Janet Jackson Archives

It’s impossible to separate my love for Sharice’s “I Love Your Smile” from the nostalgia it evokes.

They’re one and the same.

“I Love Your Smile” is a slice of such a specific time and place for me. It is a perfect encapsulation of the pure, twinkling, late-80s R&B birthed by Janet Jackson with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, complete with a woozy saxophone riff by Branford Marsalis.

Produced by Grammy-winning drummer-turned-hitmaker Narada Michael Walden, it’s an updated R&B version of the mall pop from The Jets and Debbie Gibson, free from rock crossover elements that would come with songs like En Vogue’s “Free Your Mind” or samples that would come to dominate 90s Hip Hop by the middle of the decade.

It’s so sweet and plaintive. Almost oppressively sweet. The lyrics are about Sharice daydreaming through class and work, her mind fixated on the simplicity of a cute boy’s smile. The chorus is literally just her repeating “I love your smile” over the scatted vocal riff that opens and closes the song.

Sitting in my class, just drifting away
Staring into the windows of the world, yeah
I can’t hear the teacher, his books don’t call me at all
I don’t see the bad boys tryin’ to catch some play

‘Cause I love your smile
I love your smile

Looking at all of those elements one by one, it seems impossible that this song is good at all. My love for it must be pure nostalgia, right?

Taken altogether, the elements speak to a specific sense of teenage innocence in music that hasn’t returned to the top of the pop charts in force since then. Songs that start with “sitting in class” stopped being Billboard smashes unless the line was delivered with irony and retrospect.

The wistful simplicity of “I Love Your Smile” isn’t so different than how Britney’s loneliness was killing her in “Hit Me Baby (One More Time.” Yet, the late-90s teen pop resurgence heralded by Britney and Christina was threaded with self-awareness and sexual liberation that didn’t exist for Sharice.

There was no double entendre of being “rubbed the right way” in “I Love Your Smile.” It wears its heart on its sleeve, and Sharice’s biggest worries are putting a little black dress on a credit card and “thunder clouds of doubt” about if her love will be returned.

When I hear “I Love Your Smile,” I hear sunshine – which is ironic, since it peaked on the charts over Christmas break at the end of 1991. However, that means it was still in regular rotation in the spring of 1992. That makes sense with how it summons sunshine and pure innocence for me. That was my final year of schoolyard simplicity, existing right at the precipice of I realizing the darker themes that surrounded me in my Born Again Christian education.

Sharice’s innocence and my innocence were one and the same. That might be why this song will always work for me, even if it falls flat for a modern listener – although, I maintain that it’s hard to resist that scatted hook.

janet-jackson-control [Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug][/Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug]When 1986 began, most fans didn’t know Janet Jackson primarily as a singer.

Her 1982 self-titled solo LP gained minor notice, but her 1984 pop follow-up Dream Street was an umitigated flop. Instead, she was known as the sassy little sister from The Jackson’s appearances on variety shows (including their own) who had blossomed into a talented TV actress on shows like Good Times and Diff’rent Strokes.

I have to think that Control’s lead single “What Have You Done For Me Lately” hit radio like a bomb blast – especially in a Jackson void with Michael deep into a between-records lull.

Control was the perfect breakout album for 20-year-old Jackson – not mature so much as aware and outspoken with songs like “Control” and “Nasty.”

Also, the video for “What Have You Done For Me Lately” was Jackson’s first choreographed by Paula Abdul (who had choreographed Janet’s brothers on their Victory Tour), although I must emphasize that this is an early work.

Yes, the video is cheesy to the max – peak 80s with the slick cool of the 90s not yet in sight. Yet, it confirms Janet’s star power from her TV experience and presages her subsequent years of absolute video dominance. Her execution of Abdul’s choreography is tight and full of attitude.

And then there’s the sound.

what-have-you-done-for-me-lately This song introduced Janet’s collaboration with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, a sound dominated by layered, multi-octave vocals to make her voice sound bigger than it actually was. It’s driven by a two-note bass riff and relentless every-beat assault by drum machine snare and cowbell. The sparse, staccato keyboard chords barely register as anything but countermelody.

The chorus of “What Have You Done For Me Lately” is one of the most deadly earworms in pop music. It’s so simple. It pounds the 5th on “what have you do”, climbs to the minor 7ths “done for”, tickles the root on “me”, and descends. What solidifies the worminess is the “oo, yeah” – it ascends from a 6th to the major 7th instead. So, while neither line is as discordant with its surroundings as “always on my mind” in the verse, they combine to create a little mental dissonance for you as you repeat them back and forth.

Those aspects are so monolithic that I often forget the little touches of this song. Have you forgotten the hopelessly optimistic major-key bridge, so reminiscent of sunny 60s pop with its chiming synth bell rings, only to be deflated by the subsequent talk-rap? What about the later refrain of atonal jazz piano?

Then there is the control of it. While the lyrics are lightweight and almost a little silly, the delivery is anything but. This isn’t a young woman begging for attention. She’s demanding it.

Altogether, “What Have You Done For Me Lately” is a blueprint hat’s still followed today for a child star’s perfect pivot from a squeaky-clean, bubble-gum pop image into audaciousness supported by a hip, current sound. Compare Janet Jackson’s breakout here to subsequent moves by Christian Aguilera, or even Miley Cyrus and Ariana Grande – all bigger voices but each with the same problem as Janet.

A lot of other stars might have copied Jackson’s strategy, but none of them have come close to topping this as their breakout single.”