so he was the first person that I spoke of." Of course, Nelly also makes an appearance in the video for "Call On Me," an epic production requiring huge sets, colorful and outrageous costumes and more complicated CGI, directed by Hype Williams, whom Janet calls a "mad man."
For the video, Janet Jackson wanted to do something different from what she sees on TV these days, but was once quite familiar with: in her words, "a little bigger video. You don’t see that that much anymore, and I miss that." She believes that Williams was the best person to work on this video, "because he’s got a crazy imagination and I think we accomplished it."
20 Y.O. has been called a feel-good album, which is what Jackson had planned for this little anniversary celebration. "This album is light and I wanted it to be that," she beams. "I wanted to bring smiles to people’s faces." Any issues brought up were small concerns, as if Janet was giving advice to the next generation. But, in general, the album aims to inspire, affirm and have a good time, reflective of where she is in life right now. "I’m in a happy space. It’s up, its fun, its light."
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