Reunited. The title of Janet Jackson’s tenth tour, which made its penultimate stop in the multi-purpose hall at Ostbahnhof on Tuesday, can be interpreted in many ways. Named after their biggest hit – in a career that was certainly not short on hits – the “Together Again” tour has something of a comeback on the one hand; Jackson was last in Europe in 2011.
But the title is also a proud expression of one’s own strength: the past few years have not been kind to one of the biggest female pop stars. In the 1990s, Jackson, who simply called her fifth album “Janet.” (important: with a period), was on a par with the Queen of Pop Madonna. On Tuesday, the interior of the Uber Arena has loose seating and the upper tiers are suspended. Only about 10,000 fans cheered for Jackson.
So she’s back. Some others, however, are no longer at their side. Father Joe died in 2018, brother Tito just a few weeks ago. And Michael, in whose overpowering shadow Janet’s impressive career always stood, left her and pop music an ambivalent legacy.
Dress rehearsal for a Las Vegas show
They are all still present this evening. Michael descends once again for a virtual duet, the roaring cheers for their joint hit “Scream” surpassing all reactions to Janet’s songs. And for “Together Again”, childhood images with father Joe and brother Tito float above the stage on an LED screen: a song about dying, wrapped in this irresistibly uplifting disco house beat.
It is the moving finale of a performance that is somewhat reminiscent of a life assessment. Like the dress rehearsal for a Las Vegas residency that Jackson actually committed to in December.
Jackson has carried the burden of her family name with her throughout her life, emancipated herself from her beating father with her third album “Control”, and with the successor “Rhythm Nation 1814” immersed pop music in a glistening steel bath of funk, always keeping the pressure of expectations with her compensated for by iron discipline.
You can still see it in her perfectly choreographed live show: the 58-year-old keeps her four much younger dancers on their toes for almost two hours, but hardly shows any signs of fatigue herself.
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This concert definitely wants to be seen as a performance showcase. The number of songs – she plays 39 on this tour – is another reminder that her music was omnipresent in the 1980s and 1990s.
However, Jackson has decided to string together her hits (as well as some obscure pieces) in a breathless medley that leaves little room for individual songs to develop and is more reminiscent of a jukebox musical.
“Got ’til It’s Gone”, one of their most beautiful songs, only flashes briefly with a line from the rapper Q-Tip and the famous Joni Mitchell sample before the number revue moves on. The waste of anthemic material and catchy hooks is annoying, but Janet Jackson has a different agenda. It’s about defining your own legacy.
Career break after sexist “Nipplegate”
The reasons why Janet Jackson fell from grace in the pop world undoubtedly have to do with the so-called “Nipplegate” scandal. After the now infamous 2004 Superbowl halftime show, in which Jackson’s “cleavage slipped,” the music industry’s sexism was once again exposed. The career of her singing partner Justin Timberlake benefited from this mishap, but Jackson’s was never to recover. Today she is also singing against this shame.
The best way to classify one’s life’s work is to look at the selection of songs; Most of the albums that evening came from the albums “Janet.” and “Rhythm Nation”. The percussive machine radio of the latter major work, forged by the producer duo Jam & Lewis and recorded brutally and furiously in Berlin by a five-piece live band, dominates the last two of the four acts of the concert.
Disciplinarian Janet, who at this point is wearing a black vinyl coat with a fetish interpretation of a military uniform underneath, drives her dance partners across the stage in the grand finale to the staccato groove of “State of the World,” “The Knowledge” and the title song. After that it can actually only get brighter and lighter again; The audience is released into the night with “Whoops Now” and “Together Again”.
When looking for answers as to why Janet Jackson isn’t getting the credit she deserves these days, you quickly turn to Beyoncé, essentially her natural successor as a successful black singer and businesswoman. But Jackson, perhaps because of the traumatic burden of her name, never developed the cultural appeal of Beyoncé Knowles. It might have saved her from something worse in 2004 after Nipplegate.
Janet Jackson will be remembered as a legendary hit machine, not as a pop phenomenon with social relevance. It was only a few weeks ago that a journalist from the British “Guardian” irritated her with the remark that Kamala Harris had no African-American family history at all – the worst kind of Trump propaganda.
Such statements don’t exactly add to your own legendary status. Jackson has been a fighter in her own right throughout her career. Almost 40 years after her album with the programmatic title “Control”, she has at least come very close to this goal.