Marvin Gaye & Janet Jackson (Part 2): Unearthing The Political In The Erotic
The respective releases of ‘Let’s Get It On’ (1973), ‘I Want You’ (1976) and ‘janet.’ (1993) saw Marvin Gaye and Janet Jackson’s subject matter become sexually provocative. By this time, both had established themselves as among the music industry elite. Marvin renewed his contract with Motown for a deal worth $1 million dollars, subsequently becoming music’s highest paid black recording artist. Janet had left A&M Records and signed with Virgin for an estimated $40 million. In contrast, becoming the highest paid act in the world — black or white, male or female.
The unexpected success of ‘What’s Going On’ pressured Motown to cash in on the momentum by convincing Gaye to record a similarly-themed follow up. A politically-focused album called ‘You’re the Man’ was set for release in 1972. A same-titled lead single was released but Marvin decided to completely scrap the album. Vetoing the decision to create a regular studio album, he instead took advantage of his newly earned creative control by composing the score for the Blaxploitation movie ‘Trouble Man’. Extending Gaye’s exploration into bluesy and jazzier soundscapes, the soundtrack became a critical success. The title track would go on to be one of Marvin’s signature songs and a staple in his concerts.
A&M had similar motivations. After the success of ‘Control’, Janet was urged to record a new album replicating much of its winning formula. The label proposed an album with the working title ‘Scandal’. A concept album centred on her family’s personal lives and relationships. A scathing track called ‘You Need Me’ directed at her father was recorded but ultimately Janet went against her label’s wishes and recorded ‘Rhythm Nation 1814’. A reactionary body of work akin to Marvin’s ‘What’s Going On’, commenting on the many dire happenings in society. (‘You Need Me’ would eventually be released as the B-Side to Rhythm Nation 1814’s lead single ‘Miss You Much’). Released in 1989, the album became a blockbuster success, proving that Janet’s ascent to major pop figure was no fluke. Emerging as a superstar with a depth, authenticity and maturity that evaded her rivals.’
The genesis of ‘Let’s Get It On’ and ‘janet’ arose from personal reflection. For most artists, it can be assumed that writing songs about sex would come naturally. This wasn’t the case for Marvin and Janet. Much self-analysis and self-discovery was required from both before these themes could be introduced into their work.
Suffering from writer’s block, Marvin had to look inward and begin to make peace with how the lack of conversations around sex in his household stunted his growth. Marvin was harshly disciplined as an adolescent by his father Marvin Gay Sr, a Baptist preacher. Despite the copious expectations and pressures associated with such a dignified role, Marvin Sr was known to many as a cross-dresser and closeted homosexual. Understandably, Marvin was conflicted. The man he saw in the pulpit and the man he saw at home didn’t correlate. Marvin Sr was partaking in transgressive sexual acts all the while scrutinising his son for his natural curiosities. Leaving his son with many unanswered questions and a crippling fear to remain “pure”. Confused and tormented, Marvin suffered from sexual impotence and was plagued by sadomasochistic fantasies. Unable to separate the act of sex from his trauma and shame. It wouldn’t be until Marvin was 34, that he would overcome these lingering apprehensions. Unlearning the hypocritical teachings of his father, Marvin was able to reconcile his views on sex, spirituality and what constituted purity.
Marvin’s objective with ‘Let’s Get It On’ was to outlaw the idea that sex outside the confines of marriage was dirty and immoral. The title track was summative of Marvin’s philosophy. “You don’t have to worry that it’s wrong. If the spirit moves you, let me groove you. Let your love come down”. Following his own epiphany, he was now seeking to validate those who also felt trepidation over their natural urges. The album was a celebration of sexual freedom and our right as human beings to enjoy and indulge in each other. Marvin’s renewed moral compass was outlined in the album’s liner notes. “I can’t see anything wrong with sex between consenting anybodies. I think we make far too much of it. After all, one’s genitals are just one important part of the magnificent human body. I contend that SEX IS SEX and LOVE IS LOVE. When combined, they work well together, if two people are of about the same mind.”
Such discourse from Marvin would have been startling to his fanbase. Prior to this album, they were accustomed to Marvin merely hinting at the act of sex in his music. Delicately implied in songs like ‘After the Lights Go Down Low’ and ‘Two Can Have a Party’ but never a candid mention. Though, the 60s is often posited as the beginning of a sexual revolution, the change in attitudes didn’t necessarily extend itself to black people and their sexuality. The hyper-sexualisation of black men framed their sexual desire as animalistic, dangerous and uncontrollable. The ‘Mandingo’ and ‘black brute’ stereotypes originating during the era of the transatlantic slave trade popularised the notion that black men especially had sexual appetites that needed to be tamed. In order to protect the daughters and wives of slave masters. Maureen O’Connor for The Cut noted “in the cultural imagination, black penises are fetishized, feared, commodified, obsessed over, and separated from the humanity of the men to whom they belong”. Rhetoric black people felt pressure to do away with, innuendo then became a tool heavily relied on by Motown’s artists in order to preserve their conservative image.
Featuring audible moans from a couple in the throes of intercourse, ‘You Sure Love To Ball’ stands tall amongst Marvin’s most risqué material. The brazen opening lyrics “Ooh Baby please turn yourself around, Ahh baby so I can love you” leave nothing to imagination. Released as the album’s third single in 1974, the song notably did not take to the charts the same way its preceding singles did. Stalling at 50 on the Billboard Hot 100. It could be argued that the song’s underperformance could be linked to its controversial content. Meaning it would be hard for the song to be adopted by radio programmers and ultimately casual music consumers.
A stumbling block that would be encountered again during the promotional run for the ‘I Want You’ album in 1976. ‘Let’s Get It On’ was undoubtedly risky for its time. However, when fully reassessing the content of the album, the songs could easily be read as musings on adult romance and intimacy. Which will more than not involve having sex. ‘I Want You’ on the other hand negotiated themes of sex, lust and erotica in a way that was tremendously frank. Subsequently, the album was met with a bit of pushback and hesitance due its highly graphic lyrics.
Whereas the scandal of the previous album came from Marvin just voicing his desire to have sex, the songs comprising ‘I Want You’ painted very vivid pictures about how he liked to have sex. ‘Feel All My Love Inside’ was one of many insights into how Marvin behaved in a sexual setting. Stripping away the fantasy. The lyrics “I’ll be stroking you in and out, up and down, all around. I love to hear you make those sounds” detail the way would make his subject reach peak arousal. Going even further, ‘Soon I’ll Be Loving You Again’ was a cut that controversially for its time professed his intent to perform oral sex. He sings “I never, did that before. But there’s always the first time you know. I want to give you some head. I love to give it, baby, because I know just what to do”. For some this was too much information being communicated on record. Cliff White of NME particularly mirrored that sentiment when reviewing the album. He remarked that listening to the album was like “Like peeking through the windows of the Gaye residence in the wee wee hours. Perhaps that’s your kick, but personally I find it frustrating”.
Critics struggled to overcome their prudish tendencies when reviewing the album. As a result, rendering what Marvin was attempting to achieve with the album as a shock tactic rather than a genuine expression. Though the content is very racy, context is important and must be provided. During the album’s recording, Marvin was deeply in love with his then wife, Janis Hunter. Producer Leon Ware recalled how Gaye and Hunter would leave the studio in between takes to have sex. Literally functioning as a vessel and constant source of inspiration, it was equally earnest as it was erogenous. An element of romance was still present but it honed in more on the robust carnal energy between adult couples.
Marvin might have been overstepping the boundaries between artist and listener with these songs, but it was indicative of the way his objective as a musician had changed. He wanted to be an artist rather than just a propped-up entertainer. ‘Let’s Get It On’ and ‘I Want You’ saw Marvin continue to develop an identity independent of Motown. Continually reinventing himself from his early years as a pop star to socially aware musician and now a sex symbol, Marvin demonstrated that Motown artists didn’t have to be so stationary. The personas depicted through their music could fluctuate and vary.
