60 Songs That Explain the '90s - “Together Again”—Janet Jackson

Episode Date: August 3, 2022

Rob looks back at the house-influenced 1997 pop hit that is “Together Again.” Along the way, he highlights the sensational career of pop icon Janet Jackson, and some of her best laughs on songs. Host: Rob Harvilla Guest: DJ Louie XIV Producer: Justin Sayles Associate Producer: Jonathan Kermah Audio Intern: Kai Grady Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's not quite the DeLorean, but we're going back in time with the new podcast feed full of all my favorite interviews in the history of the Bill Simmons podcast. We're coming up on seven years now. I've had an unbelievable collection of athletes, celebrities, showrunners, directors, Matt Damon, Denzel Washington, Adam Sandler, Kevin Garnett, Shirley's Theron, Tom Hanks, Bill Burr, Kevin Durant, Peyton Manning, The Undertaker, Eddie Vetter, Kyrie Irving. Yeah, he actually came on.

Dave Grohl, Quavo, Barack Obama. I mean, what else can I tell you? I've had Al Pacino with Barry Levinson. I've had people like Steph Curry, Jason Bateman, John C. Riley, Joe to Hill, I could just keep going and going. But wait, there's more. Whether it's your first time

or you're planning on revisiting some of your favorites, make sure you head to Bill Simmons Interviews. orgon.com for the entire archive. You can sort by genre, a year and more to easily navigate all your favorite people. Follow the Bill Simmons podcast, the interviews on Spotify now. My dad loves to tell the story of the time I was playing T-ball.

I'm what five years old, early mid-80s in bucolic suburban St. Louis, Missouri. I try to remember stuff from this era now, and I just picture a much smaller version of myself living in a John Cougar Mellon Camp video for 10 years, sucking on chili dogs, and so forth, idyllic. It was great. So dad's watching me play T-ball and the game grinds to a halt, just descends into absolute chaos because some guy starts blowing up a hot air balloon in right field. Behind the right field are much farther away. A five-year-old could not plausibly hit a ball off a T that far. But my dad's sitting in the stands. He's looking at a baseball diamond, right? And then there's a hot air balloon in right field. And every kid, every five-year-old on the

field just turns and stares at the hot air balloon, just an unspoken mass refusal to play T-ball anymore. Like we'd gone on strike. Have you ever watched five-year-olds, eight-year-olds, ten-year-olds play t-ball or soccer or basketball or anything? They're terrible, first of all. I'm sorry, but it's just aesthetically just disastrous. No fundamentals.

No game plan. No hustle. No passing. Just 10 to 15. miniature Russell Westbrooks out there doing whatever the fuck. And everyone's distracted all the time with T-ball or Little League, especially kids playing

in the dirt, facing in the wrong direction, fucking with their hat, talking to themselves, lying down, chewing on something. What are you chewing on? Where'd you get that? You're lucky if your kid keeps their shoes on out there at shortstop.

No focus. So now blow up a hot air balloon in right field and see where that gets you. And my dad said it was just the funniest thing. he's ever seen in his life. The coaches, the umpires, trying and failing to get like 20 wrapped five-year-olds to stop gawking at the hot air balloon and get back to the frigging T-ball. And now here come the clowns. A pack of clowns appears in the vicinity of the hot air balloon, emerging presumably from one tiny car or one wood-paneled station wagon with a John Cougar, Mellon Camp bumper sticker.

And now all the kids are staring at the clowns, clearly some sort of circus. or county fair situation is developing just beyond right field. And a five-year-old detention span has like a 90-second capacity, right, regardless of the splendor of whatever they've been presented with. So even a hot air balloon loses its appeal pretty quickly. But the clowns take over as the objects of fascination. And like there's a kid up to bat and he belts it off the tee into shallow center. And literally nobody in the field acknowledges this. And the batter starts running the basis.

But even that kid's staring at the clowns the whole time. and veering off the base paths. And my dad's up there and the bleachers laughing his ass off and 10 minutes has gone by. And just on the cusp of order being restored, here come the ponies. They're setting up pony rides now. And how is the five-year-old shortstop not going to be fascinated by the ponies? And my dad is crying, laughing. And from his perspective, this must seem like an elaborate psychological experiment to see how thoroughly you can disrupt a t-ball game by contriving a delighting.

series of increasingly whimsical distractions. So what I love about this story is it's designed to be embellished. With the hot air balloon alone, it starts out as an exaggerated version of itself. But the conceit of a bunch of five-year-olds playing t-ball confronted by a series of increasingly amusing and unlikely distractions has such a pleasingly modular and customizable structure, right? out of respect for the centuries old oral storytelling tradition, you're supposed to make shit up. You're supposed to add a distracting element. Every time you retell it, hot air balloon, clowns, ponies, then what? tanks, trapeze artists, helicopters, elephants, flamethrowers, monster trucks, Huey Lewis in the news concert, dinosaurs.

I don't know if my dad was crying laughing. That is probably my embellishment. but choose your own adventure. Just keep adding fantastical, delightful pieces to this puzzle. Each one delightful in its own right. Penguins, ninjas, but all working beautifully together as just this parade of improbable and outrageous joy. I was lying in bed last night thinking about how much I love the hot air balloon teaball game

as a last ditch attempt to explain why I love this song so much. This is the hot air balloon. These are the clowns puttering around enchantingly in their giant clown shoes, putting around elegantly to the ponies. But what's miraculous here is that each new attraction does not replace, does not steal the spotlight from the previous attraction. Instead, it perfectly builds upon everything that came before it. There is an exponential, a compounding, a Voltron-like effect,

a perfect machine assembling itself piece by piece. I will probably get in trouble if I play this whole song. Should we find out? Okay, fine. I'll skip forward like 15 seconds. That's right. We've added a space shuttle. A space shuttle launch.

We have added literally Janet Jackson. When I think of you by Janet Jackson is one of the most beautiful songs in recorded history. Usually I add a cutesy little disclaimer here about trying to avoid. on this show. That's the whole cutesy disclaimer, I guess. But forget it this time. This is one of the most beautiful songs from recorded history. Depending on my mood, it might be top 10 pop songs ever born, or top five, or top three, or top two, and it isn't number two. Every individual detail of this song sends me floating up to the ceiling and then through the ceiling, and then soaring high into a luscious, partly cloudy sky. And then out amid the wondrous,

stratosphere and then deep into literal space. My second favorite individual detail changes also, depending on my mood, currently it's the horns. When I think of you is on Janet Jackson's third album Control released in 1986. And yeah, top 10, top five, top three albums ever made by anybody in any genre ever. Holy shit. The horns though. The 80s synth horns. By 1986, the average citizen could theoretically buy a fancy keyboard that made cool horn sounds. Doot, doot, doot. Whitney Houston had this keyboard when I want to dance with somebody. Paula Abdul had this keyboard on Forever Your Girl, Taylor Dane on Tell It to My Heart.

