Conception
Following the commercial and critical success of her 1986 album, Control, Jackson was motivated to continue songwriting and took a larger role in the creative production of her new album. Executives at A&M requested that she expand on the ideas presented on Control, suggesting a concept album entitled Scandal that would have been about the Jackson family. She wrote a song titled "You Need Me" which was directed at her father Joseph, but was unwilling to devote an entire album to the subject and substituted her own concept for theirs. She commented that " lot of people wanted me to do another album like Control and that's what I didn't want to do. I wanted to do something that I really believed in and that I really felt strong about." "You Need Me" was added as the B-side of the album's lead single "Miss You Much".
Producer James "Jimmy Jam" Harris recalled: "We would always have a TV turned on, usually to CNN ... And I think the social slant of songs like 'Rhythm Nation', 'State of the World' and 'The Knowledge' came from that." He commented that the Stockton massacre inspired the song "Living in a World (They Didn't Make)", explaining, "t says that kids aren't responsible for what the adults have done." Jackson was also inspired by reports of youth-based communities throughout New York City, which were formed as a means of creating a common identity. She stated: "I thought it would be great if we could create our own nation ... one that would have a positive message and that everyone would be free to join." Her album's title is inspired by the pledge, "We are a nation with no geographic boundaries, bound together through our beliefs. We are like-minded individuals, sharing a common vision, pushing toward a world rid of color-lines" and her creed, "Music, Poetry, Dance, Unity"." The use of the number "1814" is twofold. First, R (Rhythm) is the 18th letter of the alphabet and N (Nation) is the 14th. The second, she explained, is that "hile writing I was kidding around, saying, 'God, you guys, I feel like this could be the national anthem for the '90s' ... Just by a crazy chance we decided to look up when Francis Scott Key wrote the national anthem, and it was September 14, 1814."
Although protest songs were commonplace among rap artists in the late 1980s, the concept was rare within other genres. Alex Henderson of Allmusic suggests that Jackson adopted the embodiment of classic rap by addressing social concerns on her fourth album. Jackson revealed that she was inspired by other socially conscious artists, such as Tracy Chapman and U2. She also cited her mother Katherine as her inspiration; she dedicated the album to her mother on the album's interior booklet stating: "I have never known a more beautiful, caring, loving, understanding, and intelligent woman than you, mother. Someday I hope to be exactly like you. I love you with all my heart." She also stated in an interview: "I'm not naive—I know an album or a song can't change the world. I just want my music and my dance to catch the audience's attention, and to hold it long enough for them to listen to the lyrics and what we're saying. Hopefully that will inspire them, make them want to join hands ... and make some sort of difference.
Read more about this topic: Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation 1814
Famous quotes containing the word conception:
“Through art we express our conception of what nature is not.”
—Pablo Picasso (1881–1973)
“Into all that becomes something inward for men, an image or conception as such, into all that he makes his own, language has penetrated ... logic must certainly be said to be the supernatural element which permeates every relationship of man to nature, his sensation, intuition, desire, need, instinct, and simply by so doing transforms it into something human, even though only formally human, into ideas and purposes.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“The only conception of freedom I can have is that of the prisoner or the individual in the midst of the State. The only one I know is freedom of thought and action.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)