Control by Janet Jackson

Remain in Light

Talking Heads

A revolutionary reimagination of the American punk movement through the lens of African music.

Talking Heads and their producer Brian Eno shared a love of African music, especially the work of Nigerian firebrand Fela Kuti, who built 15- to 20-minute songs out of repeated funk and jazz riffs. Fela was one of the strongest influences on Remain in Light, which used polyrhythms like no rock record had before. All four band members and Eno played multiple instruments on the album’s eight songs, and they also brought in percussionists, guitarist Adrian Belew, soul singer Nona Hendryx, and avant-garde trumpeter Jon Hassell.

Singer David Byrne’s interest in non-American cultures led him to new subject matter, such as on the atmospheric “Listening Wind,” which describes the stealthy actions of a bomber who targets the colonialist Americans who’ve begun living in his country. The album describes terrorism and danger (and on the last song, “The Overload,” dread as well), but the overall mood of these thick, extended jams is ebullience, in the music as well as the lyrics.

Control

Janet Jackson

One of the most successful and enduring artist-producer collaborations in pop history.

By 1986, the 19-year-old baby of the Jackson family juggernaut had released two albums but had yet to become a superstar in her own right. All that changed when she bossed up and fired her own father, Joe Jackson, as her manager and went to Minneapolis to work with producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis on what would be her true debut. The pairing of streetwise Prince protégés with sheltered music royalty was an odd coupling that worked, putting a nasty spin on Minneapolis funk that was all Miss Jackson. The result was one of the most successful and enduring artist-producer collaborations in pop history.

There is a militant assault in the fierce funk of “What Have You Done for Me Lately”—but there is also a giddiness to “When I Think of You,” Jackson’s first chart-topper, and a slow-jam sexiness to the album’s finale “Funny How Time Flies (When You’re Having Fun).” When Jackson commanded “Gimme a beat!” at the beginning of “Nasty,” she was leading a new music movement for Black women’s empowerment.

“We wanted her to have creative input on it so that the record was hers. That was a revelation to her.”

Jimmy Jam

producer

Apple Music 100 Best Albums

Remain in Light

Control