The Still-Struggling Jacksons
By 1990, Janet Jackson had come into her own with the biggest success of her career, the A&M album
Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814
, a string of hit records – ‘Miss You Much’, ‘Escapade’, ‘Rhythm Nation’, among others – and her first national tour. Charming and timid, talented and driven, Janet has turned out to be one of the better-adjusted Jackson siblings. With the exception of a relationship she maintains with her mother, she keeps her distance from the rest of the family. Though she is no longer managed by Joseph – the break was predictably volatile – he does profit from
Rhythm Nation
.
‘I’ve studied the best – Michael Jackson,’ Janet said in April 1990. ‘I’m not saying that just because he’s my brother. I really feel he’s the best. I saw how hard he works, his ambition. It’s so strange to read things about him, because people just don’t understand Michael much.’
Janet also noted, ‘Michael has said that, out of everyone in the family, we’re the two that think the most alike.’ Janet is the only family member who makes it a point to show up at the taping of Michael’s videos, just so that she can sit and watch him work. Still, she has to admit that a rivalry does exist between them. ‘He’s very competitive,’ she said in November 1990. ‘And so am I.’
Surprisingly, Michael is not as competitive with Janet as people might think. Mostly, he supports her efforts and offers advice whenever she asks for it. He thought
Rhythm Nation
was the work of a genius, and his biggest concern was not that it had sold so many copies, but that it hadn’t sold enough. ‘Why did it only sell five or six million copies?’ he asked a former associate. ‘And what does this mean for
me
and my next album?’
Like Michael, Janet has not been resistant to the plastic surgeon’s knife. She has had at least two nose jobs, and some have speculated that she has had surgery on her breasts. But she knows how to make plastic surgery work to her advantage. She looks stunning, especially after shedding, on a nine-hundred-calorie-a-day diet, the weight she’d been trying to lose for years.
The rest of the Jacksons have not fared as well in their recordings without Michael. Solo albums by Jackie, Jermaine, Marlon and Randy all had disappointing sales. So too did an excellent group album (recorded by Jackie, Jermaine, Tito and Randy) called
2300 Jackson Street
, after the street on which the family lived in Gary.
Michael was bothered that
2300 Jackson Street
had not been a commercial success, especially since he had telephoned Walter Yetnikoff and specifically asked him to take a special interest in the album. But CBS Records could not successfully promote the Jacksons without Michael. It’s not that the brothers have no talent; they do. After decades of experience, most of the Jacksons are first-rate vocalists, and they are all champion entertainers. However, trying to pursue their own careers while Michael Jackson’s shadow looms is not easy. The public doesn’t seem to want Michael’s brothers; it just wants Michael.
CBS did not renew its relationship with the Jacksons after
2300 Jackson Street
. There was no fanfare, as when the Jacksons left Motown for CBS. Rather, the label just did not pick up the brothers’ contracts. The Jacksons simply fizzled out.
Without Michael in the lead, his brothers have not been able to secure a new record deal.
Rebbie, by far the most resourceful singer of the three daughters, no longer records.
LaToya’s memoirs, ‘
LaToya – Growing Up in the Jackson Family
,’ was published in September 1991. In it, she was extremely critical of her family, but generous to Michael (and did not suggest that he had been molested). While she did not claim to have been molested by Joseph in the book – the publisher did not want to risk legal liability on such a volatile issue – she did so in her promotional tour. On talk show after talk show, she spoke of Joseph having forced her into sexual relations with him, and Katherine having told him, ‘Not tonight, Joseph. She’s had enough.’
Again, who can truly know, considering the personalities involved in such madness, if the awful charges LaToya made against her father were true, or not?