janet jackson, and the art of interludes
from rhythm nation to the velvet rope: the extended script of my TikTok post.
Every musician will approach interludes differently, there’s no template on how to create one, the creative freedom is left entirely to the artist. An interlude can push an album into a certain direction; lyrically, sonically, thematically, or it can just keep the album in the same direction and continue the narrative of the album. It doesn’t have to have an instrumental, lyrics or even said artist on the track – all it has to do is act as a connecting point from song a) to song b).
In this piece, the focus will be on Janet Jackson’s use of interludes from Rhythm Nation 1814 and throughout the nineties until The Velvet Rope. As well admired and discussed her albums are, her interludes are an important feature of her albums that always fail to enter the discussion – most likely because interludes are really a love or hate thing, especially in the non-musical format that she tends to use, the opposite of what more contemporary artists tend to use as an interlude.
We first see Janet Jackson use interludes in her 1989 release Rhythm Nation 1814, and from then-on they’ve been included in every album since, varying in length and presence. Personally, Jackson’s interludes, though a small detail, are a big reason why her discography during this time really transcends being just albums and become a listening experience. They coerce you into consuming her album has whole, rather just as a collection of your favourite singles, to take time and understand the story and message she is presenting.
The first interlude that I want to discuss is called Interlude – TV, which is essentially 21 seconds of someone flicking through the various channels and is a sequence of words and phrases that all reflect, as the title of the next song indicates, the state of the world.
At the time of the album’s release, just as the eighties was coming to a close, a lot had happened across the world, and the interlude does well to reference a lot of it, with Tiananmen Square occurring only months before the albums was in stores. The constant flicking from channel to channel, might hint at our desire to escape what is going on in the world (hence the television) and our inability to do so, que the constant headline-like snippets and only a find a moments escapism (the cartoon sounds and MTV snippet) before being thrust back into reality.
Despite it not featuring any music at all, and being collection of audio snippets, it doesn’t pull the audience out of the album, which is also testament to how brilliant mixed her albums are, and essentially adds to the world building of this album, fleshing it out and creating a conscience storyboard – which also rings true to for the subsequent albums I’ll eventually talk about. Even something like Interlude – Let’s Dance:
“Get the point? Good, let’s dance”
With a singe line she’s just shifted the album thematically’, we’ve gone from militant Janet addressing the worlds woes, to Janet going on to explore love, relationships, and sexuality heron out, before circling back to militant Janet with Interlude – Livin’ In Complete Darkness. The interlude ends the album with the same bell that started the album off, coming full circle both thematically and sonically. Now while these are more like intro / outro – ludes, they take on the same effect as regular interludes while also doing the job of the setting the tone for the album, both at the start and its end.
Janet, her fifth studio album, is where Janet’s growth since Control really starts to pay off. In a TikTok I posted, introducing my series that will explore the concept of self-titled albums, I mentioned how often an artist will release a self-titled album alongside a major shift in their image, and in 1993 Janet made the shift from ‘baby sister’ of the Jacksons to the woman that is Janet.
On this album Janet centres the theme of sexual intimacy, female pleasure, and sensuality at the core, and opens the door to the vulnerable yet sultry Janet that we’ll see evolve and flourish throughout the 90s and 2000s respectively. It’s also the album where Janet really gets comfortable featuring interludes, it being the album that features the most interludes on a single tracklisting. On Janet there is an interlude after almost every song, amounting to 12 separate interludes, excluding the intro-lude ‘morning’, compared to Rhythm Nation which had only six excluding the intro and outro-lude.
The addition of so many interludes is definitely a part of Janet finding her musical footing as an artist, exploring how she wants to structure and present her narratives and messages on her albums. Very quickly, she mastered how to add so many interludes and not have the album become bloated in anyway, both on Janet and The Velvet Rope. The interludes on Janet don’t usually last longer than 10 seconds, continuing to stray from the general musical interlude, and still do well to continue the atmosphere of the album, her interludes seamlessly transition from one song to the next you forget it’s a separate listing entirely – which is true for all of her interludes. All of which culminating on how she would approach The Velvet Rope, her magnum opus.