Further distancing himself from the suffocating presence of Motown executives, Marvin even built his own studio ‘Marvin’s Room’ to create the album. He needed personal self-fulfilment as a musician even if it was at the expense of upward career mobility. The album didn’t necessarily put Marvin’s career at risk of prematurely ending, but there was a slight dip in its commercial reception. The title track became another R&B chart-topper paving the way for Gaye to score his 5th number one album on the Billboard 200. But its other singles failed to make a significant dent on the charts, halting the album’s chance at the longevity afforded to its predecessors.
Echoing comparable modes of tenderness and yearning, Marvin’s contemporaries like Barry White, Teddy Pendergrass, Smokey Robinson would all prevail with sensual hits towards the end of the 70s. ‘Can’t Get Enough’, ‘Baby That’s Backatcha’, ‘Close the Door’ and ‘Turn Off The Lights’ are among the clearest examples of Gaye’s immediate influence on black music at this time. Robinson’s contributions in particular paved the way for the development of a new subgenre and radio format known today as ‘Quiet Storm’. Characterised by its intimate grooves designed for late-night enjoyment, its origins can easily be traced to ‘Let’s Get It On’ and ‘I Want You’. But it would be decades before music of this manner would be able to consistently make substantial impact on the charts. Without ‘I Want You’ doing the groundwork, it’s hard to imagine a landscape where steamy content from the likes of Prince, Jodeci, D’Angelo and Maxwell could crossover and reach the lofty heights they did in the 80s and 90s.
In the succeeding decades, many artists would take many a note from Marvin. It would be hard to imagine suggestive bodies of works from crooners like Ginuwine, The Dream, Usher, Miguel, The Weeknd or Chris Brown if ‘Let’s Get It On’ and ‘I Want You’ were never released. And in some respects, the very existence of artists like R. Kelly and Trey Songz would cease to exist as both these R&B titans have near-enough dedicated their entire careers to singing about the glory of sex. These black male artists were able to follow in Marvin’s footsteps without having to consider the risk of their material being handicapped by an industry that by the time they all came along was far less strait-laced in regards to being sexual on record. Effectively reaping the fruits of Marvin being his own man and unapologetically honest about where he was in his life at the time.
Culturally, ‘Let’s Get It On’ and ‘I Want You’ considerably helped contribute to the burgeoning and still ongoing humanisation of black sexuality in media. In a Pitchfork review commemorating the album’s 40th anniversary Jason King wrote “You can’t make a convincing argument that black lives matter if you’re not also willing to acknowledge that black sexuality, romance, and love — aspects that have been historically threatened, circumscribed, and limited by the horrors of slavery and legally enforced systems of segregation and brutality — matter too”. With this in mind, it can be said that Marvin’s decision to move into a more sexual direction after ‘What’s Going On’ was also a form of resistance. In the very fabric of tracks like ‘Come Get to This’, ‘Since I Had You’ and ‘Come Live With Me Angel’ is the articulation of a new framework on the way black people love and how they want to be loved. The very ordinary act of black couples sexually experimenting with each other was being narrated in these songs. Also, no artist at his level was normalising the ability for black people to be promiscuous and engage in recreational intercourse.
When focusing on actual historical threats to black sexuality and love ‘Keep Getting’ It On’ is deserving of a new reading. A continuation of the album’s title track, Marvin is instructing his audience to keep making love even when the world around them is advocating everything but. Famously remembered for the lyric, “Would you rather make love children? As opposed to war, like you know you should. Don’t you want to love somebody? Think about the people”. According to Gaye, it is when we ‘get it on’ that we have the ability to temporarily suspend society’s evils for a moment of mutual satisfaction.
The song could also be interpreted as a self-care anthem for the black community. We can interpret the song as Marvin speaking to black people too consumed with the hardships of the road towards liberation. He is cognizant that it can be a lonely and isolating space to exist within when he sings “Come on, you won’t be so lonesome, you got to get it on”. The themes in the song are comparable to Solange’s ‘Borderline (An Ode to Self Care)’ from 2016’s therapeutic ‘A Seat at the Table’. Like Marvin, Solange was narrating through this track the necessity for black people to clear our heads and mentally escape before continuing with the responsibilities and anxieties appended to living as a black person in a white supremacist world. Listen to Solange vocalise “Let’s play it safe tonight, Baby, we’ve been lovers on a mission. So let’s take an intermission” and we can hear an extension of Marvin’s viewpoint. Bringing it back to the root of Marvin’s argument; that sex operates under an expansive reality that goes beyond the physical. It’s spiritual. A cerebral and physical exercise.
