"What Have You Done for Me Lately?" (Janet Jackson)

Even if Janet Jackson hadn't been the little sister of one of the most famous performers on the planet, I still think she would've found a way to be a star.  There's too much talent and girl-next-door charm there for her not to have been.  In fact, I have to remind myself sometimes that she is part of that Jackson family.  She always seemed too well adjusted and independent to be part of that brood.  (At least, I never heard anything about her trying to buy the bones of the deceased, or caught her selling psychic readings on late night T.V.)

Although she'd recorded two teen-pop albums before her breakthrough Control (1986), I first became aware of her with the track "What Have You Done for Me Lately?"  The moment I heard it, I couldn't get enough of that thumping bassline and those metallic, jazz-inflected cluster chords that punctuate the song's hook.  It's such a deep groove with that electric funk feel of mid-80s Prince, that I initially assumed it was a Prince song, featuring one of his "protégés" like Apollonia or Vanity on vocals.  I actually wasn't too far off, considering it was written by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis—former members of The Time, a funk outfit fronted by longtime Prince collaborator, Morris Day.

Story goes, Control was essentially complete, when Jackson's label requested one more upbeat song for the album.  Jam & Lewis had a funk groove that they were working on for their own project but gave it to Jackson, who used it as a springboard for exploring her feelings about her failed marriage to R&B artist James DeBarge.  In a nutshell, it's "Where Did Our Love Go?" by The Supremes flipped on its head; instead of beating herself up, wondering where things went wrong, she lays the blame squarely at her ex-husband's feet: you stopped treating me right.

It was a pretty gutsy statement from a 19 year old who, up to that point, had been recording bubblegum pop records under the stern watch of her father.

"That's the Way Love Goes" (Janet Jackson)

Of all the mainstream pop acts of the late 80s/early 90s, Janet Jackson probably was my favorite.  Even though she was the little sister of arguably the most famous man on the planet, she wasn't just coasting on her family name.  She had real talent, singing and dancing her way through a string of hits that she'd helped write with former members of The Time, James "Jimmy Jam" Harris III and Terry Lewis.  Yet, even when she became a megastar, she always seemed a little more humble and real than some of her contemporaries (exhibit A: Madonna).  Which is why I liked her.

I'd been a Jackson fan ever since I saw her tear through a performance of "What Have You Done For Me Lately?" on a 1986 episode of American Bandstand.  I'd worn out my copies of the Prince-flavored Control and the eclectic/epic Rhythm Nation.  But when the single "That's the Way Love Goes" dropped to herald the release of her 1993 album, simply titled janet., it seemed to come from a completely different galaxy.  It was funky yet smooth, sweet yet sultry, and brimming with cool confidence.  Anchored by a tasteful sample of James Brown's "Papa Don't Take No Mess, Pt. 1," its jazz fusion-meets-hip hop vibe were a breath of fresh air at a time when R&B was kind of turning into a cheesy, oversexed parody of itself (exhibits B & C: Color Me Badd and Silk).  And even though I've seen the song classified as New Jack Swing, I'd contend it was the first Neo-soul track of the decade, opening the door for acts like D'Angelo, Erykah Badu, and Maxwell to take R&B in a more jazz-inflected, soulful direction by the close of the 90s.