These are all fantastic songs, but lesser 80s pop songs that fussed around with this technology risks falling into the uncanny valley, right? Deployed poorly, these horns can sound super fake. But something about the synth horns on when I think of you, it's like watching an image shift from 2D to 3D to like 12D. I think I read a science fiction book at some point where stuff unfolded into 12 dimensions. So the Uber 80 synth horns on when I think of you make me unbearably exquisitely sad, or at least wistful, nostalgic. There's a panoramic yearning across time and space triggered in me by the way that horn sound goes from, fake to real, too painfully, but gorgeously hyper-reel.

I get real emo about it. I would play the horns for you again, but I really will get arrested for playing too much of this song. Watch me have to do the whole rest of this episode from jail. Plus, I did say the horns were my current second favorite individual detail, right? Right. My absolute favorite part of this song will never change. It's right at the end.

The build-up to it starts with Janet Jackson beatboxing. Pretty good beatboxing. Honestly, not biz marquee quality perhaps, but it gets the job done. The job is to set you up for this. Janet Jackson laughing. Is there a lovelier, more euphoric sound in pop music than Janet Jackson laughing? There is no pop song in history that cannot be made 10,000 times better by the mere edition of Janet Jackson going, and then laughing.

This is my professional opinion. This is also an objective fact. Join me now. won't you? On a somewhat brief chronological overview of Janet Jackson laughing in song, Janet Jackson was born in 1966 in

Gary, Indiana, into a musical family. A bunch of stuff happened and kept happening. Her first two albums, Janet Jackson in 1982, and Dream Street in 1984, are not well regarded, least of all by Janet Jackson herself,

who was not at this point calling the shots in really any aspect of her life. It's pretty cheesy post-disco, pre-pubescent synth pop tomfoolery. It's knockoff Stranger Things shopping montage music. Stay out of it. The worst thing I can say about her first two albums actually is that Janet Jackson doesn't laugh once, whereas she's laughing her ass off five minutes into control. I love everything about control starting with the album cover made by the fashion illustrator and photographer Tony Viramontes. The cover's, the cover's bright red. Janet's hair is blown up majestically and pushed to one side. There's a blue

parallelogram over her opposite shoulders. She's styled like an exclamation point or a high-end perfume bottle. There's a Keith Herring squigglyness drawn over the top of her. It's extremely 1986 and absolutely eternal. Control is the first song in the album. The second song is nasty boys. Janet does not laugh during nasty boys, unfortunately, but I do want to instruct you to Google nasty boys Kate Beaten B-E-A-T-O-N and click on the first link.

That's it. It's the best thing on the internet. No other information. Just do that. Trust me. Nasty boys, Kate Beaten.

Hey, look, we got the rad-sint horns again. Near the end of You Can Be Mine. Phenomenal. This album was primarily co-written and co-produced

by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis of Prince fame of Morris Day and the time fame, but primarily of Janet Jackson fame. The Pride of Minneapolis, among the many prides of Minneapolis.

Jimmy and Terry and Janet are going to make like 20,000 hit songs together. He doesn't know I'm Alive isn't a hit song necessarily and yet. Janet laughs, in fact, on five out of nine songs on control, which is 55.6% of the songs, if you round up. On the title track, she says, I've got control and lots of it. And I was confused at first by this notion of control is like a quantity you could have progressively more or less of. In terms of pop start, I'd foolishly thought of it as more of a binary. You're either in control of your life and your career or you're not, but that's quite naive of me. I have to say, so take her at her word.

She's got lots of it. Let's say 55.6%. The more control she has, the more she laughs. She wraps up this album with a slow one called Funny How Time Flies When You're Having Fun. The gentle, quiet, subtle laughs are cool, but I dig the bombast, the disruption of a full power Janet Jackson laugh. We're onto our fourth album now. Rhythm Nation 1814 came out in 1989, spawned like 5,000 hit singles all on its own. When I was 11 years old, I thought of Janet Jackson as like this towering, godlike immortal presence, a foundational element to human life.

Like she had her own number on the periodic table. Element number 69 on the periodic table is Thulium. Just in case anybody ever asks you that, that's so stupid. I'm sorry, this is the second verse of love we'll never do without you. That's pretty good, pretty disruptive. Can we get like a nine second interlude track where 55.6% of it is just her laughing? Don't get me in here acting silly now. You're not taping this, are you?

Edit. Excellent. Her fifth album from 1993 is just called Janet, officially styled lowercase J. Janet with a period. She saves the laughter at the very end, a very bubbly and silly song called Whoops Now. She's going on vacation. I'm going to let you fill in the rest. We arrive now at her 1997, The Velvet Rope, regarded by many as Janet Jackson's deepest, densest, darkest, darkest, most of vulnerable, most traumatized, most confrontational, most cathartic album, arguably your best album as well. Control is a quantity. You can have a lot of it and then lose a lot of it and then fight terribly

hard to regain most of the control. You'd lost. At least three notable laughs on the velvet rope. Let's start with the song Free Zone. That's Zone with a capital X. That's a good sign that, oh boy, that song just kind of I meanders around for five full minutes, no complaints. There are a subset of Janet Jackson fans who are Janet Jackson laugh connoisseurs. By the way, there are listicles, there are YouTube playlists. There is established scholarship. That great website, The Hairpin, which I miss very much, did a ranked list of Janet Jackson

laughs. And this was number one, Got Till It's Gone, featuring both Joni Mitchell and Q-Tip, neither of whom ever lie. Do you feel that? Uh-uh. Great choice. That's a solid number one. Let's wrap up, though, for now with a slow jam called Anything,

which features what I will reluctantly but dutifully, described to you as a sexual laugh. Not a bad at you sexual laugh. Just to clarify. Okay. I submit to you, however, that the most buoyant, most infectious musical laughter of Janet Jackson's career could be heard

on a song where she is not laughing and where she is in fact singing the saddest, most devastating lyrics of her career. She channels all her joy, all her euphoria into a song designed to make you burst into tears the second it comes on, crying,

laughing, laughing, crying. You burst into tears, but you also head for the dance floor, even if you don't dance, even if there is no dance floor. Any floor can be a dance floor if you need it to be. My name is Rob Harvilla. This is the 73rd episode of 60 songs that explain the 90s. And this week we are discussing together again by Janet Jackson from her 1997 album, The Velvet Rope. The harp there reminds me just a little of the Legend of Zelda, the Nintendo game.

I don't say that to be glib. I get real emo and nostalgic about the legend of Zelda. Two, it's dangerous to go alone. Take this. Janet Jackson does not have a bazooka diva voice in the Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Martha Wash vein, but that descending melody right there, that's as sublime as it gets

vocally, emotionally. I sang that for you just now to accentuate how much better it is when Janet Jackson sings it, you're welcome. When you see only one set of footprints on the dance floor, it was then that Janet Jackson carried you. This is Janet Jackson's eighth number one single on the Billboard Hot 100. She has 10 number one songs total. Until recently, I wouldn't have thought of together again as one of Janet's most important or biggest songs relative to all her other big important songs.