From a young age, Janet was curious about sex. In an interview with Blender Magazine, she stated that her earliest crushes were Teddy Pendergrass and Barry Manilow and that even at 12 years old she was having fantasies about both that were quite mature. Unlike Marvin, her innate interest wasn’t subject to shame or silencing. Her brother’s anecdotes about their experiences on the road became Janet’s informal sex education.
Contrary to popular belief, Janet had slowly been preparing her audience for the sexual awakening that would embody the ‘janet.’ album with select songs on ‘Control’ and ‘Rhythm Nation 1814’. Commenting on ‘Let’s Wait Awhile’ Kristin Corry in a piece for Noisey wrote “Sex, per that staid number, wasn’t on the table for her. It wouldn’t be until 1993 on ‘janet.’ where Jackson would explore just how nasty she could get.” Yet ‘Control’s closing track ‘Funny How Time Flies (When You’re Having Fun)’ blatantly narrates the story of a sexual encounter. Though its lyrics are ambiguous, the mood of the song is quietly seductive and closes with Janet simulating orgasmic moans; a characteristic that would eventually become customary of Janet’s later work. On the follow up ‘Rhythm Nation 1814’, Janet closed the album with the assertively titled ‘Someday is Tonight’. A companion piece to ‘Let’s Wait Awhile’. The line “Boy, you make me tremble with your warm caress. I never knew I could feel this way” indicates that Janet was experiencing matters of the body that had previously been foreign.
Irrespective of intention, the progression from ‘Let’s Wait Awhile’ to ‘Someday is Tonight’ showcased a woman gaining a firm grip of her sexuality. Bar ‘Awhile’, these songs were not released as singles. Making it easy to forget or be completely unaware that Janet’s content was occasionally sexual. Combine this with the fact that by the time the ‘Rhythm Nation 1814’ era was reaching its end, Janet’s aesthetic was largely modest. Despite having two mega-successful albums, in the media psyche’s — she was still by proxy a representation of the wider Jackson family brand. Which with the continued success of Michael’s solo career had maintained an image of wholesomeness. The premiere of the ‘Love Will Never Do (Without You)’ video shifted perception. The music video was the first public display of Janet Jackson as womanly and deliberately sexy.
In her 1993 Rolling Stone cover story Janet remarked, “Sex has been an important part of me for several years. But it just hasn’t blossomed publicly until now. I’ve had to go through some changes and shed some old attitudes before feeling completely comfortable.” Like Marvin, Janet too had out-dated ideologies to unlearn before this side of her could infiltrate her work and public persona. As a black woman however, she would be working between tighter parameters compared to Marvin.
Janet’s attempts at portraying a more realistic representation of black female sexuality would come two decades after music performed by her foremothers would either lack the consistent staying power on the charts of their male counterparts or only saw success when adhering to patriarchal values. Case in point these three songs: Labelle’s ‘Lady Marmalade’, Donna Summer’s ‘Bad Girls’ and Tina Turner’s ‘Private Dancer’. There is a common thread uniting all these hit singles; they all narrate women in the roles of sex workers. While ‘Private Dancer’ can be commended for its efforts for bringing attention the dehumanisation of prostitutes, all these songs nonetheless render their subjects as hypersexualised. Regardless of the agency that can be attributed to these professions, it must be questioned why aside from Roberta Flack’s ‘Feel Like Makin Love’ black women were only granted crossover success with sex-laden songs when under the system of male rule and objectification.
