Words by Bailey Alexander
More than a sister. Conservative no longer. 30 years ago, Janet. saw a pop star become a sex symbol.
New decade. New label. New feats. In 1991, Janet Jackson signed the largest recording contract in history, joining Virgin Records for a cool $32 million. Her brand was already well-established: entertainer, activist, sister. Jackson had spent the past 5 years establishing herself as a pop tour de force. By 1993, her first album of the decade was finished, and it would push her image in a new direction. Janet. was the birth of Janet Jackson: sex symbol.
The album’s title itself is pretty striking: ‘Janet period’. There’s an emphasis on how the artist before us is simply Janet – hold the Jackson. Her surname, at this point, had garnered her a barrage of nepotism accusations. Not only was she the sister of perhaps Motown’s most famous act, The Jackson 5, she was also perpetually in the shadow of older brother and King of Pop Michael.
Seeking to completely divorce her image from her family, Janet. is a showcase of her appeal as a standalone artist. Too often, women in music find themselves forced to prove something. By this point in her career, Janet had scored five Billboard Hot 100 number ones. Even so, she found herself underestimated.
To accomplish what she wanted, a name change simply wouldn’t suffice. How does one of the world’s biggest pop stars drive home the message that they’re success isn’t a byproduct of their uber-famous family? The answer: a step towards the lewd and daring.
On her two previous album’s, Control and Rhythm Nation 1814, Janet had respectively tackled themes of independence and bigotry. To the public, her brand was comparable to that of a girl scout, standing up in the face of adversity.
On Janet., that penchant for facing down adversity remains, but this time through the sexual gaze. Over the album’s 14 songs and 14 interludes, Janet distances herself from the covered-up, borderline-celibate image she had created.
This isn’t to say that Janet. completely disregards the fight against bigotry: an interlude, ‘Racism’, leads into ‘New Agenda’, a song firmly about fighting injustice. Despite this, the album seems to always find its way back to talking about sex.
Janet explained the switch up as a personal challenge, never exploring her femininity before and growing up as a “tomboy”. There’s an irony easily found in how her first exploration of femininity turned her into a sex symbol overnight.
Speaking of Rolling Stone, it played a major part in Janet’s public sexual metamorphosis. A career highlight, Janet’s Rolling Stone cover has been recreated and discussed arguably more than the accompanying album ever was. A cropped version even became the album’s cover art. With only the hands of then-husband René Elizondo Jr. to protect her modesty, the cover can be considered Janet’s sex symbol debut.
The shoot’s concept came from Janet herself, who had the idea whilst filming cult classic Poetic Justice alongside Tupac Shakur. Despite the shoot’s lasting impact, Janet was nonchalant about it: “I just thought it was a cool shot”.
Beyond the photography, there is a certain ‘coolness’ to how Janet. conveys its sexual message. When crafting songs about sex, there’s a fine line between the sultry and the vulgar, the assertive and the arrogant. Janet doesn’t tiptoe these lines: she crosses freely back and fro as she wishes.
Take ‘If’, for instance. The track details a woman’s erotic fantasy about an already-committed man: a far cry from the Jackson family’s cookie-cutter image. There’s also the self-explanatory ‘Throb’: “When you start to poundin’ / Love to feel you throbbin’”. Partnered with edgier hip-hop and house sounds songs like these mark Janet’s departure from demure pop star towards sexually-liberated experimental artist.
Whilst songs like these are unreserved in their descriptions of sex, Janet.’s standout single veers towards the saccharine. ‘That’s the Way Love Goes’ is not dissimilar to tracks like ‘If’ and ‘Throb’ in its subject matter. It’s slow tempo R&B sound, however, certifies it as a classic mainstay found on an array of love-making playlists.
Janet. became the groundwork for many of her future projects, solidifying her image as an artist rightfully independent of her family. The evidence: she finishes at 7th place on Billboard’s list of their most successful charting artists. Currently touring, Janet Jackson’s place in music history is secured, and Janet. is one very important chapter in her story.
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