I'm actually pleased to report that I don't think I can convey to you how colossal this person seemed to me from the mid-80s forward. I think that means that I happily do retain some faint echo of my naive, underdeveloped five-year-old, eight-year-old, 12-year-old, 19-year-old brain that perceived Janet Jassen as a sentient mobile ninth wonder of the world. just this laughably huge and huge laughed Olympian-sized famous pop star whose giant hit songs seem to somehow tower above everyone else's giant hit songs. Just a majestic hot air balloon of a human. But do you know the thing where you're a doofy little kid from the bucolic John Cougar Mellon Camp suburbs and you go to the big city for the first time? Any big city, it hardly matters how big the city really is.

And preferably you're a tiny five-year-old or whatever. and you look straight up at all the giant buildings and they all seem like skyscrapers even if they're not and they're all looming and leaning over you as if to cradle you, even though they're obviously not. Each of those skyscrapers is a Janet Jackson song to me.

When I think of you, Escapade, love will never do without you. Black Cat, miss you much. That's the end? No, if, I'm really viving to if lately. Again, anytime, any place, that's the way love goes. All of these songs I still vaguely perceive as cosmic, titanic physical forces.

I was quite surprised at first that together again is Janet Jackson's most played song on Spotify. I was almost offended at first, like that escapade does not have like seven billion plays on Spotify, which owns the ringer. Is it the ringer's fault somehow? But I learned pretty quickly to respect the otherworldly and fearsomely comforting power of together again. in particular. A year or so ago, I was playing the whole velvet rope record while bumbling around in my house. I was just hanging out with my wife and together again comes on and I'm just vibing obliviously as I do. And then I look over and my wife is crying. And I'm like, ah, and my wife starts telling me about this friend of hers in college who died, this girl who collapsed and died during her senior year of college. And that day when my wife found out, she couldn't believe it. And she and her friends pile into a car and arrived at the hospital, but the girl's already gone. And then sometime later, my wife's at a house party with all this girl's friends. And Janet Jackson's together again comes on.

And suddenly all this girl's closest friends are dancing and singing along and waving these colorful boas around and crying. And my wife's crying telling me this. Now I'm crying. And the song's still playing in our house. And yo, it turns out together again is Janet Jackson's most important song. And it turns out Janet Jackson does laugh. on this song right near the beginning when the beat picks up. I apologize. I misspoke. Janet Jackson

laughs on Together Again. I'm actually delighted to tell you that. All right. So our album control comes out in 1986 and eventually sells five million copies in the United States. Five top five singles. One of those hits number one. That's when I think of you. Best song ever made. Her album, Rhythm Nation 1814, comes out in 1989, eventually sells six million copies in the United States seven top five singles. That's still a record. Four of those hit number one. But even all those numbers still can't convey how huge she seemed to me. She was on MTV constantly. That may actually be all I need to say to truly convey her hugeness. That's all it took to impress and intimidate and enrapture me back in 1989. She was on MTV all the time.

You know what was the single coolest thing on television in 1989? Janet Jackson, holding up the back of her hand and counting down from five to one at the start of the Rhythm Nation video. I'm sitting here now and I keep rewining this part and I can't do it the way Janet Jackson does it. Like I'm pausing between each individual finger. The Rhythm Nation video,

she got the severe black quasi-military uniform from the album cover. She's in one of those factories where they make music, videos, a bunch of backup dancers behind her, of course. And then the countdown. So she holds up the back of her hand, fingers spread. Five, pulls in her thumb, four, pulls in her index finger. Three, pulls down both her ring finger and pinky and puts her index finger back up. Two, that's the tricky and cool part. Two fingers down. One finger back up on two. Her index finger and

middle finger are now up on two. So that way she can put her middle finger down on one. So she's not flipping off the camera. This was my favorite MTV dance move when I was 11 years old. She puts down two fingers and puts one back up. That's why it's so cool. We crack the code. Let's do it together. Five, four, three, two. I still can't do it right. Rhythm Nation peaked at number two on the hot 100. Rhythm Nation was the number two song in America on January 6th, 1990, the first Hot 100 chart of the 90s. Long ago, I believe I mentioned that the number one song in America when the 90s started was another day in paradise by Phil Collins. Let's see Phil do the hand countdown thing. The Rhythm Nation guitar riff is also incredible, the heaviness of it. It rocks as hard as anybody whose entire persona

was trying to rock hard in 1990. But here in the early 90s, there's also a run of giant pop chart hits that double is legit dance songs driven by disco, driven by house music. These are dance floor monoliths that aren't trying to cross over to pop. They're just so rad that they almost involuntarily do. So we got D.Light's groove is in the heart. One of the millions of tiny glittering fragments of random shit I saw on television in the 1990s still stuck in my head is when D.Light played Saturday Night Live and Roseanne. bar was the host and just the zest with which rosanne said ladies and gentlemen delight this was the daniel craig ladies and gentlemen the weekend of its time ladies and

gentlemen delight and then d light didn't play groove is in the heart not even for their second song they played world click and power of love that's a boss move you got everybody everybody by the italian group black box but don't pay any attention to i'm sure the perfectly nice lady posing on the album cover or lip-syncing in the video. This song is primarily a Martha Wash experience. You got C&C Music Factory is going to make you sweat. Everybody Dance Now, of course, as previously discussed in this venue at great length. And once again, she ain't on the album cover or in the video, but this song is very much a Martha Wash experience. Those songs are all 1990. In 1991, you got Gypsy Woman. She's Homeless.

Crystal Waters, hit the deck. Another one of the millions of tiny glittering fragments of random shit I saw on television in the 1990s still stuck in my head is when Kim Wayans made fun of this song on In Living Color. That is very mean and very funny. That is Jim Carrey spoofing snows in former caliber mean. funny. I will concede that seven minutes and change of gypsy woman, she's homeless, is a lot. Repetition-minded crossover dance hits that got played ad nauseum on MTV and pop radio. Some of these

songs really, really antagonized people, not all of them. I can't imagine anybody anywhere ever saying a discouraging word about finally by C.C. Peniston. That's 1992. One more. Don't talk to anyone willing to say a discouraging word about show me love by Robin S. either. This song took a few years to resonate. This remix didn't blow up until 1993, but it blew all the way up. And thanks to break my soul, the first single off the new Beyonce

record, this song's arguably huge right now. But by 1993, this sort of club to pop chart smash hit is less prevalent in pop music and R&B. You know who is more prevalent in pop music and R&B? You guessed it. I'm really vibing to the song

if lately. This specific era, Rhythm Nation, and the Janet album in 93, I'm drawn to the loudest, the hardest, the most industrial Janet Jackson songs. Janet eventually sold seven million copies in the United States. This is a very pleasing controlled progression where we sell an additional one million copies per album. Seven top ten hits on this record, two number ones, both of which, fair enough, tend to showcase Janet at her quietest and gentlest. we've got that's the way love goes which is a massive sounding song that impressively also sounds like

she's singing in a crowded daycare center during nap time and she's trying very hard to hit on you without waking any of the kids up the other number one song in the Janet album is the extra gentle and sultry power ballad again if it's all the same to you I'm going

to largely sidestep the topic of the substantial sexual awakening Janet Jackson experiences in this era or the sexual awakening she'd previously experienced and is now modeling for us in this era, I don't feel comfortable.

