A Year of Blind Spots: Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation 1814

I love the aesthetic, that sort of industrial, hard, black-and-white thing that Janet Jackson has going here. I've always admired it, even though it remained a blind spot because I just didn't think I'd like it, musically. Those fears have not been confirmed. This album is pretty damn good.

It definitely feels of a specific time and place, though (that time and place being late-1980s New Jack Swing Minneapolis). That makes Rhythm Nation feel dated. Dated doesn't necessarily equate to "bad," but it's definitely a handicap. I just sometimes have a tough time truly connecting with something that lived and died before I was even born. New jack swing was a distant memory by the time I came into my own, music-listening-wise, and it sounded corny.

But if you wait long enough, time does its thing in the opposite direction, sanding down any criticisms of "corniness," eventually coming back into (personal) critical favor. If new jack swing is corny, then I guess I like corny things. I like them in moderate measures, sure, but if I'm going to listen to one single new jack swing album this year, then why not make it the top-rated of the genre?

Why is it the top-rated? I'll assume that it's because of the extremes that Rhythm Nation goes to in pushing this sound to its limits. New jack swing utilizes drum machines for uptempo R&B, and Janet Jackson and her team take that idea and really blow it up as far as it can handle. Every song sounds like it features not one drum machine, but ten drum machines. Janet rides those rhythms like a champion. She fucking struts. It's really impressive.

I don't think I was able to make a sincere connection with Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation 1814 this week—maybe that will come in time—but you can still consider me a fan regardless. What was uncool in my mind is now officially cool. This isn't a life-altering album, but it moves the needle significantly, and I can appreciate that. 

P.S. I purposefully didn't touch the injustice of Janet Jackson's career being tanked post-Super Bowl, since that whole thing happened many years after Rhythm Nation, but part of me gets angry while listening to this album because it reminds me about how much of a fucking slimy heel Justin Timberlake is. But I'll refrain, and instead implore you to listen to this album, and try not to think about what would have been.