Then you had mavericks like Betty Davis and Grace Jones. Two uncompromising black women who were complex, witty and flagrantly sexual. They weren’t passive at all. Singing about sex and relationships with the freedom and fearlessness of a man. Admired in some circles for their refusal to conform and acquiesce, they were ultimately victims of industry wide suppression which included but was not limited to songs being banned from radio stations, videos not airing on television and several concert cancellations. While Betty was already at odds with white record label executives, she was also a target of the new black middle class. Organisations such as the NAACP branded Davis as a disgrace to the black race for being ‘loose’ and a bad example for young African-Americans. In varying degrees, Betty Davis and Grace Jones paid the price for remaining steadfast in what they wanted. Both women provided an alternative to the landscape of black female artists which at the time relied on being overly “classy” and “proper”. The relative burial of their contributions in mainstream consciousness in their primes is a testament to the fact that the effects of the sexual revolution which had been trickling down since the 60s was only working to benefit the interests of men.
The release of Donna Summer’s ‘Love to Love You Baby’ in 1975 however did make some waves. The track saw her emerge as the anchor to the first song by a black woman freely expressing her sexual appetite. A huge commercial success, she soon became known as ‘The First Lady of Love’. However, when re-examining the legacy attached to that title with knowledge of its origins, it must be read with caution. Donna’s reputation as a sex symbol was the creation of two white men; music producer Giorgio Morodor and record label executive Neil Bogart. It was these two who coerced her into recording ‘Love to Love You Baby’, Donna famously had reservations about its erotic content and only initially offered to record it as a demo for another artist.
Not wanting to disrupt her rising fame, Donna’s follow up albums ‘A Love Trilogy’ and ‘Four Seasons of Love’ would continue to play up to her imposed role as a highly sexualised seductress. Overtime this was something that she would increasingly become uncomfortable with as she felt she wasn’t being herself or taken seriously as an artist. Ira Madison III for VICE wrote “Summer was in bondage, longing to escape the image that had been thrust upon her”. ‘The First Lady of Love’ was an orchestrated persona and vehicle to capitalise on the fast-rising and decadent world of disco. A genre and community (mostly made up of queer black and latinx individuals) that revelled in the celebration and exploration of sex, unruliness and pleasure. Donna Summer was undeniably a forbearer for black female artists who wanted to incorporate sex into their music but it wasn’t birthed from genuine inspiration like Janet, nor was she discussing sex in a radical or incisive way like Betty Davis and Grace Jones. Thus it was no surprise that she would eventually distance herself from this image, sue Bogart and for over 20 years refuse to perform songs from this part of her career.
The Grio wrote that following Donna’s success “Sexuality was no longer a taboo subject — that, indeed, the 70s was the decade of free sex”. Yet Aretha Franklin wouldn’t see crossover success with ‘Something He Can Feel’ and it would be years before Minnie Riperton’s ‘Inside My Love’ would receive the appreciation that eluded it when originally released. Meanwhile Labelle’s sexually-charged ‘Chameleon’ album housing songs like ‘Going Down Makes Me Shiver’ honouring the spirituality in sex suffered a weak commercial reception. Combining all of this with the decline of disco, it begs the question as to whether the frank sexuality in Donna’s work actually had an immediate influence on her contemporaries and the women coming up after her in the 80s.
In 1993, the ‘janet.’ album helped to usher in the normalisation of a black female sexuality that was multi-dimensional. Lyrically and thematically, the album spanned the varying nuances of sex. Lead single ‘That’s The Way Love Goes’ was a sensuous track. A departure from the innocent depictions of love on earlier hits like ‘When I Think About You’, Janet was clearly voicing her craving to have sex and sharing exactly how it will happen. ‘The Body That Loves You’ similarly echoes sentiments of a romance emphasised by the pleasure of intercourse. She sings “Love, sensual physical love is waiting here for you. When you unleash my desire. So come get this body that loves you”.
What was most notable about many of the songs on ‘janet.’ is that sex occurred on her terms. On ‘You Want This’ she negotiates demands to ensure that the sex being had is a mutual exchange wherein both parties are satisfied. A factor which traditionally hadn’t always been seen as important. Janet made it clear that while she wants to be satisfied as much as men do, she won’t be so quick to surrender her body just because she’s being beckoned to do so. When she asks “What makes you think that I can say this to you?” it’s the declaration of a power play being toppled. Janet is confident enough in herself to know that many other men like the song’s protagonist desire her. Giving her the authority to extend the negotiation until she’s confident that there is an equal balance of respect, even if it is just for sex. The way Janet subverted the stipulations of casual sex would later be reproduced in songs like Adina Howard’s ‘Freak Like Me’, Xscape’s ‘My Little Secret’, Kelela’s ‘LMK’ and Christina Aguilera’s ‘Get Mine Get Yours’.
Laying at the apex of the album’s libidinous spirit are ‘If’ and ‘Any Time Any Place’. ‘If’ is the personification of unbridled lust and its worst; shameless covetousness. Over industrial and edgy production, sex is wrought through the imagination as Janet articulates the many ways in which she imagines herself with someone else’s partner. With lyrics such as “Your smooth and shiny feels so good against my lips” and “You on the rise as you’re touchin’ my thighs”, it was undoubtedly the most explicit song on the album.
Clocking in at just over 7 minutes, ‘Any Time Any Place’ chronicled the full extent of Janet’s insatiable appetite. Illuminating the spectacle of public sex and voyeurism, any acknowledgement of her surroundings is momentarily absent when she sings “I don’t wanna stop just because people standing around are watching us. I don’t give a damn what they think. I want you now”.
Interestingly, the explicit nature of the album’s singles didn’t hinder its chances at chart success. Many of the tracks attained top 5 placements on Billboard Hot 100, indicating that the landscape for black women in music was starting to expand. A direct of impact of Janet’s influence during and after this period was evidenced in sexually explicit material by the likes of TLC, Salt-N-Pepa and SWV reaping similar success. Rather attempting to exist on one side of a dichotomy, Janet demonstrated that the woman who sang ‘Nasty’ and ‘Let’s Wait Awhile’ can still hold those principles while recognising that she is a woman whose desires are just as complex and layered as her white and male counterparts.
By way of its songs and accompanying videos, the ‘janet’ album blurred the lines between two tropes which have narrowly pigeonholed black womanhood; the ‘oversexed jezebel’ and the ‘mammy’. Black women have historically had to straddle between these limiting tropes because as Professor Dorothy Roberts posited in her ‘What’s So Dangerous about Black Women’s Sexuality’ lecture, black women don’t have “the flexibility to experiment with sexiness while remaining socially acceptable”. In comparison to white women she continued “The mainstream media accord black women very little leeway to flirt with more dangerous and marginal aspects of sexuality without falling off the precipice of deviance”.
A notable instance of this arose when Whitney Houston released her debut single ‘You Give Good Love’. It was greeted with minor controversy when Columnist Ann Sanders solely on the basis of its title derided the song as “trashy” and “being a bad influence on children”. Despite ‘You Give Good Love’ blatantly having a romantic message, Sanders reaction to the track was an example of how black female sexuality is under incessant risk of policing and surveillance. Even in its most innocent form.
By the mid-90s Madonna was the default figure for radical and overt portrayals of sexuality in music and pop culture. On October 20th 1992, this was taken to the extreme with the release of her 5th studio album ‘Erotica’, an unflinching and forthright commentary on sadomasochism, kink, queerness and AIDS. Produced in response to what she called “America’s narrow-minded sexual repression”, it unashamedly embraced hedonistic cultures covertly taking place in America’s underground. The album coincided with the debut of her coffee-table book ‘Sex’, a collection of explicit photos verging on the realms of softcore pornography where Madonna and several participants’ simulated acts of bondage, anal sex, bestiality and threesomes.
Though, she wasn’t averse to controversy, the releases of this projects greeted Madonna with undeniably the harshest and most negative critiques she had received to date. The media frenzy around Madonna at this time saw many industry analysts predict that this could signal the end of her career as she had apparently gone too far.