I don't suppose you feel comfortable with my holding forth on that Rolling Stone cover, for example. And as for the quite ubiquitous on MTV video, for again, I remember it. That's all I have to say.

I remember it. Re-listening to again a ton recently this moment when her voice breaks is the moment for me on this song and really this whole album part of the reason it never mattered that janet jackson doesn't have a bazooka diva voice is because of her dancing the elaborate and overwhelming force of the choreography in her videos and in concert plus the fashion the vision even in her album covers the notion of her as a total package vocally she hits for average not power sports metaphor but a singular wonderful thing about her singing voice is how powerfully frail she can sound. The vulnerability

she can project with the same mesmerizing and dominant force she applies to the more dominant aspects of her art. There's an argument that Janet Jackson peaks as a pure vocalist right here. It's a pretty good song, is what I'm saying. One final track on the Janet record that bears mentioning, and only mentioning with no additional commentary for me, at least. is the pretty explicit pivot to house music on this song called Throb. Given their substantial peak era overlap, there are remarkably few Janet Jackson songs that you can comfortably imagine Madonna singing or performing,

but Throb is one of them. This concludes my commentary with regards to Throb. So one excellent reason to hyper-focus on the music, the songs, the granular details within the songs themselves, is that the press tour, the media narrative, the extra musical circus surrounding Janet Jackson's 1997 album,

The Velvet Rope, all of that is a fucking mess, quite frankly, just chaos. It's a lot. It's not what you want. It does not appear to be what she wanted. In 1997,

Janet Jackson is still very much a pop music monolith. She sold four million copies in America of a greatest hits album, design of a decade that came out in 1995, In 96, she quite famously renegotiated her contract with Virgin Records and signed a new $80 million contract, which was instantly the biggest pop star record contract ever, bigger than anybody's, even bigger than anybody's. She was also quite depressed. She was dealing with self-esteem issues and body image issues that stretched all the way back to her childhood.

She was still processing a past abusive relationship. She was also still wondering what percentage of her fame and fortune and acclaim was simply due to her being born into a musical family, where, notably, more things have happened and keep happening. If we push ahead a little into the tour to support the velvet rope, she was also struggling through a rocky and ultimately terminal phase in her marriage to her second husband, Renee Alizando Jr. They married in secret in 1991. For most of the decade, it was a lovely and remarkably artistically fruitful partnership. Those are his hands on the aforementioned Rolling Stone cover. That's him directing the aforementioned video for the song again. Renee Alizando Jr. is a co-writer on basically all of the velvet rope,

along with Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis, and Janet herself. Janet, Jimmy, and Terry produced the whole record. But as husband and wife, this will be their last Janet Jackson, Albuhr. them together. Janet and Renee will publicly separate in 1999 and divorce in 2000. In 2022 Lifetime and A&E put out an okay documentary, a four-episode show called Janet Jackson. I say okay because it's one of those pop-star documentary deals where Janet is an executive producer and thus calling the shots and thus obfuscating as much as she reveals. People wrote great things about this show, Rich Joswiak and Jezebel and John Caramanica.

in the New York Times, for example. It's one of those deals. Brene Alizondo Jr. also took a lot of home movies, too many home movies, perhaps. Ultimately, it's like he's the only person on Earth with an iPhone in 1989. I enjoyed watching this footage very much, but his zeal in gathering this footage makes him seem like a pain in the ass. But you do get video of him proposing to Janet on the beach.

And you also get a long sequence of Janet, Jimmy Jam, and Terry Lewis yelling at each other. while making Rhythm Nation, that's fun, I suppose, if you enjoy conflict, which I don't, really. With both its current Janet interviews and its archival footage, this lifetime deal, I suppose, is direct enough when it wants to be. The Velvet Rup was the hardest album that I've had to write. I've gone through a lot of self-discovery, self-examination, a lot of pain. That's old footage of Janet. on the Velvet Rope Press Tour.

All of this internal strife, some of which was not public knowledge at the time, clashes uncomfortably with the explicit and quite heavy and sometimes even disturbing content of the album itself. You might initially get the wrong idea about the pain she's referring to.

Back in 1997, when I hadn't heard this whole record yet, and I was just reading, often quite befuddled, and mixed reviews and magazine interviews and so forth, I had the erroneous impression that the velvet rope was her S&M album. This is my fault, of course, this misconception, but what if it wasn't?

What if it was the media's fault? There is indeed a song called Ropeburn on this record, whose chorus does indeed end like this. But the key word there is soft Ropeburn, I think. Oh my God, let's not get bogged down in this. Let's not get bogged down in the media shit either. Okay, to summarize the chaos of Janet Jassen's public life in 1997, she goes on Oprah, right? Peak Imperial Phase Oprah. I think right here in 1997 is when I took a journalism class at a Midwestern University

renowned for its journalism program, according to the available literature. And the professor asked us to define integrity, like who we thought had integrity. and everyone in the class said Oprah. I think that's always that. Oprah, that's it. Oprah equals sign integrity. I don't even disagree now, but so Janet Jackson does the whole hour on Oprah.

You can watch it on YouTube now. She performs together again. She tossed to Oprah for a long time. She performs God till it's gone. She gets the hell out of there. And Janet Jackson's interview with Oprah is a journey, man. It's just very cringe and then somewhat moving and then very cringe again at irregular intervals.

Topics include in no particular order. Janet's famous family. Her belief that she's not that great a dancer. Her weight. Whether she eats chicken or ribs or both or neither. Her depression. Enemas. Racism she experienced in school as a child.

Her relationship with Renee. And also this. I just want to know why you pierce your nipple. I really do mean that. in the best way. I don't, is there a reason why you say I'm going to pierce the nipple and not my nose? I really do

mean that in the best way as the quintessential Oprah touch, by the way. That's why she's the best. That's why she's the paragon of journalistic integrity. I'm not even joking. Well, for one, you get this great sensation.

At any given moment of the day, so. It goes on. If you're watching this episode live in 1997 just as a big Oprah fan who maybe hasn't thought about Janet Jackson in forever, you emerge from this long, sprawling, daffy conversation with the very confused idea that Janet Jackson's new album, The Velvet Rope, must be this baffling jumble of confessional,

almost therapeutic super heaviness and hard R-rated blindfolds and piercing, mischief, the achingly sincere rubbing up against the disarmingly prurient, or maybe the disarmingly sincere rubbing up against the achingly prurient. And you would not be wrong in thinking that

about this record, but I don't think this Oprah conversation or frankly any conversation people were having about this record at first prepares you for how well the velvet rope balances this chaotic jumble of moods and traumatic memories and

fears and desires. Dony Mitchell and Q-tip should not work well on a sawn together, by the way, but they do. Opposites attract. Opposites enhance one another. The bad kind of pain forms a spectacular alliance with the good kind of pain. This is the saw on the velvet rope, and even the two samples here should not really work in tandem. The heaviness, the rad, old-school electrobeat is hobo-scratch by Malcolm McLaren and the world's famous Supreme team from 1984.

