Hit Parade: State of the World Edition
b'In the mid-1980s, Janet Jackson broke away from her world-famous, hit-making family and, with her Control album, rebooted both her career and pop style in the New Jack Swing era. The challenge was following it up\\u2014and Jackson and her producers, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, didn\\u2019t make it easy on themselves.\\nIn 1989, they produced an ambitious album with a portentous title: Janet Jackson\\u2019s Rhythm Nation 1814. But what could have been Control, Part 2 instead was a visionary LP that reinvented the socially conscious album from the era of Marvin Gaye for the \\u201990s, and envisioned what pop would eventually sound like in the 21st century. Rhythm Nation was a smash, generating more hits\\u2014and bigger hits\\u2014than any album in history. In fact, if Jackson and her label hadn\\u2019t pulled their punches with one final radio single, she could have set an all-time Billboard chart record that would have overshadowed any of the Jackson family\\u2019s historic achievements.\\nPodcast production by Chris Berube.\\nHostChris Molanphy\\nFollow @cmolanphy on Twitter / https://www.twitter.com/cmolanphy\\xa0\\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices'