Rhythm Nation 1814

Average album saddled with non-stop interludes.

Something doesn't sit right with me hearing someone with a net worth of $180,000,000 singing about people who "don't have enough to eat". And doing a choreographed dance along with it. Take away the family name and would this be notable enough to set it apart from the other pop records from the late eighties? Possibly not.

What on earth is this doing on the list? Also, that title makes absolutely no sense. It's kind of like an 80s pop version of "Hypocrisy is the Greatest Luxury", for those who are familiar with that from this list or elsewhere. It suffers from the same big flaw as that album: the lyrics are too on-the-nose and lack depth. However, this album is otherwise a pretty good 80s pop album. It's catchy if insanely dated and has a consistent rhythmic groove that works. The "80s sound" tends to work for me weirdly, as those gated snares just appeal to my lizard brain. There's no denying that Janet has a good voice and an ability to write hooks(if it was her writing the songs, running counter to the pop tradition of having five million songwriters to make the perfect hook). However, the album is slightly bloated. It has too many interludes to pad out a runtime that didn't necessarily need padding out. Yet for all its faults, it's still a good 80s pop album. Unfortunately, a good album does not mean essential listening, and this doesn't cut it for essential. So it doesn't deserve it's spot on the list.

This album is ranked #13 of 26 albums for 1989. Other 1989 albums rated by me:
Disintegration(1/26)-5
Doolittle(2/26)-5
Like a Prayer(6/26)-3
Done by the Forces of Nature(12/26)-4
Let Love Rule(14/26)-2
Fromohio(15/26)-2
Nick of Time(17/26)-2
Djam Leelii(19/26)-4
Moss Side Story(24/26)-2

Hmmm. I know a song or 2 by name. Not really my style. And an hour? Let’s click play and go. Yep, Rhythm Nation is very familiar and good. Oh, I like Miss You Much even better. Not sure an interlude is needed after every song. Ok. It is finished. I’ll admit, I was kinda dreading an hour of this album. But it seemed faster than that. It was well done for the time. The singles are still good. Truly a three and a half star but I just can’t round up to 4.

I remember getting this album from the library on cassette when i was younger.
It represents Janet’s strongest most cohesive collection and is just so damn catchy.

Rhythm Nation, Miss You Much, Escapade and Black Cat are all classic pop songs.

I enjoy the industrial feel that the production brings to these songs and its hard to hear the accentuated beats without picturing the military style dancing.
The tracks post Black cat are just superfluous filler
Overall it’s just a bit too long and this drags it down to just being a good middle of the pack album with some outstanding moments..

Firstly, I could have definitely done without the school shooting audio. I was listening on headphones while walking home and had slightly zoned out, so was initially very confused when that snapped me back to attention.

Otherwise, this album was... fine. Nothing too bad, not much too exciting to my ears. I liked Black Cat which was all cheesy rock song, but great fun. I liked Love Will Never Do (Without You). I liked Rhythm Nation although it ran out of ideas way before the song stopped. Which brings me to...

It's too long. An issue easily fixed by cutting out some of the interludes and losing about 90 seconds of Someday Is Tonight where Janet is just making moaning noises faintly in the background of a sax solo. It has surprised me quite how many 'songs where the artist is faking having a shag' feature on the 1001 list, but they have all been pretty shit.

A very middle of the road:

3/5

The fact that this is a supposed concept album about poverty, and social inequality made by a woman who was raised in celebrity is fucking laughable. This is vapid dance-pop garbage designed to make millions for a record label no matter how she chose to dress it up.

Solides abwechslungsreiches Album der 80er. Deutlich besser als erwartet.

One thing I've found with this project...

There's some albums I want to love but can't.

And there's some albums I want to hate but don't.

This comes into the second category.

I am sorry to say that but one of your brother's is certainly better at music than you.