The ominous lightness, the tubular bells, well, that's Mike Oldfield's tubular bells from 1973. That's even older school, I suppose. And yeah, that's from the exorcist. So this is a semi-erotic electro-exorcism leading off an album in which a famously erotic super famous pop star intends to exercise her various demons. And on paper or on Oprah, maybe it sounds both way too random and way too. literal, but in practice it sounds weirdly fantastic.

The velvet rope itself is not an S&M thing or an especially sexual thing, as I mistakenly thought at first because I was nefariously misled by the media, but the actual velvet rope that separates VIPs from non-VIPs, famous people from not famous people, etc. It is Janet Jackson welcoming you into her world and bearing her all-to-human vulnerabilities. And this usually doesn't work on paper either. that I've got problems just like you, pop star trip. Stars, they're just like us, works great as a concept. I'm a star and I'm just like you.

Doesn't work at all. But the vulnerability here sneaks up on you as well. This record's got a bunch of interludes and little skits, and I tune out most of those on most other albums by most other people, most of the time. But the velvet rope includes both a skit in which Janet masturbates while calling a woman that the internet swears to me is Lisa Marie Presley. who was a member of Janet's musically inclined family

at the time, and I don't have any idea what to do with that information, but it also has a 10-second track called Interlude Sad, in which Janet says this. There's nothing more depressing than having everything and still feeling sad.

And it blows right by you, maybe, the first 50 times you listen to this album, and then it knocks you on your ass the 51st. time. This sneak attack mix of subtlety and flagrant unsubtledity works with the R-rated mischief too. So Janet covers Rod Stewart's Tonight's The Night, right? And at first, this seems like way too chill. But then, hopefully it doesn't take you 51 times hearing this, but suddenly

it occurs to you that Janet hasn't changed all of Rod's pronouns. The master stroke here is putting all the extra sauce on the word now, not the word girl. On other songs, though, it's imperative that you get Janet's point immediately. I have this vivid memory also from around a year ago of taking a long walk around my neighborhood while listening to this record with my headphones cranked up way too high, and the song, What About, just about knocked me into a ditch. She and her lover are taking a romantic walk on the beach. This isn't the part that not me into the ditch. This is the part. This is the song that's pretty explicitly about a past abusive relationship.

The other line from the chorus, I'm tempted to play for you, is where she sings, What About the Times You Said You Didn't Fuck Her, she only gave you head, because that's kind of funny in an R-rated way. But I do feel like this part is a little more important. There's like seven more songs after this one, and most of them are tender ballads or quite amorous overtures or both. And it's just shocking to me that this record survives this song, that the fury and the awful gravity of what about doesn't totally destabilize or negate everything around it. But it coexists. It all fits together. This song is right where it needs to be, even if that means it comes 10 minutes or so less after this one. The beat dropping on Together Again is a classic

moment. It's a classic moment in and of itself that echoes, of course, the classic moment when Donna Summer did it on Last Dance back in 1978. Listen to the best. Aspire to the best. Tip your hat to the best. Together again, when it shifts into gear, has a sweetness and a lightness and a bubbliness to it. It doesn't take 51 listens to sense the delicate and terrible weight behind that bubbliness. It doesn't take point listens. But I submit to you that Janet's not Bazooka diva voice is once again a huge asset here. She doesn't oversell the drama, which of course only deepens it.

I jump to the second verse because the backing vocals are low key, the best part of this whole song. Get good headphones and just luxuriate in Janet's backing vocals here. If you're walking while you're luxuriating, look out for any ditches. Sometimes hear you whisper in. no more pain. Yeah. So in the velvet rope liner notes, Janet

writes, I dedicate the song together again to the friends I've lost to AIDS. Dominic, George, Derek, Bobby, Dominic, Victor, Jose. I miss you, and we will be together again.

This was written for you. End quote. Yeah. Here's Janet explaining her thought process to John Norris in an MTV interview. Well, I decided that I wanted to do a song about my friends. I wanted to do something that was uplifting, rejoiceful, that would reflect their personalities. I am going to play the chorus to this song, by the way,

just in case you're worried that I'm not going to. I guess I'm worried that you're worried that I won't play the chorus, but I will. Okay. I do believe that. that it doesn't just in here, that there's a, we go into another life and that I will see them again. Yeah. Together again is Janet Jackson being the change she wants to see in the world, or I guess the change she wants to see in the afterlife. It's a lot. This song is quite an effervescent delivery system for a lot. It's a good time to play the chorus, I think. I believe I mentioned Tom

Brian, the great critic and author, who writes for stereo gum. He has that rad column, the number ones, where he writes about every number one hit. It's required reading, of course, and he got to this song a few weeks back, actually, and he wrote, Together Again came out after a long string of number one hits dealing with death, but it doesn't sound or feel anything like those songs. Together again is not a melodramatic work of mourning. Instead, it's a song of optimism and celebration. Janet it sings of death as a form of liberation from earthly stresses. It's a song about being excited to see this person again on the other side. And from where I'm sitting, that's a whole hell of the lot more moving than another mopey ballad. In that sentiment, you can hear a lineage at work.

Gospel to soul to disco to house. You can hear the yearning for transcendence that's behind so much great music. Then Tom says, together again also just slaps hard, because because that's how Tom rolls. No lies detected. I feel a little silly, quite frankly, that it took my wife crying while it was playing to finally, definitively convey to me what a monster this song is, but I guess together again finds you when you need it, or somebody politely slaps you across the face with it when they think you need it. And there's a tidy little extended universe built around this song once you do finally get it. You can spend some time with the DJ Premiere remix, for example.

Backing vocals are still tremendous there. If that's slapping a bit too much for you, there is also the deeper remix, more of a quiet storm deal. Renee Alizando Jr. directed the video, which is a few clicks hornier than the circumstances would seem to require. But what are you going to do? Backing vocals are still tremendous, just incredible raw materials to work with here.

I do want to get ahead of the curve now and find the next song on the velvet rope, then I'm going to wake up one day and feel stupid that I didn't love. love it all along and I think I found it. It's the next song after Together Again, actually. Empty is a song about talking to a lover on something called The Internet. It is preceded by an interlude that consists mostly of the dial-up modem sound. The way the song slowly gathers intensity and cacophony is really something. This is an awfully futuristic sounding R&B song for 1997.