Yet in spite of all the backlash and debris, Madonna came out unscathed and her career remained more than stable. Her follow-up album ‘Bedtime Stories’ was a multi-platinum success and spawned the longest-running number 1 single of her career ‘Take A Bow’. Matthew Jacobs for The Huffington Post theorised that ‘Erotica’ and ‘Sex’ were “a one-two punch that could have extinguished Madonna’s career”. To an extent this is true as she was still a woman pushing boundaries, bringing visibility to topics and imagery that conservative Americans would rather be kept hidden. It did underperform in comparison to the gargantuan successes of ‘Like A Prayer’ and ‘True Blue’ but ‘Erotica’ still yielded 5 top 10 singles and sold over 7 million copies. Proving that whiteness provided her with a safety net that would never protect Janet (i.e. the sufficient blows taken to Janet’s career post the Superbowl wardrobe malfunction).
For all of the resistance that continually met Madonna by virtue of her gender, unlike Janet she stood on the shoulders of a long line of white women who were celebrated and praised as perennial sex symbols. Iconic pin-ups Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield, Raquel Welch, Brigitte Bardot, Bettie Page among several others were iconic women were able to play with their sexuality without risk of prematurely derailing their careers. Providing Madonna with a handbook she could reference and work to her advantage. Even if Madonna was breaking new ground in pop music, there had always been a wide spectrum in media of what white female sexuality could be. Never destined to be a short-lived trend unlike the women at the forefront of the Blaxploitation era.
Pam Grier, Tamara Dobson and Gloria Hendry were the era’s most renowned actresses, ushering in the explosion of the ‘new black woman’ archetype. These women played multidimensional roles which positioned them as autonomous, dominant and strong, all the while remaining sexually virile and desirable. A far cry from the submissive roles associated with Aunt Jemima and mammies in the 40s. Black women were no longer victims of abuse nor were they relegated to supporting positions. Exemplifying what Travis Lacy of Just So You Know observed as “The bold new vision of Blackness in the 70” which was to be “righteous, cool, smart, and “sho nuff” beautiful”.
Coinciding with this was a series of shocking and thought-provoking album covers by The Ohio Players. Like Marvin Gaye, they were creating music designed to comment on socio-political issues but rather than featuring themselves on the artwork, they used their album covers to display black romance and sex. In the process subverting tropes about black women and their sexual agency. Their albums ‘Pain’, ‘Climax’ and ‘Ecstasy’ featured model Pat Evans in the role of a dominatrix anchoring her sexual fantasies and in control of the men. Adding to its trailblazing and revolutionary imagery, Evans was bald.
For Janet, coming of age and growing up in this era, these women were the sex symbols and pin-ups that she could see herself in and identify with. Yet towards the end of the 70s, the hold Blaxploitation movies had on pop culture started to wane and the images of black women in positions of power on album covers started to fall out of favour by the 80s. Unlike white female sexuality, black women portrayed in this way were prominent for nothing more than a season. Once this ran its course, it was no longer serviceable to black or white consumers of media as Lacy concluded “The era of social and cultural commentary on black body politics and beauty was over”.
Ultimately, Madonna had more room to ruffle feathers. As she wasn’t the by-product of a complicated sexual history like black women, she could afford to be more outrageous in the way she explored sex in her work. Janet on the other hand, like her predecessors had an inherent responsibility to portray black women in a way that wasn’t potentially harmful or damaging. As a black woman in pop music with her level of fame, she was in a very unique position.
Her cognizance of this served as the basis of the album’s sole political track ‘New Agenda’, a Hip-Hop inspired track acknowledging the plight of living at the intersections of race and gender. Unlike the tracks on ‘Rhythm Nation’ which attempted to be inclusive and rally a community of all races, ‘New Agenda’ explicitly addresses Janet’s experiences as a black woman. When she sings “Because of my gender, I’ve heard no too many times, because of my race, I’ve heard no too many times”, it cuttingly sums up the uneasy predicament of black women across the world.
