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- The Retrographer, Issue 30 (June, 2 0 1 7)
The Retrographer, Issue 30 (June, 2 0 1 7)
HAIM, JAY Z, Arcade Fire, Fleet Foxes, 2 Chainz, SZA, Tyler, the Creator, XXXTENTACION, Big Thief, Janet Jackson.
The Retrographer 30 (June, 2 0 1 7)
Bulletins
Lots of bold names in this month’s issue. Ten years ago, the idea of getting new Fleet Foxes, Jay-Z, and Arcade Fire in a month would’ve set me spinning. Now I file them all after the new Haim.
For anyone following the Universal Player: It’s now up on American Idol-winner Kris Allen’s site! More news to come.
I’ve been totally fixated on Feist’s latest album Pleasure recently. If you haven’t listened, check it out!
Anyone who isn’t busy tonight: Come see Office Culture at C’mon Everybody. If you are busy, cancel your plans.
XXXTENTACION makes a cameo in this issue. His XXL Freshman Cypher appearance was... noteworthy.
Haim on SNL was something else. Danielle on the guitar!
Ten(ish) Songs for June, 2 0 1 7
“Little Of Your Love”, HAIM (Cymbal / YouTube) – The race for Song of the Summer is in its third quarter – “Slide” dropped in January, after all – but contenders keep popping up. The sisters Haim jump into contention with this sequel to “The Wire” (not that one), with Danielle resembling Lindsay Buckingham more every day.
“The Story of O.J.”, JAY Z (Cymbal / YouTube) – Brilliant music video aside, Jay’s lead single is most notable for its reserved introspection. After close to a decade deflating from “Empire State of Mind”, Hov remembers his greatness was in always depth, not magnitude.
“Everything Now”, Arcade Fire (Cymbal / YouTube) – Pity Arcade Fire. Heirs to the working man’s mandate, once held by Dylan, Springsteen, U2, must carry their sweeping sentiments and movable revolution everywhere they go. Here, they face media consumption, brandishing a reliquary bust of ABBA for protection.
“Oh Woman, Oh Man”, London Grammar (Cymbal / YouTube) – Hannah Reid’s voice is sonorous and resonating, and maybe a bit too much to take for the whole of this record. Here she wields its power to bring the division between men and women down to the story of one love.
“Cassius - ” (Cymbal / YouTube) + “ - Naiades, Cassadies“, Fleet Foxes (Cymbal / YouTube) – Fleet Foxes in miniature. This two-track suite affords Robin Pecknold a certain signature passage – from its phantasmagoric first movement through its second, a sunwashed field of morning dew, transforming to something darker, before washing away.
“Rolls Royce Bitch”, 2 Chainz, (Cymbal / YouTube) – “Believe in yourself,” says 2 Chainz, the phenom mainstay who toiled in music for almost a decade and a half before finding his footing. “Who else is going to believe in you?” Believe it from him, if from no one else.
“Go Gina”, SZA (Cymbal / YouTube) – SZA makes it sound so easy – not just to lay in this blue-in-green beat, but to take it back to high school, channel the voices of the past, make herself vulnerable, tell the truth, have it all sound cool even when she feels stress and doubt.
“911 / Mr. Lonely”, Tyler, the Creator, Frank Ocean, Steve Lacy, and Anna of the North (Cymbal / YouTube) – Tyler’s at his best when he gets a little soulful, but this song takes it even further. The beat changes again and again, like Tyler is stepping freely between the scenes of a montage. By the time Frank shows up, it feels more like four songs than the two the title suggests.
“YuNg BrAtZ”, Xxxtentacion (Cymbal / YouTube) – There are bad examples of punk rap – Chris Brown at the ‘11 VMAs, Travis $cott at Hot Topic – and then there’s xxx. This song builds to an impossible breaking point, then explodes, literally corrupting its own audio. It’s over in 101 seconds, accomplishing everything it needs to and nothing it doesn’t, which is what punk is.
“Mary”, Big Thief (Cymbal / YouTube) – Adrianne Lenker completes an album of pain, sex, and humanity, with this, an unreal lullaby that breaks into triplets like a dandelion into the wind. A storybook of love and loss, the beauty and misery of love we’ll live with forever until it’s done.
One Album for June, 2 0 1 7
Janet Jackson was not yet 20 years old when Control came out in 1986, but in the public imagination, she had been around forever. She was already one of the most famous artists in America, though not in her own right: Michael Jackson’s Thriller had dominated the world for years by that time, the culmination of decades of ascendance for the Jackson family.
Everyone knew them, and everyone knew Janet, who toddled after her older brothers as a sort of doe-eyed comic relief. It wasn’t always dignified work, but, as she herself said, “In the Jackson 5 family, everybody works.”
But for whom? This question hangs over every pop star once they reach a certain age and nubility. Janet was famous, but her first two albums, managed by the infamous patriarch Joe Jackson, not only failed to catch the tailwinds of Thriller, they failed to make any sales or radio impact at all. Her heart wasn’t in it: Joe oversaw every element of her art, making her into a pastel cherub, a sideshow. Janet was an actress, on Good Times and Fame, but this wasn’t a part she wanted to play. But her father was abusive and exploitative, so she worked.
