Janet Jackson Samples "Close To You" on New Single

[amit1234]

Hello Fellow Carp Pets!

Just a quick note to let you know that Janet Jackson samples "(They Long To Be) Close To You" on her new single "I Want You". Taken from her upcoming album Damita Jo, the track is produced by Kayne West and Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis. The sample is deeply embedded within a delicious slice of old school soul that's already making upward gains at Urban and Urban AC radio. A music video had already been shot and should be serviced to outlets later on this month.

As some might already know, Janet Jackson began her recording career at A&M Records in the mid 80's. Not only did she release two groundbreaking efforts (Control and Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation 1814) but she also collaborated with Herb Alpert on his 1987 hits "Diamonds".

Keep an eye out for the track and try to spot the "Close To You" sample.

Amit (...whose wondering if Janet's new album will contain anymore old school goodies...online....)

np: "Butterflies", Michael Jackson

JANET JACKSON
I Want You
Producer(s): Kanye West, Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis
Writer(s): H. Lilly, K. West, B. Bacharach, H. David
Publisher(s): various
Label/Catalog Number: Virgin 7087 6 18489 2 (CD promo)

 

[Harry]

Someone has to say it:

Thanks for keeping us abreast of the situation.

Harry
...in a wiseguy mood, online...

 

[PJ]

Is this the current single that is doing so badly -despite all the promotion and video etc

Shows that too much calculation and trying to arouse the public can thankfully backfire .....

Peter

 

[amit1234]

Hi PJ - Virgin Records decided to release a double A side single to promote Janet's upcoming album. The double A side is "Just A Little While/I Want You".

"Just A Little While" was serviced to Top 40 and CHR/Rhythmic Top 40 last month while "I Want You" was serviced to Urban/Urban AC a few weeks ago.

Thus far, "Just A Little While" has peaked at #47 on the Billboard Hot 100 while "I Want You" is currently #30 on the Billboard R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks chart.

The video for "Just A Little While" is being released to MTV, VH1, and BET this week while the "I Want You" video was shot last Thursday and should be serviced shortly before the album is released on March 30th.

Hope this answers your questions...

Amit (...always willing to keep Harry's breast a situation.... )

 

[350hunny]

I think you are referring to "Just A Little While".
Janet is one of the big pop stars in Japa, too.
I'm curious to know how Close To You is used in the song.

 

[jfiedler17]

Virgin Records decided to release a double A side single to promote Janet's upcoming album. The double A side is "Just A Little While/I Want You".

They're sticking "Just a Little While" on the A-side? Why does this seem to me like a desperate ploy by Virgin and Janet to get the A-side into the Top 40 on a technicality and avoid having to admit that the single bombed??? (And that Janet's "promo" stunt at the Super Bowl was a horribly bad idea.) (I was actually a bit GLAD to see "JALW" bomb and hope the album doesn't do too hot, either, if only to deter other performers from pulling even MORE offensive publicity stunts ... there's only so much we'll take, darn it!)

Normally, this thread would excite the heck out of me, as I'm a former die-hard Janet fan who owns every single album Janet Jackson's made to date (and thinks that her indispensable partners Jam and Lewis are the greatest R&B producers of the last twenty years), but this is one R&B album I will definitely be boycotting. The Super Bowl incident was just way too much for me, and I found myself - a former die-hard fan, at that! - firing off angry letters left and right to the all the involved parties.
Sad, really - for the same performer to go from making innocuous records like "Let's Wait Awhile" (still my favorite of hers, incidentally) and videos where she's actually fully covered up to making albums and videos that are being banned in other countries on a regular basis and baring her breast at the most watched sports event of the year. What the $@#! happened????

(By the way, "Butterflies" is a really dynamite pick! My brother and I LOVE that song! Probably my favorite thing Michael's done since "Thriller".)

Jeff

 

[amit1234]

Hey jfielder,

Nice to see another fan of America's *other* First Family Of Pop online...

Re: "Just A Little While"

Since the song doesn't have any urban appeal, I think it was Virgin's plan from the beginning to issue a double A side w/"I Want You".

How can you boycott Janet's new album? It was only a tit for goodness sake. Besides, that smile...

 

[Rudy]

Janet started at A&M in 1982 with her self-titled album, Janet Jackson, that had a couple of R&B hits on it, "Say You Do", which was sort of a ripoff of her brother's hit, "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" (same chord progressions and similar horn charts), and "Come Give Your Love To Me". 1984 brought Dream Street, which was a dud...I don't recall it getting any airplay around here. (They were trying to do her up with a "kid sister" image back then.) Control finally broke her as a major act in 1986, and Rhythm Nation came along in 1989. A&M really blew it by letting Virgin get ahold of her, IMHO...she was one of the acts that made A&M an attractive purchase for Polygram, and they didn't make a good move to keep her with the label.

 

[jfiedler17]

Besides, that smile...

Ah! Touche!

Don't get me wrong, I still think Janet's a beautiful woman (that's probably a huge understatement), I still think she's got loads of talent ... and this is the problem! I mean, I really have no interest in seeing ANY female performer - I don't care HOW good-looking - baring her breasts at the Super Bowl (and I'm a very-much heterosexual male in his early '20s, too! I'm CONSERVATIVE, but I'm still a very-much heterosexual male in his early '20s! ), but especially not someone with as much talent as Janet Jackson, who doesn't NEED to resort to such desperate and explicit measures as the halftime show to sell records. She was doing perfectly fine success-wise in the "Rhythm Nation" and "Control" days - why did she have to go and trash things up? Yes, she has obvious sex appeal (and, personally, I thought she was every bit as sexy - and probably more so - in the A&M days before she signed to Virgin and BLATANTLY started upping the sex factor), but, unlike other sex-symbols in the biz who have nothing else going for them (i.e. Britney - not that I'm letting Britney, arguably the single-worst role model in the history of teen idols, off the hook ...), Janet doesn't need to continually up the sex factor with each new album or video to move records! She has too much talent (and too talented a production team) to be constantly selling herself short (and, I'm sorry, no matter HOW beautiful an entertainer you are, if you can't keep your clothes on, you really ARE selling yourself short ...) to the increasingly-sex-obsessed culture of the music-network-turned-soft-porn-channel that is MTV.

I guess I'm not COMPLETELY a "former" fan of hers - I'll still spin "Control" and "Rhythm Nation" and some of the less offensive '90s stuff of hers and savor it, if not quite as much as before, now that I have that image forever burned in my head - but I just feel - as I hope many other consumers do - that NOT buying the new CD just might send the message to the music biz that the "upping the shock quotient" publicity stunts have got to end. I mean, if we keep saying "it's just a tit," someday soon, it ain't gonna be "just a tit" anymore! Sometimes I get the feeling that if Britney and Madonna had gone even FURTHER at the MTV Music Video Awards, I'd be hearing people saying, "What's the big deal? It's just two women undressing each other and rounding half the bases on live television ..."

 

[jfiedler17]

Man, I really killed THIS discussion, didn't I?
(Note to self: Resurrecting the Janet debate NOT a good idea ...)

Jeff
NP: Basia "London Warsaw New York"

 

[Rudy]

Man, I really killed THIS discussion, didn't I?
(Note to self: Resurrecting the Janet debate NOT a good idea ...)

Jeff
NP: Basia "London Warsaw New York"

Aaaaah, Basia. At least SHE stayed fully clothed the last two times I saw her!

I don't listen to Janet Jackson much anymore. As for me, though, I bought her first post-A&M album and never liked it at all, outside of one or two tracks. IMHO she hit the artistic peak with Control and Rhythm Nation. In fact, I have just about all of the 12" singles from both of those albums, either on CD or vinyl. Part of it, though, is my liking of the Jimmy Jam/Terry Lewis production style, which I was a fan of long before JJ and TL teamed up with Janet.

As for her incident at the Super Bowl--yes, it seemed like a desperate publicity stunt to a lot of people. How much worse could it get for the Jackson family? Heck, I can't even stomach her brother's music anymore, knowing what he might have done. These incidents just make me wonder if the entire family is that screwed up.

 

[Steven J. Gross]

The "Just a Little While" single is available to Napster members for 99 cents.

 

[Jeff]

What is so unnatural about nudity? Breast-feeding in public, works of art, statues etc...This "Puritan" thing is way to '50's. A boob is a boob is a boob. Maybe she takes pride in the beautiful temple that she has created. Narcissism? Perhaps. I really am not a JJ afficiando or MJ for that matter. I don't even own a J single or lp. I'm not defending JJ, its simply that "rose-colored glasses" do not allow alot of light in.

Hoping I closed this thread,

Jeff

 

[jfiedler17]

As for me, though, I bought her first post-A&M album and never liked it at all, outside of one or two tracks. IMHO she hit the artistic peak with Control and Rhythm Nation.

I agree! I do have all her Virgin releases to date, but I admittedly can't sit through any one of them the entire way through (especially "The Velvet Rope," which is a horribly discomforting listen). Too much sub-par (and too often WAY-too-sexual-for-my-tastes) material on each of them. I mostly just have them for the singles ('cept her first Virgin LP, where I like the singles less than I do "What'll I Do" and "Whoops Now!" (the hidden bonus cut)). (And, even THEN, I think that her best Virgin-era single was her one-off re-appearance on A&M, "Runaway." A&M has always seemed to bring out the best in her!)
I definitely prefer "Control" and "Rhythm Nation," especially the former. (And I like her two cameos with Herb ("Diamonds" and "Making Love in the Rain") even better!)

