Pop Back I: The Pleasure Principle

I was 31 before the lyrics to the 1987 chart-topper Pleasure Principle meant anything to me. When the song debuted, I was already a staunch Janet Jackson fan. I was the first in our class to be able to do the famous head-bop from the song’s video- moving her neck left and right, framing her head with her right hand under the chin then the profile. Though Janet had worn full kneepads for the shoot, showcasing her best moves: In spite of her other videos, here, it was all about the dance. Like Thriller a few years earlier, every kid in any dance school around the country learned sequences from the Jackson’s. By the end of 1987, even drag queens were doing Janet’s now infamous run, jump, balance and leap/landing from a chair. She was neither the queen nor princess, nor dominatrix of pop music. By that time, coupled with Paula Abduls’ choreography, she moved beyond trendsetter to norm establisher in popular culture. Little Ms. Penny from Goodtimes was more than just a starlet shaking her tit-and ass for some coins, but, again true to her heritage, an entertainer. She was so on top of her game that she made anything seem possible.

The Best things in Life are Free

One of my mother’s best friends took me to see the Rhythm Nation 1814 Tour, and it was bad! Naturally I had purchased the tape months earlier, had memorized every word to every song, including the B-sides, as well as every melismatic twist. At that age, my vocal range could match any Jackson’s verse for verse. The rich album notes included lyrics to every song, which is of great importance when confronting head-on topics that the news chooses to ignore like racism, sexism, war, oppression and the legacy we bequeath to our youth. In ‘State of the World’, Janet wrote/performed:

To feed the baby before he starts to cry/No rest, no time to play/15, the mother is a runaway/No time for dreams or goals/Pressure is so strong/Her body she has sold so her child can eat/What is happening to this world we live in/In our home and other lands


Of the myriad of pop artists that talk about sex, few regard the topic from this, frankly popular, perspective. Many artists have simply never gone there.

That rock on your finger’s like a tumor

As a budding dancer, I scoured through every resource that I could find to learn about big band leader Cab Calloway and acrobatic dancers The Nicholas Brothers, all truly wicked entertainers from the Harlem Renaissance who made cameo appearances in the ‘Alright’ video- as a people we pay so little attention to our history. The popularized remix of this hit paired Janet with Heavy D, fashioning the R&B/Hip-Hop duo that all other now follow. Janet so neatly does Black music: Infusing the old with the new in a finely crafted message for the future. So here was a pop artists digging up old bones; her lyrics and image covered much, much more than fanatical love and hardcore sex. Most certainly, she never sang about her wealth, though I suppose growing up on 2300 Jackson Street, one grows accustomed to such riches.

Like Beyoncé, Janet can pay her own fare, she’s an Independent Woman. Yet unlike savoring the ability to ‘buy your own’ eschewing “part-time bliss” for “happiness,” Janet purports: I’m not here to feed your insecurities. I wanted you to love me … My meter’s running I’ve really have to go!” Today’s independent women and girls are simply encouraged to wallow in their own insecurities- the perpetual lust for pleasure in material bliss.