Peters out at the end but the harder edged R&B tracks are great. Bit of it's time but there's lots to enjoy

Just another pop/r&b album to me. Nothing special, but could be catchy at times. 3/5

And 80's R&B/pop album is gonna be skating uphill with me at the best of times, and this one did not overcome my biases. The songs are well-crafted, and she's a talented singer, but it's just not for me.

This really isn’t my thing at all. At 20 tracks and well over an hour long, Rhythm Nation 1814 felt like it was always going to be a slog—and unfortunately, that’s exactly what it turned out to be.

My immediate reaction was just how dated it sounds now. It absolutely screams late-80s, and not in a charming or nostalgic way. The production feels stiff and overcooked, and none of the songs landed with me at all. I also realised I don’t really remember any of these tracks, which suggests it completely passed me by at the time—and listening now, I can see why.

The constant interludes don’t help either. They feel like unnecessary filler that only pad out an already overlong album, breaking any momentum it might have had.

Favourite tracks: I genuinely couldn’t pick one. I found this an awful listen.
Least favourite tracks: The interludes — pointless and distracting.
Album artwork: Fine, but fairly standard and nothing special.

Overall, this was a tough one to get through and not an album I’ll be revisiting.

As expected, there are a lot of sonic and stylistic elements here that I'm really not into. However, I dug the first part of this record a bit more than I expected. In addition to her strong sense of melody, Janet's social messaging is quite prescient and powerful. Even if I don't really love the overall style, some of these tracks are among my favorites I've heard in this vein, especially "Rhythm Nation". Unfortunately, the ending trio of slow jams reeeeally sunk it for me; I have yet to develop the patience for or understanding of this particular type of R&B.

2.5/5

Meh 🥱

What do you do to follow up your breakout smash hit album?

Hire the same producers and do it again….but this time turn everything up to 11. Lean into the CD format and put out 65 minutes of content!

Bought this on the day of release having already bought the preview single (Miss You Much) as well. Was a massive fan of Control and was excited to hear the follow up.

The thing is…..more isn’t better with this album. Control was a tight set of songs and worked well. But this is an overblown bloated mess in comparison imho. It’s all just trying way too hard.

There are still good moments in here (usually when they calm down a bit on the preaching and the production), but it’s telling that I haven’t listened to this album in 20+ years since it got filed into the collection.

Listening again now, I’m surprised it made this list tbh. I guess the 80s had to have a quota….but Control is a better JJ album.

2

This album manages to be both extremely overproduced and awfully underinteresting. Also wasn't released in 1814. SCAM

I didn't think I would enjoy this as much as I did. I haven't really listened to Janet Jackson, let alone this album, but I got to be honest, it somehow impressed me.

I don't get the reviews though: "it sounds so 80s", "should be kept in the time period it was made", "sounds out of date now", "out of touch". I'm no rocket scientist, but why would an album made in a time period NOT SOUND LIKE THAT TIME PERIOD? Oh, The Beatles don't sound like their time period at all, right? So what, do they sound 70s, 2020s and prehistorical at the same time because they are the peak of music and supposedly transcend any era? Since you all rate these "classic" artists so highly, nothing you say about the lower rated ones should apply to your favourites, but guess what happens EACH and EVERY time?

I get it, you guys are "not like other girls", you listen to underground stuff (The Beatles, Nirvana, Bob Dylan and other reaaally really small artists) not pop. Pop is mainstream unlike YOUR music taste. This album doesn't align with my music taste either, but am i going to shit on it just because of that? As I said, I was quite shocked at how much I enjoyed it. I don't normally listen to this, but credit is due where credit is due, this album is great. Is it the best album of all times? No, that's a thing that will never exist, but that doesn't mean you can't call this album good.

While I can appreciate the music of most of this record, the lyrics and themes read as shallow reflections of the ills of the world. Ones that Janet Jackson likely didn't face head to head due to her family's success (most of them, anyway). Like that one story about little Johnny - definitely an eyeroll there. Not a horrible record but one i won't return to. 2.5/5 -> 3/5