Jeff
... wishing he hadn't provoked the last poster ... :|
You live, you learn ...

 

[jfiedler17]

Hey - while we've already got a discussion about Janet going - I've always wanted to ask someone - has anyone else ever noticed a huge resemblance between "Let's Wait Awhile" and America's "Daisy Jane"? Everytime I hear the beginning of "LWA," I always want to start singing, "Flying me back to Memphis ..."

 

[amit1234]

Hey Jeff!

Don't worry...you didn't provoke me at all

I enjoyed reading all your thoughts regarding Janet's career post Rhythm Nation 1814.

Personally, I've enjoyed witnessing Janet's creative growth. She's tackled a number of issues in her music most others wouldn't dare touch: independence, racism, social injustice, prejudice, sexual gratification, depression, homophobia, domestic abuse, etc.

I believe David Ritz summed it up best when drawing the parallels between her work and Marvin Gaye's. Both artists went from What's Going On? to Let's Get It On rather suddenly, however, I think it was a very natural progression for both and they handled it very tactfully (Janet's recent Superbowl exposure aside.)

Amit...who just discovered that it's actually BT Express's version of "(They Long To Be) Close To You" which is sampled on Janet's "I Want You"....online and sorry

np: "Daisy Jane" America (Thanks Jeff - and yes - the similarities are very strong. Hmmmm.....)

 

[DAN BOLTON]

Wasn't that Lisa Keith on MAKING LOVE IN THE RAIN?

I have to look at it this way...Janet used poor judgement, took a big chance, and got caught. And, she's probably not the only one who's gonna end up paying for it; because the media as a whole is gonna be under a microscope for a long time.

It was an irresponsible act that made a bunch of people look really foolish. If she wanted to take some of the heat off Michael, it really didn't work. If she wanted to take the spotlight away from him, that didn't work, either. If she just wants to sell records, well...the best way to do that is to make a good one to begin with...not that she can't, or hasn't in this latest case...but it should be able to stand on its' own merit.

And, if she wanted to take a chance with her wardrobe, why didn't she wear a bra? When Shania Twain did FEEL LIKE A WOMAN, she was wearing bicycle pants, just in case...


dan., hoping HE'S closed this thread...





Dan

 

[jfiedler17]

I believe David Ritz summed it up best when drawing the parallels between her work and Marvin Gaye's. Both artists went from What's Going On? to Let's Get It On rather suddenly ...

(Sorry, Dan ... don't hate me! )

That's a really good parallel, actually! I never thought of that! "Rhythm Nation" was definitely Janet's "What's Going On" (although, let's be honest, "What's Going On" is nearly untouchable in its role as most socially-brilliant R&B album ever), and "janet" and "The Velvet Rope" are definitely her "Let's Get It On"s. (And, come to think of it, a lot of songs on "All for You" mirror the bitterness-over-a-marriage-gone-bad of "Here, My Dear"!)
I guess the difference, though, comes from the fact that Gaye was never as brutally explicit as Janet (OK, his liner notes for "Let's Get It On" aside ... ). "Let's Get It On" and "Sexual Healing" seem pretty innocuous in retrospect and have more of a teasing playfulness and lightness to them that's kinda missing from much of Janet's more sexually-oriented Virgin stuff ('specially on "The Velvet Rope," which is described in All-Music Guide as feeling more "pornographic" than actually "sexy".) But when she reins it in a little, though, I agree that I got to admire her willingness to explore new topical territory that most R&B won't go near ("New Agenda," for instance, was another of the "filler" cuts from her first Virgin album that I like better than the singles.) Very Marvin-like of her.

 

[Rudy]

And, if she wanted to take a chance with her wardrobe, why didn't she wear a bra? When Shania Twain did FEEL LIKE A WOMAN, she was wearing bicycle pants, just in case...

Hey, she can wear (or not wear) whatever she wants...but NOT on an event like the Super Bowl. There are proper venues for that type of expression, and a football game isn't it, something during prime time that might be considered "family" entertainment. (From what I heard, the wardrobe and the "dry humping" of the performers were WAY out of line.) Then again, they let MTV program it...

 

[andywithaz]

You can order her upcoming album on LP at circuitcity for about $12. Just because she made one mistake doesn't mean you shouldn't still buy her music! I think I will order the LP myself.

Just A Little While single is avaliable as a 12" singled LP too. This can also be ordered from CircuitCity.

 

[350hunny]

http://www.bet.com/articles/0,,c2gb9072-9944,00.html#

Now listen or watch Janet sing I Want You.

I did but I couldn't catch any of Close To You sample. Can you?