It's The Pleasure Princi-POLL -- ILM Artist Poll #103 -- JANET JACKSON Results Thread

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37. FREE XONE (from The Velvet Rope, 1997; 559 points; 13 votes)

If Gwen Stefani or Kelis Solange Janelle Monae made "Free Xone" everyone would pronounce it avant genius (albeit in different terms depending on which).
― Tim F, Sunday, October 19, 2008 12:05 AM (eleven years ago)

holy shit "Free Xone" is really fucking good
― Steve (Not Stevie) (Stevie D), Sunday, October 19, 2008 12:16 AM (eleven years ago)

imo "tighten up" sample in "free xone" is the best thing
― emo canon in twee major (BradNelson), Wednesday, January 14, 2015 2:01 PM (five years ago) bookmarkflaglink

ALL OF THE SAMPLES IN "FREE XONE" ARE THE BEST THING
― The Reverend, Wednesday, January 14, 2015 2:14 PM (five years ago)

I admit to taking "Free Xone" for granted now, what with its "See Spot Run" lyrics, but truthfully at the time, it meant as much to me as I expect something like Love, Simon meant to preteens 5 years ago.

Plus, it's Velvet Rope's "This Time" in terms of its go-for-broke maximalism.

Janet's not the only one singing about being lonely.

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36. ROCK WITH U (from Discipline, 2008; 561 points; 12 votes)

"Rock With U" is a pretty hot late-period jam.
― Palsied Phlebotomist (Old Lunch), Tuesday, January 7, 2014 1:08 PM (six years ago)

I used to hate “Rock With U” but I played it the other day and was like “wait this slams, what is happening”
― shout-out to his family (DJP), Friday, July 10, 2020 6:48 PM (three weeks ago)

discipline (2008) another one that's entirely new to me. hey 'rock with u' kinda jams.
― Totally different head. Totally. (Austin), Friday, July 24, 2020 12:24 AM (one week ago)

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35. BLACK CAT (from Rhythm Nation 1814, 1989; 575.5 points; 11 votes)

"Black Cat" by Janet Jackson
― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, March 25, 2005 9:57 PM (fifteen years ago) ... curiously posted to Disco Band's Worst Attempt at Rock

To take that a step further, I'd suggest that Janet Jackson is to music what pus is to a healthy body, but that's another thread.
― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, March 26, 2005 12:18 AM (fifteen years ago) ... which explains why I've always loathed Alex in NYC

Hate this song, have always hated it, in sequence and out of.

I loved this song in high school & I still have a fondness but I don’t love it quite so much anymore

where is brad?
― Spottie, Wednesday, August 5, 2020 4:36 PM (yesterday)

Possibly lying low following the nuclear detonations in the LGBT thread? Agreed, tho, this thread needs more Brad.

it's passable. i mean i don't flat out dislike it. i didn't vote for it, so y'know.

So far as this micro-strain of Janet goes, I'd even take "Just a Little While" over it.

I do appreciate how it revels in every eighties arena rock trope.

I will say, for a first sole songwriting credit to her name, not all that bad.

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34. LET'S WAIT AWHILE (from Control, 1986; 649 points; 13 votes; 1 first-place vote)

I love the end of album ballad progression from Control through to janet. - from "Let's Wait Awhile" to "Someday Is Tonight" to fuck it, let's do it "Anytime, Anyplace".
― prolego, Monday, February 20, 2012 11:05 AM (eight years ago)

I regret not voting for "Let's Wait Awhile". A magnificent song, and possibly the best ever ballad by Jam & Lewis.
― Geir Hongro, Friday, September 28, 2007 4:21 PM (twelve years ago)

And yes, that was the first ranking song with a first-place vote.

(Geir didn't vote.)

Hate this song, have always hated it, in sequence and out of.

― Get the point? Good, let's dance with nunchaku. (Eric H.), Thursday, August 6, 2020 9:22 AM (twenty-seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

the first janet song i ever loved!

"Black Cat" rules

Possibly lying low following the nuclear detonations in the LGBT thread? Agreed, tho, this thread needs more Brad.

