Janet Jackson is Underappreciated

Stories like this make me wonder why no one seems to appreciate the importance of Janet Jackson:

Janet Jackson's "janet." celebrates its 20th anniversary today, May 18. Her groundbreaking fifth album has sold over 7 million copies and spawned six Hot 100 singles. The album was a sexual awakening for both Jackson and American culture. Hits like "That's The Way Love Goes" and "Any Time, Any Place" were some of the most sexually frank to reach the upper reaches of the charts at the time. 

Though she's kept a low profile since 2011, when she released her self-help memoir "True You" and toured behind her "Number Ones" greatest hits set, Janet Jackson spoke with Billboard for an exclusive Q&A where she revisits the making of "janet.," discusses its current influence and teases her next album ("I am working on a new project now").

While her music was never anything I would listen to, it should be noted that Janet Jackson was one of the biggest stars in music for years and years. She dwarfed a lot of the women who now make music in terms of how significant her work was and how she broke through what had to be one of the biggest handicaps ever--being a Jackson.

She seems vastly underappreciated to me. I don't think there has been a full appraisal of her work and I wonder how long it will be before her work is evaluated separately from the Jackson family's propensity for nightmarish scandals. Jackson has been a television star, a movie star, and a pop star. She has done comedy and drama and she has reached artistic heights that transformed popular music.

Jackson has sold 100 million records. She began appearing on stage forty years ago. If that's not amazing, then what the hell is?

How many people can say that and claim to have done it at her level?

How Many Lives Will Angelina Jolie Save?

You know, at some point, there will be a backlash against Angelina Jolie. But, if she saves just one life by telling her story, it'll make it easy to laugh off the backlash as envy and nothing more.

Not that Time Magazine actually matters anymore, but it is important to note that what she did went beyond courage; it entered the entire country in a discussion about women's health and how women are judged for the health decisions that they make. Not everyone can use the resources that she had available to her; I would think that a healthy discussion about why Planned Parenthood is so important should come out of this. Planned Parenthood saves the lives of women and that's all there is to it.

This is also why scams like the Susan G. Komen Foundation--which actually pays their executives frightening amounts of money and has pretty high overhead--are failing women in the long run.

Jolie has started one of the most important conversations of the decade and this transcends her star appeal and her physical appearance. This is about a hell of a lot more than any of that.