While the song’s overall message is a call to action for all communities to give black women the respect they deserve, Janet employs Chuck D to pull up his fellow black men and remind them that they behold an important responsibility in helping this agenda come to fruition. He opens the song spitting “And it’s time for us to step it up and respect that level of sisterhood that’s been holding up our neighbourhood”. His verse demonstrates an understanding of the role black women have had across history in helping to liberate and mobilise their communities. When he says “And if it wasn’t for our mothers, there would be no brothers. And if it wasn’t for our sisters. There would be no misters” it speaks to how issues of the black woman have been constantly been side-lined in favour of the black man. Patricia Hill-Collins commented on how such dynamics are writing “Most commonly, discussions of Black culture operating within Afrocentric domain exclude gender altogether and discuss Black “people”. In some versions, the phrase “the black man” stands as proxy for black people”.
Janet’s decision to include a socially conscious song on an album that otherwise was an ode to love and sex echoes Marvin Gaye’s placing of ‘Keep Getting It On’ on ‘Let’s Get It On’. Showing a consistency in the values of both artists, these songs act as brief disruptions reminding their listeners that there are issues in the world that still need to be highlighted. In Janet’s case; an issue which had long been undervalued and swept under the rug.
The ‘Rhythm Nation’ album can be remarked as a black feminist breakthrough for the sheer fact that Janet, a black woman on record was demanding an end to racism, poverty and discrimination. Yet ‘New Agenda’ was crucially more pronounced in its adoption of black feminist rhetoric. It was individualistic and reneged on trying to be inclusive of all women. Janet’s efforts were a necessary alternative to the euro-centric commentary found across the feminist themes in Madonna’s catalogue. ‘New Agenda’ was the culmination of the commentary that began with ‘Control’ and ‘Rhythm Nation’. Centering black women, their struggles and their victories in the way Beyonce’s ‘Lemonade’, Janelle Monae’s ‘The Electric Lady’ and Jill Scott’s ‘Who is Jill Scott’ and many other songs/albums by black women would eventually do in the following years.
When the ‘janet’ album came out, Janet Jackson became a hero for black women who wanted to bring attention to their emerging sexual maturity without it appearing caricaturist. Toure for Rolling Stone proclaimed ‘janet’ as “A significant, even revolutionary transition in the sexual history and popular iconography of black women”. Taking the baton from brave women before her like Josephine Baker, Eartha Kitt, Betty Davis, Millie Jackson and Grace Jones, the imagery across the album’s lyrics and music videos would serve as an archetype that black women succeeding her like Toni Braxton, Lil Kim, Missy Elliott, Beyoncé and Rihanna could reference and take pride in.
Its influence wasn’t just limited to black women, Janet become the standard for all female artists who wanted to literally and symbolically shed skin. Janet’s influence was immediately evident in the way her competitors Paula Abdul and Mariah Carey adopted sexier aesthetics with 1995’s ‘Head Over Heels’ and 1997’s ‘Butterfly’. Paula’s shift wasn’t necessarily shocking as she had long been a Janet clone. Mariah’s transformation however was more notable. Like Whitney Houston, she was positioned as a refined diva whose brand denoted elegance and purity. Thus it was startling for the public to see Mariah explicitly express her sexuality with tracks like ‘Honey’, ‘The Roof’ and ‘Babydoll’ for the first time. Moreover, the transformations from teen idols to sex symbols that would later be seen with Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Miley Cyrus and Ariana Grande all have the ‘janet’ album to thank.
It would be impossible to overstate the influence of ‘Let’s Get It On’, ‘I Want You’ and ‘janet’. After opening minds with the socially conscious songs comprising ‘What’s Going On’ and ‘Rhythm Nation 1814’, they moved onto to spearheading sexual revolutions for their respective generations. Ultimately, these albums advocated the idea that being in touch with your body and your sexuality is fundamental to the human experience. More than about reaching a climax, it can provoke conversation on the paradigms and binaries surrounding it. The existence of these albums aided in beginning to grant black people the confidence to start freeing their bodies without any internalised shame or stigmas.
For both Marvin and Janet, these landmark albums represent the apex of their powers as not only commercially successful titans but serious artists. Sharing a mutual desire to incorporate what were once taboo topics for black men and women in their music, they ultimately engendered seismic shifts around how they would later come to be portrayed and understood in music and wider pop culture. Further establishing themselves as standalone entities far removed from the stimuluses associated with Motown and the Jackson family.
