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

What do they think about Madonna? Janet Jackson has an amazing catalog of hits, but she's never been anywhere near the dominant personality of, say, Madonna. Further factor in the fallout from the Super Bowl and subsequent semi exile, and maybe that explains why she has less resonance with really young people?

Genuinely didn't realize that "If" was earmarked as the first single. I think the swap worked in both songs' favor:

that's the way love goes, indeed. pic.twitter.com/TkJIWxBDz4

— Mike Servito (@mikeservito) May 15, 2023

I agree with that

do you let your students get cracks at picking media to share?

Well, they're not my students--I'm just in as a supply. When I had my own class, we did lots of stuff where they picked something for an assignment. But for Today in History, then and now, I pick whatever song/film clip I want to play.

I'm sure most know at least something about Madonna. (I also suspect a few in here know at least something about Janet Jackson. They're just not the most forthcoming class.)

My first choice, by the way, was "Love Will Never Do Without You." Looked at the video...nope.

The irony is the best way to connect them with Janet would probably be through the history of YouTube, but of course that is not appropriate for school.

LET'S GO

I appreciate the effort to expose students to film and music that aren't part of their daily diet, but on the other hand if a teacher had shown my 7th grade class a video of, say, Cleo Laine on her 57th birthday I'm not sure any of us would have had a lot of context to respond. But who knows what stimuli will stick with them in the future.

I get that, obviously. Her last Top 10 single seems to have been 2001. I started teaching in 1991--it would have been like me showing them something from 1969 then.

I don't think the Cleo Laine analogy is particularly apt, though; Janet Jackson has a lot more to do with they music they listen to (if they do...) then Cleo Laine had to do with the music you listened to in grade 7. (At least that's my guess.) Anyway, you either show them or you don't; to me, the exposure is much better than deciding "They won't be interested in this" preemptively. (Also what keeps the job fun for me.)

But who knows what stimuli will stick with them in the future.

That's it. By and large, when I've run into students years later, the two things they'll remember from their year with me are these Today in Historys and going for ice cream at the end of the year. They certainly don't remember me trying to pretend like I knew something about science.

About time!

https://www.udiscovermusic.com/news/janet-jackson-janet-album-deluxe-anniversary-editions/

I can't believe I only placed "Throb" 40th on my ballot!