Emily's Albums A to Z

Listened: Thursday August 5

Janet was one of the first CDs I ever had, when I was about 14. The songs were huge at that time, all over the radio. I also had Janet’s prior album Rhythm Nation 1814 on cassette, which was the soundtrack of much middle school tomfoolery. Soon after starting high school though, I started to lean in a much more rock-oriented direction, so I really haven’t listened to this album much since.

Listening to it now, as a much more experienced adult, I’m a bit shocked at how pretty much every song is relatively sexually oriented. I don’t remember really absorbing that at the time, though I did know Throb was about sex; I wasn’t that clueless.

I do remember really enjoying the songs (and how annoying the skits/interludes are; I still can’t abide by that style of making albums). I discovered that the songs are still really good; I love all the musical styles and samples.

When I’m listening to all my albums in my library back to back, often when I leave one album and go to the first song on the next album, there’s quite a shock as the wildly differing styles exchange. I have that experience just listening to this album; I keep thinking the album must be over and I’m hearing the next album, but no, it’s still Janet, experimenting with some other style. That’s pretty cool and a rare thing.