What's even more impressive is that Janet Chesson predicts in 1997 how much it sucks trying to talk to a lover on the internet. I feel like if you ask me next week, I'm going to tell you empty is the best song on the velvet rope. And the reason that I'll give you is that the emptiness of online dating as described by the song Empty sends you scurrying back to the physical and metaphysical dance floor connection of together again. The physical body triumphs over the digital body. body, even when the physical body is mourning the loss of everyone who's no longer here physically. Give it some thought. What else happened to Janet Jackson in the years after this wonderful record came out? Many things happened. She did many notable things. Ooh, here's one. That's Janet Jackson

laughing on a song from 2001 called All for You. That's Janet Jackson laughing on a song from 2008 called Roller Coaster. That's Janet Jackson Laughing Laughing. on a song from 2015 called No Sleep. Please note that I did not play you the J. Cole version. Listen. If there ever comes a terrible day when I am forced to mourn Janet Jackson, to reminisce over Janet Jackson, this laughter, these myriad songs on which she laughs are how I will choose to remember

the last 20 years or so of Janet Jackson, along with the 15 to 20, especially an unbelievably transcendent years before that. when that day comes you can play back all this laughter and once again feel her love around you though of course you can do that right now i would advise you not to ignore not to waste all the love and all the goofy laughter janet jackson has brought into the world she is still a towering godlike immortal presence to me she is still the majestic hot air balloon and i am still the awestruck and oh so tiny third baseman perfectly content to gawk a gawked up at her from the dirt. Our guests today, we are so thrilled to be joined by DJ Louis the 14th, the DJ writer, pop music fanatic, and host of the wonderful podcast, Pop Pantheon. Louis, thank you so much for being here. Rob, it is my pleasure and my honor to be here with you.

Likewise, man. Thank you so much. Louis, does it surprise you that together again is Janet Jackson's most played song in 2022. It kind of surprises me. I would say yes and no, because I do think that Spotify is, of course, and all of streaming is geared towards younger audiences. And I think that if you grew up in my generation, who were not necessarily of age during the peak 80s Janet albums, I think Velvet Rope was probably your entry point. And together, again, is the signature single from that record. So it doesn't surprise me. and it's also, as I'm sure we're going to get into,

one of her sort of, you know, subterraneanly devastatingly sad, but at least on the surface, sort of upbeat and fun dance singles. So, no, I wouldn't say particularly surprises me. I guess if I, if you were to ask me without having looked, I probably would have guessed it would be all for you, honestly. Ah, okay.

So from 2001, see, I, for me, I was a kid, like, for Rhythm Nation for the Janet record, and she was so huge to me back then. I was like Escapade. Like I thought Escapade would have like 10 billion plays. I'm just, I don't know if younger people today don't understand how huge she was right there in like 89 to 93. No, and her, and her as has been documented ad nauseum by smarter critics than I, her legacy has been deeply affected by what happened to her at the Super Bowl. So I think that, in.

contrast to, you know, one of her primary counterparts from her era, Madonna, who I think is often celebrated as, you know, the great iconic pop star that she was and whom kids, I think, have more of a familiarity with kids. I don't know who I'm talking about exactly. Younger folks might just, just because of like the way she's a part of the firmament of American popular culture and has been valorized as such, I think Janet is only now sort of beginning or in the last, let's say five years, beginning a recovery process from a lost 15 years of the place that she belongs, which is frankly right next to Madonna, Janet Prince, as these sort of Titans of the 80s, who has had just an utterly profound influence on pop stardom as an idea and on pop music as a

genre and concept. So I am curious from your perspective as a DJ, what happens to a dance floor when you play together again? Is that like a super heavy moment or a, lighter-than-air moment or somehow both at once? I think it's more on the lighter-than-air moment, and obviously it's the kind of record that has to be played in the right context. It's, I don't think it's the record, and this is why I brought up all for you, that, like, your average 20-something is going to necessarily gravitate towards. Again, I think that all for you has weirdly transcended and is, I mean, I think for obvious

reasons. I think it's sort of like a new disco vibe is more prescient, perhaps, of like what most of contemporary popular music sounds like. Like, you know, you can hear all for you in Lizzo's about damn time or whatever. But or in the Duolipo records. But I think that, yes, I would usually be playing it in a mix of other sort of diva house influenced records of the late 90s, waiting for tonight by Jennifer Lopez, shares believe, Kylie Minogue's love at first sight, sort of in that area. Okay. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.

What did it mean in 1997 for a pop star as huge as Janet Jackson to say, like, really explicitly? I dedicate this song to all my friends who died of AIDS. I know there were songs like Waterfalls, right, that were willing to be that specific, but it still strikes me as uncommon for a star this huge to say that out loud the way she did. I think it's as big as you're making it out to be. I think that Janet doesn't get nearly enough credit for her advocacy and sort of firm support of the gay community. Again, it's another thing where I think, I hate to keep bringing her up,

but I do think it's an interesting parallel along social, cultural, and racial lines what Madonna is sort of viewed as versus who Janet was viewed at, because Janet was equally, if not more outspoken. And even earlier than that, I mean, on the Janet record, she, you know, is on records like Throb and stuff was influencing. you know, was referencing gay culture and very explicitly talking about it even in that era. And then there's other records to the, you know, right after together again on Velvet Rope is a song called Free Zone in which she literally says things explicitly like boy meets boy, boy, whatever, things like that. So I think the answer to your question that was a long way of getting there is that it was humongous.

And I think she is a risk taker both in terms of her artistic. choices, but also I think she's always been somebody whose music has explicitly stood for something more so than some of her contemporaries. And that began with control and rhythmination as sort of like, you know, control being about her taking the idea of control as a young woman and of her career, her artistry and her life, of rhythmination of sort of sort of, you know, turning that outward facing about sort of society. And I think that that thread runs through a lot of her best music. And it definitely is here on Velvet Rope. And I think it's both surprised. for a pop star to have been so bold about that and very deeply meaningful to be seen in that way

by a pop star for whom gay men are their providence and like who we you know we keep them alive we keep their careers going through the good and bad times so to have that acknowledgement is really important i think we can talk about that if you want to bring in you know bianca's new record but i think that uh it was huge and i remember like it striking me at 10 years old when I was still grappling with a lot of these things to know that fact. I think that definitely like hit me in a specific way and engendered a lot of deep love and passion between me and her, even if I didn't know why exactly at the time. Yeah. Well, that's beautiful. How do you hear, how do you personally hear together again now when you hear it? Do you hear it as a triumphant song

or a very, very sad song, as you said? I hear it as something that reaches towards like healing. I view it as a deeply healing song. I think about it a lot as I will need this song when I lose somebody close to me. That's how I hear it, actually. This is going to sound so dumb. No, not at all.

But I had a dog that passed away about five, six years ago, and I remember turning to that song in that moment. And I know that sounds cheesy. That's not dumb. But I do think it's one of the greatest the greatest expressions of sort of like making sense of loss and finding a way through that in pop in a way that never feels like, you know, heavy-handed.

It's light touch, which is what Janet's sort of gift is as a singer. You know, she can really add, you know, she knows how to make a song smile, I always say. I think that's kind of like one of her gifts. Yeah. And I think that this is dealing with a heavy topic, but in a way that's, you know, that does have a sort of like fluttery light touch. It's angelic. It's heavenly. It's divine in that way. She knows how to make a song smile. That's perfect. I was going to ask you, like, she does not, Janet does not have like a booming, like Whitney or Mariah voice, right? But, like,

is that an asset on a song like this, like to bring in more of a vulnerability? Absolutely. And an intimacy. I think Janet's been a spectacular at utilizing that very thin coup. And, you know, and look, has had a massive, influence on so many singers that have come after her, like from Brittany to Selina Gomez on and on and on through the pop world. But I think that, yes, I think that she knows how to put that to good use. And it really is interesting because initially how that happened was on these sort of like industrial funk, you know, tracks by Jimmy and Terry on control, you know. So it was a really nice, that was a really nice contrasting sort of vibe where like she would be in the, you know, floating above

these sort of like deeply jagged like you know sharp heavy productions and then on velvet rope and in sort of her more like you know what what what I gladly we do not refer to anymore as like her p p p r p br p br and b whatever that shit was called p br and b whatever that shit was called yeah which like people often point to the velvet rope as kind of like the initial pb r b record yes I hadn't heard that, but I guess it does make sense. Yeah, I think it makes sense because it's, it is, it's, you know, it's like a pre-pop-pimist record where, like, people who, like, wrote off this frivolous pop star, like, we're like, oh, no, actually, like, she has depths and she makes, like, she could be serious. Yeah, she can be serious. So I think that, I think that on this record on particular, she's actually doing something new with her voice and Jimmy and Terry are doing something different in the production, which is that there's sort of like a lot of sort of, like, smoothness and lightness in the production as well.

a nice compliment to her voice throughout this album. So in this song in particular, it's a very smooth light track. It's not like a slamming dance track in the style of like 2010's EDM. It's got a feathery light touch in the production as well. From my perspective,

in the very early 90s, there was a huge run of like pop crossover hits. Like Groove is in the hard, Gypsy Woman finally. And then it tapers off. And by the mid-90s, like when you get together again in 1997, like a house-influenced number one record,

is a much rarer thing. Is there stuff that I'm missing, first of all? Like, does that track for you that it kind of was going in and out of style? Well, I think what you're referencing was sort of like a more true ear to the ground, sort of like underground to mainstream movement of not particularly huge stars. In the late 90s, a lot of divas are turning towards house for singles. I mentioned shares believe. I mentioned Jennifer Lopez is waiting for tonight.

As other examples of this, Kylie Minogue's can't get you out of my head as a record that comes out two or three years after that. So there's definitely a way in which during this period, and it does end, I believe, in about 2000 when, you know, what I like to refer to as like hip-pop and B sort of foregrounds itself. And like every pop star is making hip-hop adjacent or conversant pop music in the style of, you know, Mariah Carey's fantasy and Mary J. Blige's real love, whatever, that sort of strain of pop radio. But in this particular period, maybe it was the last gasp of dance music having relevance on the charts until, you know, the late, until Lady Gaga, you know, until the late sort of 2000s into the 2010s boom. But yes, I think maybe more what you see in this

period is established pop divas turning to this form for hits. I mean, Ray of Light being another interesting potential sort of piece of this puzzle too for hits, not necessarily kind of like your Robin S's, your crystal waters, you're like ultranate. or whomever else. Like, you know, it's not these underground sort of like coming from the club culture. It's like established pop divas utilizing this format. No, that makes a lot of sense. Like the difference between C.C. Penison doing it and Janet Jackson doing it.

Exactly. Exactly. Although, as said, Janet was doing it in 1993. Right, right, right. She was ahead of it. Yes. Okay. So I guess we do got to get into the Beyonce of it all, right?

Like when the Drake record comes out, when the Drake record comes out and break my soul, the first Beyonce single comes out. There's like a run of people talking about house music affecting pop music. Do you see a lot of Janet Jackson in this Beyonce record or in this period now where house music to some extent is infecting pop music again? I mean, I guess like around the edges, but like Beyonce is just such a different performer than and singer than Janet that like sometimes it's hard for me to like make that connection. I had this with Charlie XX's record too because Charlie was referencing Janet quite a bit on her,

her recent record. And I can hear it in the production on a song, like new shapes or whatever, where they're like clearly jacking like the pre-new Jack swing industrial funk of Jimmy and Terry. But I don't, it's like Charlie's such a braty shouter. And Janet is like so the opposite of that, that like it can sometimes hard be hard for me to hear that per se. So I think Beyonce, I think there's no question that Janet Jackson just writ large is Beyonce's, you know, one of Beyonce's holy trinity of like predecessors.

If the others are Michael and like Tina Turner. or Donna Summer. I don't know. Like, there's a few of them. Sure. But I don't, I can't say that like, and I've thought a lot about this record. I've had to write about this record. I've just pop pantheon is in the middle of rolling out, like 10 hours of content about Beyonce.

So I have. Necessary, very necessary, what you're doing. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. But the, that was of the myriad references that I wrote down related to Renaissance. I can't say that Janet came up a whole lot except for. in looping us back to the beginning of the conversation

in that this record feels like Beyonce's real acknowledgement of gay culture, of queer culture, in a very direct way, Beyonce's obviously one of the most iconic gay figures of all time in popular music, but this is the first time it feels like in her 25-year career where she has very directly winked, nodded, and set our name on record.

So in that way, I see Janet, you know. So as a DJ, what Janet songs, albums, eras do you find yourself reaching forward to reach, as you said, the younger people? You mentioned all for you, and that makes a lot of sense, is like the song from the last 20 years, but like, do they go for control at all? Do they go for if?

Do they go for rhythm? Only older crowds, and there's, only older crowds, and there's unfortunately, and I think this speaks to what I was saying about the Super Bowl, there is a racial divide. I mean, I think within the black community, Janet is on that level. Janet is, as in speaking in my own terminology, a tier one icon of pop history, I think for a lot of white people, there's less of, there's a passing familiarity. I mean, the woman has, you know, 25, you know, classics in her arsenal that, like, you know, they're part of the American songbook in a certain way. But I think that if I'm going to, if I'm playing for people my age and younger in, like, a mix, in mixed company, I think that, you know, it's all for you is by, far the number one. Together again is up there somewhere. I think that there's weirdly, you know,

like feedback from 22, 2008's discipline in a gay club goes pretty hard. I don't even know if you're, I'm looking at your face trying to process that. It's a dark child. I remember. No, I remember that song. Yes. It's like, it's like, it's, this is how I like describe feedback. It's like Janet doing blackout in this like, it's like, it's like the, the, the, the completion of the circle of like Brittany's jacking everything from Janet and then Janet jacking everything back from. Okay. There we go. It's like Janet's blackout song or something like that. But that can work pretty well. What else do I like to? I mean, I will just throw things in there just because I feel like it's partially my duty to restore this woman's legacy. So like, you know, when new shapes

came out, for instance, which like obviously like Charlie XX is like gay Jesus in my, you know, in my generation, you know, I'm trying to be like, okay, but like here's the play. pleasure principle. You know what I mean? Like here's, here's, here's, here's, here's, here's, that Charlie is utilizing for this record. So, but I think, I think the other, and then the other one, the other two are the other two real all for you singles, you know, which are doesn't really matter the single from the nutty professor in which Janet infamously, you talked about her shouting out gay culture. How about her literally saying nutty, nutty, nutty, she literally gives it to nutty professor. On lyric. I mean, that's

radicalism right there. And then also the absolutely brilliant, genius someone to call my lover, another house indebted Janet record, that also can work pretty well if you hit it at the right moment. You mentioned sort of this restoration of her legacy in the last five years. Is that sort of a reflection of like the way we're doing this for a lot of people, including Brittany? Like we're going back now and apologizing for all the terrible shit that we did to these various people 20 years ago. Is it that same thing happening to Janet or why is she sort of coming back around or sort of getting her due now to a greater extent than even five years ago. I do think it is part of the same movement. I think that it is due to the same factors, which is that

I think we've looked back at the way that we have treated women in our culture and black women in Janet's case in particular. And female pop singers, you know, I mean, talk about someone that had to like claw for any form of credibility in her career. I mean, both Brittany and Jane. Janet have struggled with this immensely. I think that it is part of the same thing. I think that Janet is in a tougher spot than Brittany because Janet's core fan base is like, you know, middle-aged at this point. Like, you know, I think that it's difficult.

I think that, I mean, look, look, it was great when Janet got inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I think that was a huge moment. That was really long overdue. and I think went away is in, you know, helping to sort of like say like, hey, this is a person that, like, deserves the utmost respect from the music industry, period. And she does. So I think that her legacy has been restored.

I think it's like a very invogue for people to be like justice for Janet Jackson, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I'm not, but when I go look at like her Spotify numbers and stuff like that, I don't necessarily feel like it's had the effect that it should have in terms of like people actually like going back and, like getting familiar with this music. Like I really think it's like bleak when I look at her like six million Spotify streams a month or whatever it is. Like that's that is not commensurate with no. Her influence or the fact that like these songs fucking bang. Like I, you know what I mean?

Like so these songs bang like, who wouldn't like these songs? Like I mean, they're so, they're like some of the greatest pop records of the modern era. So I just, I do feel like it's this kind of thing where it's like a lot of internet speaky, like it's cool to be like justice for Janet, but I'm not quite sure.

If anything has done the work that's needed to be done to like put the focus back on her music. You know, I'm hoping that we can do that on our, on my show. And, you know, I thought her, I thought the recent documentary on her was super disappointing because it didn't center that music. Oh, cool influence. Like, I would take, I would take three hours on the velvet rope itself.

I think the velvet rope is one of the most, you know, consequential and fascinating major pop star releases ever. So I would like to, I would, I think, I think there needs to be a focus put back more on just not this broad. And I think Brittany could use this too, not just on like the broad, like, oh, we're sorry that like Perez Hilton was a fucking dick to you, but like more on like, okay, like you are an innovator. Like every single female pop star, but pop star in general stands in your shadow has copied everything you've done, everything. I mean, I sometimes think she's been copied more than Madonna has. I mean, her move, every move, the move from

from sort of virginic tomboy to sexual being? Like, is that like the most tried and true path for every single female pop star that has come after? It's been, Miley, Brittany, Christina. It's like, it's endless. It's like every single one of them. So I look forward to being part of and other people jumping in here to, like, help highlight that fact. And I don't think that's, that work hasn't quite been done yet.

How is that going to happen? What realistically is the way that, like, Janet Jackson's music. I almost say out loud, like, you could do the Super Bowl, but of course, that's the entire problem. Like, how do you re-center her music, really? I don't know if you can ever, like, make up for what happened for, like, 15 years of being ostracized by our culture in that way

and, like, what that did to her. I mean, we could have been in a situation following the Super Bowl where she walked out of that triumphant. Demita Joe was another successful record for her, 20 years into her hitmaking. career, like, you know, and in which case we're probably in, like, slightly different territory. So I don't know that we can ever fix that, but I just personally as a fan would like there to at least be something out there that, like, really laid this out for people.

Like, this is what she did as a musician, a performer, how she, like, changed the nature of pop stardom. So it could at least start doing that work. I don't think we can ever fix what happened in the past. Like, I don't think that that's ever possible. I don't know. I mean, I can't imagine something that could, like, single-handedly fix that. Aside from, like, maybe the Super Bowl, but I don't know.

And also, like, should she ever do that? Like, they were so awful to her. I think that has been offered in the past. Yeah. I'm sure it has, but I, yeah, I wouldn't do it about her, you know, I don't think she's going to do it. But, Rob, you know this. Like, legacies are funny things. Like, they can weirdly find, like, they can weirdly morph.

Like, I think about this with, you know, not for nothing in this conversation, Justin Timberlake, who, like, voted so high. and like without doing much like without really doing anything has like basically devolved into a joke like from being like the sort of like cool guys pop star of his era he is like without

doing much his entire legacy has shifted beneath his feet so these things have a weird way of shape maybe it's a biopic maybe a great biopic maybe something like that yeah yeah yeah although I feel I pity the fool that has to do that like who has to try to emulate that precision

I was about to say I was trying think of who it could be and I do not come up with anybody. Zendaya, you better get to work. Wow. Yeah. That's, wow, that would be interesting. I did want to wrap up by speaking in your terms. Of course, your show Pop Pantheon, like your entire business is putting people in tears and sort of who are the best of the best. And so I did want to ask where Janet ranks for you at the end of the day. I have a feeling. Yeah. Well, I mean, for me personally, she's, you know, she's one of the greatest pop figure. of all time. So, but the Pantheon, as I say, is cold, hard, and has no feelings.

You know, it's not, she's not emotional. Okay. She just sees that she, okay. The Pantheon is about, is, the pop pantheon is about assessing, you know, how culture has viewed these people. Like, it's, it's, okay. Some of this shit is outside of their personal control. No pun intended.

So I, I, I will, I'm not going to reveal it and I'm going to, because I don't want you. I'm sure. But I do. I do. I think. I think there's a debate for Tier 1 and Tier 2, not because I don't think she belongs in Tier 1, but because of all of the things we're talking about right now.

I think that her legacy has suffered under two main things, one of which is this tarnishing of her name and nuking of her commercial fortunes following the Super Bowl. And the second is she's the premier pop star of all times Little Sister, and despite all of her success and it's immense and has no reason not to stand on its own two feet, I think at the end of the day, a lot of people still view her as little sis.

She's kind of always in his shadow to some degree. So those would be my two reasons that I think, not from my own perspective, but perhaps from a broader cultural perspective, she might be in that second tier, which is still a pretty rarefied group to be in, but I think it's open for debate, and I'm very much looking forward to having that debate

whenever we get to those episodes on my show. I'm looking forward to it to 10 hours on Janet Jessin. That's going to be... 25 an entire year. We'll go song by song. It's your life's work. Literally. Literally.

My life's work. Louis, this has been wonderful. Thank you so much for talking about. Oh, my pleasure, Rob. Anytime. Thank you so much to our guest this week, DJ Louis the 14th. Thanks to our producers, Jonathan Kerma, Kai Grady, and Justin Sales. And thanks very much to you for listening.

And now, without further, do, here's Janet Jackson with Together Again. We'll see you next week.