i’ll tell anyone whose heart can comprehend
(or: october 6’s honey from the hive)
posted at 6:25 am by brandon in sweet you rock and sweet you roll
Janet Jackson — “Miss You Much” (from Rhythm Nation 1814
Though I’ve admired her talent and tenacity for the practical whole of my life, I would never cop to being Jackson’s biggest fan, but listening to Number Ones
— a stupendous double-disc collection of her chart-toppers from the past two decades — upon its release last fall gave me a whole new appreciation for the tough yet sophisticated edges that a great measure of Jackson’s work (particularly those tunes which make up the Rhythm Nation era) contains. I’m not sure how many fans still hold “Much” in high regard; even though it was a monster hit at the time of its initial chart ascent, it hasn’t held in the pop culture memory banks the way some of her other smashes (“Nasty” or “That’s the Way Love Goes,” to name but two) have, but this was absolutely the track that convinced much of the music world that this girl was no joke (and certainly was no fluke of nepotistic circumstance), and it remains an underrated pop classic to this day.
— a stupendous double-disc collection of her chart-toppers from the past two decades — upon its release last fall gave me a whole new appreciation for the tough yet sophisticated edges that a great measure of Jackson’s work (particularly those tunes which make up the Rhythm Nation era) contains. I’m not sure how many fans still hold “Much” in high regard; even though it was a monster hit at the time of its initial chart ascent, it hasn’t held in the pop culture memory banks the way some of her other smashes (“Nasty” or “That’s the Way Love Goes,” to name but two) have, but this was absolutely the track that convinced much of the music world that this girl was no joke (and certainly was no fluke of nepotistic circumstance), and it remains an underrated pop classic to this day.
