She did give a tearful public apology in the aftermath of the debacle, but parents could be forgiven for questioning just how genuine that apology really was, though, once Jackson released Damita Jo, which turned out to be easily the most pornographic and sex-obsessed album she had made yet (and one that even made Prince’s Dirty Mind seem family-friendly in comparison), necessitating a clean version that deleted most of the offensive lyrics and eliminated two songs entirely that were too off-color to even be edited, which tells you just how frank this material was. In hindsight, it’s very possible that she might have overcome that incident had she just had the good sense to realize that a line had been crossed, accidental or not, laid low for a while, and started to actually employ some subtlety in her songwriting again and return to the more innocuous yet career-making pop of Control and Rhythm Nation. Even better is the sunny, stuttering pop of “Doesn’t Really Matter” and the equally playful “Someone to Call My Lover,” which cleverly manages to write an entirely new song around the acoustic guitar lick from America’s “Ventura Highway.”Īrguably the most misguided album she’s ever made, Damita Jo also has the distinction of being the first album Jackson released after her notorious “wardrobe malfunction” at the Super Bowl halftime show.
The album’s title cut (one of three Number One hits from the album) is also pretty fun, sampling Change’s “The Glow of Love” to great effect. The profanity on the “You’re So Vain”-sampling “Son of a Gun (I Betcha Think This Is Song About You)” is a bit over-the-top and unnecessary, but it’s otherwise a fun kiss-off of a song, and it creatively goes beyond simply sampling the Carly Simon hit by also bringing Simon in herself to throw a few jabs of her own. “Trust a Try” is one of Janet’s more artistically successful stabs at cutting something more rock-oriented. The only truly indispensable song here is the pretty Number One hit “Together Again,” the lighthearted vibe of which unfortunately also sounds completely out of place here on what is otherwise a fairly dark and edgy album.Ī thankfully much more lighthearted and modestly more radio-friendly album than its predecessor, All for You still suffers somewhat from a preoccupation with sex (the album reaching its absolute nadir on the pornographic slow-jam “Would You Mind,” the closing seconds of which are easily one of the most shockingly sexually-explicit moments to be found on a mainstream pop album), but it also has a larger number of catchy melodies and fun moments. (Compare, say, the Police’s “Roxanne” to T-Pain’s “I’m N Luv (wit a Stripper)” – which one do you find more artful? I’m inclined to pick the former myself.) While some critics predictably raved over the album’s sheer carnality, it’s that very trait that causes the disc to feel less like a serious piece of art than a deliberate attempt to shock people and push buttons, particularly since the melodies on most of these songs are virtually non-existent.
Some critics find that kind of frankness exciting and daring, but you could make just as strong a case that it demonstrates a lot of laziness and lack of creativity as a lyricist. Secondly, Jackson has pretty much ceased writing about sex with any kind of subtlety whatsoever. First of all, the songs here are badly lacking in the hooks department, to the extent that the only part of the lead-off single “Got ‘Til It’s Gone” that you’re likely to remember at all is the brief Joni Mitchell sample in its chorus. But the length is the least of the album’s problems. Like janet, this is an overly long album, clocking in at over seventy minutes and containing twenty-two cuts (seven of those being thoroughly unnecessary spoken-word interludes). … and this is where it all started to go horribly wrong.
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