Until 1985, when she took control. She fired her father. She annulled her marriage to James DeBarge. She signed off from the sweet, endearing pop of her eponymous debut and Dream Street. She kicked her delicate, inviting persona to the curb. She became a woman.
Joe Jackson abused his children. He beat them if they rehearsed parts wrong, or cried, or didn’t do what he wanted. He attempted to control them in everything they did. Joseph negotiated Janet’s record contract, directed her first two albums, and painted her in a bubblegum identity she despised. "If Janet listens to me, she'll be as big as Michael," he asserted.
But he was wrong. The failure of her first two albums forced Janet to take matters into her own hands. Control’s first track shares its title and opens with a mission statement: “This is a story about control. My control. Control of what I say, control of what I do. And this time, I’m gonna do it my way.” Then, most importantly, “I hope you enjoy this as much as I do.”
But hope is all Janet has for your desires. In the 41 ensuing minutes, Janet takes very little interest in pleasing the listener, even though the album is torrentially pleasurable. The album is about her, her self-actualization, the things that matter to her and what she won’t stand for. It’s the most powerful statement of agency in 80s pop music.
“When I was 17, I did what people told me,” Janet sings, with a scoff. “I did what my father said and let my mother mold me.” 17 was just two years prior for her, but the change she had made was transformative. “But that was long ago,” she states, and it feels like it.
Not only did Janet leave the managerial constraints of her family, she defected stylistically, too. The prevailing debate in pop music of the moment was between her brother, Michael, and Prince, whose sexual politics and future-funk was the prize fight of the decade: the “Bad” video was supposed to co-star Prince instead of Wesley Snipes, but Prince wouldn’t be anyone’s co-star. So, after her departure, Janet teamed up with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, two former members of Prince’s band the Time. They adorned Janet in impossibly tight instrumentation, pushing her to take risks and represent the totality of her control in industrial beats that had heretofore never seen the light of pop radio.
It hits you as soon as “Nasty” starts: A mechanized groove meets metallic synths that register more as pistons than keys at first. Janet rejects unwanted advances from men, but savors the nastiness when she controls the camera: “Nasty boys, lemme see your nasty body move.” The sexual politics of this are as clear as they are revolutionary: “I'm not a prude, I just want some respect.”
“Nasty” was inspired by an experience Jackson had walking home from the studio with Jam and Lewis one night when a group of men approached her and started making unwanted advances. She refused to be intimidated. The bravery of Control is how Jackson meets this power dynamic with defiance. “Control meant not only taking care of myself but living in a much less protected world,” she explained. “And doing that meant growing a tough skin. Getting attitude.”
Control had such potency for the over ten million people who bought it for that reason: It is an attitude, a worldview. Control isn’t a position of power or the wielding of a belt; Had that been true, Joseph Jackson, almost 90 now, would still be managing his daughter. Janet gained control because she claimed it.
For example: It’s hard to understate how important Janet’s visual transformation on Control was. Here she is on the cover of Dream Street, its predecessor: She’s open and smiling to the viewer, gentle in warm hues on the seat of a moped. Then here she is on the cover of Control: Stylistically distinct and abstracted; Stark in black and white in a structured, almost military jacket, but highlighted with blazing color. Her attire in the “Nasty” music video exudes power. She demands a beat in all black and a coat. Behind her are a corps of men in skimpy dance clothes. They stand behind her while she dances, but when she approaches, they fall to their knees. The best moment of the video is when the camera cuts to a movie audience, about 2:50 in, of just two women singing along (one is Paula Abdul, the video’s choreographer). The power, Janet new, was in the viewer, and even she decided who that would be.
For Janet, sex was power, a means of control. “The Pleasure Principle”, for example, doesn’t articulate how to pleasure, or proves its universality, but rather argues for Jackson’s right to it. Same goes for “What Have You Done For Me Lately?”, about James DeBarge’s cokehead shiftlessness, which is laced with power turns. Take this line, a recounted dialogue between DeBarge and Jackson: “‘You ought to be thankful for the little things,’ but little things are all you seem to give.”
It’s no mistake that the chaste, penultimate “Let’s Wait Awhile” is followed, suite-like, by “Funny How Time Flies (When You’re Having Fun)”, a contrafact of Michael’s “The Lady in My Life”. Through the song, Janet is coaxed from her stated, objectified abstinence into romance; the track culminates in the sound of Janet’s pleasure. It’s worth noting, however, that you can only hear Janet’s pleasure, and it’s the last thing you hear on the album.
In the video for “The Pleasure Principle”, Janet walks into her dance studio – full of statues, cars, and big mirrors – and begins to rehearse a routine. But very quickly, the dance stops being a routine and turns into a means of interacting with the world around her. She scales stairs and the dance continues as she traverses the loft.
The magic of Control is how Janet – Ms. Jackson if you’re nasty – turned routine into dance, steps into power. The album endures today because it is an amulet for self-confidence, a steady reminder of how to get out from under. As the video closes, she grabs the jacket she tossed to the floor when she walked in and takes it with her as she dances out the door, out into a world of her own control.
Best-Of Playlists
Though these playlists are all on Spotify, not every song (including many of my favorites) is available to stream. To see which tracks are missing, go to "Preferences", scroll down to "Display Options," and then switch on "Show unavailable tracks in playlists."