billyworld99
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More than a week has passed since I saw Janet Jackson at Radio City Music Hall, and I’m still smiling, much to the chagrin/surprise of a friend who asked me, the day before the show, why I was bothering. He’d seen her a couple of times, the most recent in 2002, and seemed to be saying, What has she done for us lately?
True, there hasn’t been a new album since 2008; the tour was titled “# 1’s,” after a hits collection released in 2009. Her last tour was beset by cancellations and postponements caused by, we were told, migraines and vertigo. And of course in 2009 her brother Michael died, so there was a huge opportunity for melodrama and maudlin spectacle. But instead for almost two hours she reminded the capacity crowd that she has taken care of her recording career for two and a half decades. More than 30 songs came spilling out, one seemingly more familiar than the last, and, like most well-written and –produced pop songs, they all slipped the bands of time. “Control” — charged and confident and bubbling — seemed as appropriate for a 44-year-old woman as it did for a defiant post-teenager, much as “Half Breed” did for Cher at 60 and 27. And while Jackson, like Cher, was not blessed with the strongest vocal chops, the two women each have an innate pop sensibility and a flexibility/malleability that has allowed them to roll with the punches and trends. And they are both tireless workers: Jackson danced, sang, changed costumes (with no malfunctions) so hard and so good-naturedly during the Radio City show that there was barely a minute for her to talk the audience. (The tribute to Michael, which featured some backdrop pictures of him, was classy and understated.) As Prince said during one of his own more recent shows, “So many hits, so little time.”
This is not to say that Jackson won’t ever make another important record; Cher, after all, had her biggest hit, “Believe,” when she was 52. If Jackson hooks up with the right producer or even reunites with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, the co-architects of most of her hits, she could find herself back at the top of the charts. But whether or not that happens, she will endure. I’m looking forward to hearing her sing, prance and giggle her way through “Escapade” 20 years down the road.
Source:NYTIMES.com
True, there hasn’t been a new album since 2008; the tour was titled “# 1’s,” after a hits collection released in 2009. Her last tour was beset by cancellations and postponements caused by, we were told, migraines and vertigo. And of course in 2009 her brother Michael died, so there was a huge opportunity for melodrama and maudlin spectacle. But instead for almost two hours she reminded the capacity crowd that she has taken care of her recording career for two and a half decades. More than 30 songs came spilling out, one seemingly more familiar than the last, and, like most well-written and –produced pop songs, they all slipped the bands of time. “Control” — charged and confident and bubbling — seemed as appropriate for a 44-year-old woman as it did for a defiant post-teenager, much as “Half Breed” did for Cher at 60 and 27. And while Jackson, like Cher, was not blessed with the strongest vocal chops, the two women each have an innate pop sensibility and a flexibility/malleability that has allowed them to roll with the punches and trends. And they are both tireless workers: Jackson danced, sang, changed costumes (with no malfunctions) so hard and so good-naturedly during the Radio City show that there was barely a minute for her to talk the audience. (The tribute to Michael, which featured some backdrop pictures of him, was classy and understated.) As Prince said during one of his own more recent shows, “So many hits, so little time.”
This is not to say that Jackson won’t ever make another important record; Cher, after all, had her biggest hit, “Believe,” when she was 52. If Jackson hooks up with the right producer or even reunites with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, the co-architects of most of her hits, she could find herself back at the top of the charts. But whether or not that happens, she will endure. I’m looking forward to hearing her sing, prance and giggle her way through “Escapade” 20 years down the road.
Source:NYTIMES.com
Very dissappointed about that. Anyway, great article!!!...:clap: