Titling
Despite the critical and commercial success of her two previous albums, Jackson continued to receive numerous comparisons to her brother Michael, often with doubts that she held staying power in the music industry. When Edna Gundersen of USA Today questioned her about the subject, she responded: "Certain people feel I'm just riding on my last name ... That's why I just put my first name on janet. and why I never asked my brothers to write or produce music for me." Virgin Records expressed the album title "punctuates the declaration of strength the singer, songwriter and producer boldly expresses on this moving collection of songs which explore love, sensuality, the power of sisterhood and her own evolving self-identity." Thomas Harrison, author of Music of the 1990s (2011) wrote that "he conscious decision was made, by the company and/or Jackson, to put her into the same league as other one-named artists, such as Madonna, Bono, and Prince, or at least to put her on the same standing as others in the industry who are often called by one name, such as Whitney, Mariah, Diana, Dolly, and Garth among others. Jackson could now, in a sense, stand on her own and not be seen as a product of the family entertainment machine." Sal Cinquemani of Slant magazine recounted the title of the album ultimately "announced the singer as completely independent of her male-dominated family it positioned her as the person in charge of her sound."
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