― Get the point? Good, let's dance with nunchaku. (Eric H.), Thursday, August 6, 2020 9:31 AM (twenty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

oh :(

Not afraid to die on this hill.

"Black Cat" > "Love Will Never Do (Without You)" and THAT is a hill worth dying on

That would be a pretty sizable hill, yes.

omg I am so happy to see "Rock With U" place this high!!!

Let’s Wait Awhile is definitely a time-machine song for me, just the keyboard intro alone immediately makes me feel 9 years old

Surprised to see this above "Funny How Time Flies." Or maybe I just need Meshell Ndegeocello to cover it.

"Black Cat" rules (2)

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33. VELVET ROPE (from The Velvet Rope, 1997; 652 points; 13 votes)

At the time I thought "The Velvet Rope" the track was fabulously hi-tech, it'd probably remind me of late 90s Max Martin if I heard it now, perhaps cross-hatched with Soulshock & Karlin album.
― Tim F, Sunday, October 19, 2008 12:05 AM (eleven years ago)

I mean most of The Velvet Rope is very bedroom-focused but stuff like the title track, "You" and "Free Xone" help to create this sense of Janet operating with a broader vision and having "something to say" (even if most of that time that something is along the lines of "your coochie gon' swell up and fall apart").
― Tim F, Tuesday, July 7, 2020 7:32 PM (four weeks ago)

I file this one along with "Love's in Need of Love Today" (and maybe to a lesser extent "Sign o' the Times"). A very good tune that does its job setting the scene for a masterpiece of an album, but which I'd also rank near the bottom from said album's tracklist.

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32. STRAWBERRY BOUNCE (from Damita Jo, 2004; 656 points; 13 votes)

strawberry bounce. >>>>>>> strawberry bubblegum
― i petted a bodega cat today. (forksclovetofu), Saturday, March 23, 2013 8:15 AM (seven years ago)

the fabled strawberry bounce to the top
― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Tuesday, July 7, 2020 5:42 PM (four weeks ago)

listening to damita jo for the first time and "strawberry bounce"!!!
― ufo, Saturday, July 11, 2020 6:42 PM (three weeks ago)

the best parts of the album (i.e. the above, but also stuff like "The One" as well as "Strawberry Bounce" obv) make it seem like it could have been Janet's Last Train to Paris avant la lettre
― Tim F, Tuesday, July 7, 2020 7:32 PM (four weeks ago)

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31. THROB (from janet., 1993; 689 points; 16 votes)

THROB THROB THROB THROB THROB
― HI DERE, Friday, October 5, 2007 6:05 PM (twelve years ago)

Oh "Throb." Even after all these years, I still find previously unheard fuck grunts in it. And like nothing since Debbie Deb's sainted "When I Hear Music," it perfectly recreates what it feels to lose oneself in the sweaty crosstalk of late night disco dancing. In fact, it may be even more specific than that because what it really reproduces is the vibe of a very naughty sex club, some place where you'd fear losing your govt. job were you caught there. You can hear the Crisco in the disco, the cum-stained sheets of Plato's Retreat. The one time I danced to it in a club (why was this song not spun more????), I felt like I was already in hell. But ya know, a fun, grindin', gay version thereof.
But not only is it a masterpiece in and of itself; like "Love Will Never Do," it finds use value in Miss Janet's limited vocal resources because it allows her to die into the song (as Ian Penman said of Prince). Her vocals if not her entire authorial presence are dispersed thoughout the track like a sprinkling of car parts upon a field.
In a way, then, it's the quintessential Janet Jam-Lewis song. That's why I believe the vocal levels debate doesn't apply here. Enunciation (if not good singing) has never been on the menu with her (quick - recite the verses of "Alright"). Like so many of the disco divas to come up in the 1980s, she just doesn't have the pipes (John Leland wrote a typically jaw-dropping piece on this in a late 1980s Spin "Singles" column). She was just lucky (and rich) enough to get some genius (and longevity) out of it.
― Kevin John Bozelka, Friday, October 5, 2007 8:51 PM (twelve years ago)

A decent erotic prose poem with no relation to the experience of listening to the song, but that's what music does.

