AFTER THE BACKLASH: JANET JACKSON'S MILLENNIAL WORK RECONSIDERED (PART 2)
Discipline
Having fulfilled her five-album deal with Virgin, Jackson left the label that had signed her for an unprecedented $40 million in 1991 (and doubled down in ’96 with another $80 million). She signed with Island Def Jam in July 2007 (whatever the figures involved, they did not make headlines). Label head L.A. Reid asked for a new album immediately. Janet canceled rehearsals for a tour promoting 20 Y.O. and got to work in the studio.
One of the first orders of business? The decision that Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis would completely sit out production duties this time around. Discipline would become her first album without them since 1984’s Dream Street. What’s more, Janet wouldn’t write any of the music or lyrics herself, also for the first time since Dream Street.
“I was working at Def Jam as VP of A&R,” recalls producer Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins (Beyoncé, Mary J. Blige, Mariah Carey). “Janet signed with Def Jam, and I started cooking up ideas that could work for her. Then I had the opportunity to meet with her and got more of a specific direction from her. Next thing you know, we’re recording four tracks for that album.” He’d worked extensively with Michael Jackson on 2001’s Invincible. “To be honest, I never really had a doubt I would work with Janet,” he says. “It was just a matter of when.”
The-Dream, Stargate, Ne-Yo and Tricky Stewart helped round out the cadre of producers for an album of hip-hop-tinged R&B and electropop dance―plus a dash of sadomasochism. Jackson been tying up male fans onstage since The Velvet Rope Tour, as if playing out bondage fantasies in public, but all in fun. For the sepia-toned cover of Discipline, the star was dressed in bicep-length black vinyl gloves (graffitied with JANET and DISCIPLINE) and a black bra and skirt. It’s easy to imagine a leather riding crop just out of the frame.
But outside of the title track—which references blindfolding, asphyxiation (“shiver as he grabs my neck, mmm”) and a plea for a lover to “come punish me”—Discipline isn’t actually all that preoccupied with dominance, bondage or even sex. Sonically, Jackson’s 10th studio album pushes more in the direction of a Eurodance sound supporting songs primarily about romance and loving relationships.
On Feb. 26, 2008, four days after Discipline debuted at #1, Jackson performed “Feedback” live on MTV’s TRL—marking an official end to the four-year-long blacklist. Produced by Jerkins and D’Mile, the futuristic dance track was catapulted into the Top 20, giving Jackson her biggest hit since All for You’s “Someone to Be My Lover.” “My swag is serious/ Something heavy like a first-day period” turned into a risqué lyric du jour, the first time listeners were quoting her lines since The Velvet Rope. The lead single’s sci-fi video, which debuted on MTV that January, saw Janet planet-hopping in a space-age catsuit like a cross between Irma Vep and Barbarella. Asked about his favorite production on Discipline, Jerkins says, “Probably ‘Feedback.’ It was something new for her. It’s one of her most-performed songs when she does her live shows.”
After “Feedback” peaked at #19, Island released the house-flavored “Rock With U,” another of Discipline’s strongest tracks, produced by Dupri and Eric Stamile. Lyrically ultra-minimal, the song was created, Janet told journalists, for the gay community. In spite of Discipline’s strong start and a long-take music video recalling visuals for her 1990 smash “Alright,” its second single failed to chart—and the album slipped.
In hindsight, Discipline deserves to be considered Jackson’s comeback album. Its dance-heavy beginning (“Feedback,” “Luv,” “Rollercoaster,” “Rock With U”) sounds especially strong―modern-day club music like Beyoncé’s RENAISSANCE avant la lettre. Its smooth midtempo ballad “Can’t B Good” brings out the MJ in Janet’s vocal tone. “Greatest X” reprises the heart of 20 Y.O.’s “Thinkin’ Bout My Ex,” then elevates it. Perennial scene-stealer Missy Elliott appears on “The 1,” a Dupri track that throws back to the ’90s to excellent effect.
Overall, Discipline delivered artistically. But in the marketplace it's only done a bit over 600k ATD (456k in pure sales).
“The label and I haven’t quite seen eye to eye since the ‘Feedback’ single,” Janet told SOHH.com in June 2008. “I’m trying to figure out a way to say this, but… they just stopped all promotion whatsoever on the album. So I don’t think you’re going to hear another single.”
She launched the Rock Witchu Tour, her first trek in six years, in Vancouver that September. But only 14 months after inking the deal with IDJ, it was announced that Janet had decided to go independent.
Unbreakable
Between 2008 and the 2015 release of Jackson’s most recent album, Unbreakable, a lot of life happened: She ended her seven-year personal relationship with Dupri; Michael Jackson died; Janet toured, twice; and she secretly married a Qatari billionaire and moved to London. Returning to her acting roots, she appeared in Tyler Perry films like For Colored Girls and Why Did I Get Married Too? Recordings for a new album with producer Jerkins were shelved. Eventually, Jackson returned to the studio with Jam and Lewis.
Unbreakable, released on her own Rhythm Nation Records, sounds, well, distinguished. Singles “No Sleeep” f/J. Cole, “Unbreakable” and “Dammn Baby” rose to the Top 10 of the adult R&B songs chart. Thematically, this is Janet’s most sincere album since her magnum opus, The Velvet Rope. At times, it feels like her version of Ray of Light, Madonna’s masterpiece of introspection and spirituality.
“She just wanted to be honest and truthful on what was going on in her life,” says Tommy Parker (Muni Long, Ariana Grande, Alicia Keys), who served as producer on six tracks. “I was trying something new on that album with her, just to get a fresh perspective for her telling her truth in 2015.”
At 49, Jackson seemed to cast aside competing with the likes of Lizzo and Jazmine Sullivan—and ignore chart expectations. She returned to the utopian social consciousness of Rhythm Nation on “Black Eagle” and “Shoulda Known Better” but with a more mature outlook. (“Don’t want to be the poster child for being naive,” she sings.) The house-flavored “Night” (“I woke up in Heaven in the morning/ With the biggest smile upon my face”) sounds like a Jam and Lewis-produced Cheryl Lynn song updated for the 2010s.
Michael Jackson opened his final studio album with a track called “Unbreakable.” Janet addresses the loss of her brother on “Broken Hearts Heal,” an uplifting tribute graced by childhood memories. The album acknowledges pain: of abusive relationships (“Lesson Learned”), of public falls from grace (“After You Fall”). And though Cole drops a fire 16 bars in the middle of “No Sleeep,” which topped the adult R&B song chart, Unbreakable does not, in fact, sound made for the charts.
With 384k ATD, it is the weakest-performing album of Jackson’s career. In terms of the music, though, it stands up to anything she’s ever released.
Launched in August 2015, the Unbreakable World Tour hit a snag in April 2016; Janet Jackson was pregnant. Weeks shy of her 50th birthday, she gave birth to a healthy baby boy.
Black Diamond?
Most people don’t know that Nipplegate inspired YouTube; PayPal tech bros Chad Hurley, Steven Cehn and Jawed Karim, who’d commiserated over the difficulty of finding that 9/16th of a second online in 2004, debuted YouTube in 2005. Jackson’s briefly bared breast entered the Guinness Book of World Records in 2006 as the most-searched content in Internet history.
In 2018 Les Moonves stepped down as head of CBS in disgrace amid sexual-misconduct allegations that ultimately cost the network $30.5 million.
Janet Jackson, meanwhile, remains a national treasure.
Her Together Again Tour with special guest Ludacris will kick off April 14. A long-rumored album called Black Diamond is expected this year.
