Retro Video of the Week: "Nasty" by Janet Jackson

Today is the 35th anniversary of the release of Janet Jackson's breakthrough album Control.  To call it a hit would be a major understatement.  While her first two albums didn't do very well commercially or produce any Top 40 hits, Control made Janet into a star.  

Prior to the album, Janet annulled her marriage to James DeBarge (of another famous musical family, the DeBarges) and severed business ties with her father, who had been her manager, and she was then introduced to producers/songwriters Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, who, with Janet, would make one of the biggest and most influential albums of the '80s, essentially inventing the new jack swing genre in the process.

Control went to #1 on the Billboard 200 album chart and the Billboard R&B album chart, remaining on the Billboard 200 for over two years, and landing at #6 and #5, respectively, on the Billboard Year End album chart for 1986 and 1987, as well as #72 on the all-time Billboard 200 chart. It spawned an amazing five Top 5 singles on the Billboard Hot 100, along with another Top 15 hit:  "When I Think of You" (#1), "Let's Wait Awhile" (#2), "Nasty" (#3), "What Have You Done for Me Lately" (#4), "Control" (#5), and "Pleasure Principle" (#14).  She even broke her brother Michael's record by for the most consecutive weeks with at least one song from the same album in the Billboard Hot 100, with 65 consecutive weeks.  So basically, for 15 months straight, this album had a song on the charts.

It has since gone quintuple platinum in the U.S. and has sold more than ten million copies worldwide.  On top of that, Control has won various awards (including the Grammy for Producer of the Year in 1987, several AMAs, and several MTV Video Music Awards) and has been included in many "best of" lists throughout the years, including #86 on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's list of the 200 Definitive Albums of All Time and #111 on Rolling Stone's most recent list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

All six singles from the album had videos, and any of them would be a good choice, but I'm going with "Nasty" because it's one of my favorite Janet songs, and it's the song that kind of made me take notice of her, like "shit, Michael's little sister is the real deal."  Or something like that, anyway.  I was eight.  The song is funky and has an edge, and Janet wrote the song as a way to confront threatening and abusive men, spurring by an incident when several guys stalked her on the street.  The video plays on those themes as well.  It's a great song that itself has won many accolades, and Jimmy Jam's keyboard riff and the line "My first name ain't baby / It's Janet / Miss Jackson if you're nasty" are classics.