Happy I got to use a KJB take itt.

Even after all these years, I still find previously unheard fuck grunts in it.

sigh

gonna start a punk-themed janet cover band. we're called the fuck grunts, who's in?

Only if you're nasty.

call it Janet.

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30. YOU (from The Velvet Rope, 1997; 710.5 points; 14 votes)

"You" is such a sharp funk workout (and pretty on-point for 1997, though that's not really the point)
― Tim F, Wednesday, January 7, 2015 6:10 AM (five years ago)

"You" keeps holding up an urgent mirror to my own life.
― Eric H., Tuesday, January 6, 2015 10:51 PM (five years ago)

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29. COME BACK TO ME (from Rhythm Nation 1814, 1989; 772 points; 16 votes)

"Come Back To Me" is one of the best songs on the album!
― relentless technosexuality (DJP), Friday, April 5, 2013 9:00 AM (seven years ago)

Come Back To Me is up there too. Her prettiest ballad?
― Public Brooding Closet (cryptosicko), Saturday, April 13, 2013 10:49 AM (seven years ago)

"come back to me", which sort of points ahead to the lush silken gorgeous balladry she really perfected in the '90s
― flamenco drop (lex pretend), Thursday, April 18, 2013 2:38 PM (seven years ago)

The last minute or so of this song is maybe the high point of her entire career in ballads.

Imagine Phil Oakey singing it.

Remove the question mark from my quoted post. This is her prettiest ballad.

flamenco drop

Which reminds me, nice acoustic guitar sweetening at the end of this tune, too.

i'm just happy for more rhythm nation songs. to me, the highlights of that album could easily make up the top ten in this poll and it would be totally accurate.

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28. WHEN WE OOOO (from All For You, 2001; 784.5 points; 16 votes)

"When We Oooo" from AFY is as close to IDM as I've ever heard any mainstream American R&B get and I want more like it
― Rich, Thursday, March 18, 2004 8:40 AM (sixteen years ago)

i think the ballad section of this holds up really well, definitely just from an atmospheric perspective.
― J0rdan S., Saturday, September 5, 2015 11:05 AM (four years ago)

It's kind of experimental for her to program a 25-minutes bloc of R&B balladry right smack in the middle of the set.
― Norse Jung (Eric H.), Saturday, September 5, 2015 9:22 PM (four years ago)

it made my ballot. definitely a great track.

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27. NIGHT (from Unbreakable, 2015; 786.5 points; 15 votes)

"night" is kinda buried in the first half but i just need to talk about how amazing it is. the million janets in the chorus, the way the aerial "ooohs" combine with the ascending "after the LOVE tonight," how it becomes a straight up minneapolis funk song after the second chorus
― insufficiently familiar with xgau's work to comment intelligently (BradNelson), Friday, October 2, 2015 10:24 AM (four years ago) bookmarkflaglink

The second half of "Night" sounds like the second half of "I Wanna Be Your Lover".
― The Reverend, Friday, October 2, 2015 3:12 PM (four years ago)

I thought "Night" was going to be a dip but then the beat started ^_^
― I Am Curious (Dolezal) (DJP), Monday, October 5, 2015 5:13 PM (four years ago)

Fuck Unbreakable is so good. The duel between the laser zaps and piano at the end of Night!
― Tim F, Monday, July 13, 2020 5:14 AM (three weeks ago)

my favorite song on unbreakable. it made my top ten.

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26. BECAUSE OF LOVE (from janet., 1993; 842 points; 17 votes)

You know what single rarely gets much love? "Because of Love."
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, July 3, 2020 4:58 AM (one month ago)

"Because of Love" is perfectly sequenced on the album, after the previous five or six songs' worth of genre zigging and zagging, nailing the landing with another "Escapade."
― Get the point? Good, let's dance with nunchaku. (Eric H.), Friday, July 3, 2020 8:07 AM (one month ago)

i think my favorite run on the record is funky big band -> new agenda -> because of love, though
― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Friday, July 3, 2020 1:18 PM (one month ago)

What a ray of sunshine this song is when it finally arrives on janet.

i love love love it!!!