The Velvet Rope is a special album in Janet’s discography, just on the surface it’s her only cover that does not prominently show her face, a hint to the album’s context and themes. It’s a concept album, centring introspection, the idea of emotional boundaries, and vulnerability - using that to explore topics such as domestic violence, depression, self-worth, and sexuality. The Velvet Rope, just like it’s sisterhood of late-90s-experimental-reflective albums Ray of Light (Madonna) and Impossible Princess (Kylie Minogue), was incredibly ahead of its time, and is one of my favourite albums of all time.
The album starts opens with Interlude – Twisted Elegance where the listener hears Janet speaking over a piano piece and muffled white noise:
“It’s my belief that we all have the need to feel special,
And it’s this need that can bring out the best in us, yet the worst in us
This need created The Velvet Rope.”
The interlude then transitions into the album’s title track where she expands on this meaning. It’s a beautiful “intro-lude” that presents the album and its ideas to the listener, like turning the first page in a book. Janet’s intro-ludes always perfectly introduce her album, they set the tone and prepare the listener for the upcoming experience – think ‘Morning’ on Janet, ‘Interlude-Pledge’ on Rhythm Nation 1814, and ‘20’ on 20 Y.O. There are only seven interludes (excluding the intro-lude) on this album, however they typically last just a little longer than the standard 10 seconds on Janet, and in my opinion improve on contextualising the forthcoming song.
The loss of someone dear to you can bring on great pain and sadness, and even further acknowledge that person’s pain felt near their time of death, but as you remember that person, you’re allowed to let of that pain, for yourself and for that someone dear, and keep just the memories and love shared – and in two lines on Interlude-Memory Janet has perfectly encapsulated that:
“You don’t have to hold onto the pain
To hold on to the memory.”
Interlude-Memory then transitions into Together Again, which is about the loss of a friend to AIDS, and together create this beautiful tribute. For a lot of the interludes on The Velvet Rope, the snippets we hear Janet read sound snippets of her own diary entries with how perfectly the reflect the song that follows – but it’s the next 5 songs that I really want to focus on for this section, and also comment on the sequencing.
Interlude-Online, the interlude that inspired this whole piece, starts with the start-up sound of an Apple computer followed by the sound typing, the ring of the dial up internet connection fills the listeners ears before transitioning into Empty – a song that speaks online relationships, internally questioning its validity as a form of romantic connection and the very real feelings for this person she can’t see. Similarly to Interlude-TV, Interlude-Online fleshes the album out and helps to create a conscience storyboard for its narrative. We’ve dealt with ‘real world’ emotions and in order to tackle this virtual connection, we must first log on and in a way separates itself from the rest of the songs, like it’s her hiding spot or safe space, and I think back to such lyrics in Empty:
“Confide in you what no one knows”
“I’m rushing home to turn you on”
It’s a fitting introduction for Empty, and its conclusion is just as perfect and playful with Janet mumbling “Damn, disconnected.”, leaning into the online elements. From Empty we then transition into Interlude-Full:
“How empty of me to be so full of you.”
Paired with the next song, Interlude-Full and Whatabout together really encapsulates the tragedy of becoming wrapped up in an abusive relationship and the emotional turmoil that can grow inside a person. This is fittingly followed by Every Time, a song that captures Janet’s apprehension towards new romance, as many will feel after breaking free of an abusive relationship – and it was this sequencing, from Interlude-Online to Every Time that made realise how much of an emotional journey The Velvet Rope is. We start off with Interlude-Online and Empty that present an online alternative for love before being faced with the reality of the ‘real world’ relationship with Interlude-Full and Whatabout, and after dealing with the weight of that Every Time follows which addresses the fear and emotional weight of opening up and falling in love again. It leaves me speechless every time, the sequencing for this album as a whole is a masterclass, but it’s that specific track run that is just magical to me and captures the beauty of Janet’s songwriting, storytelling, and attention to detail.
Following The Velvet Rope she draws back on her use of interludes, opting for the four / five range, except on Discipline where there’s eight, and they tend lean on the playful side as she continued to embrace her sex symbol status into the 2000s. Janet Jackson’s albums have been labelled a blueprint for pop, but I find it interesting that this is the only aspect that hasn’t translated in terms of emulation and influence – and I’d like to see more artists experiment more with interludes beyond the ‘mini song’ template.