Month: September 2006

According to the Microsoft Windows Media Player database, a single for So Excited will be released on 31st October 2006. As this is a Tuesday, it is assumed that this is a US release date as singles in the UK are released on Mondays. More details as soon as we have them.

In Monday’s Oprah interview, Janet talks for the last time about her Super Bowl appearance. Despite issuing a statement and also taping a videoed apology, on her upcoming edition of ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show’, set to be broadcast in the US on September 25, she says she now regrets saying sorry because it made her look guilty for something that was an accident.

Janet also reveals that she has not spoken to Justin Timberlake since the incident. But when Oprah asked her if she felt betrayed, Janet would not answer directly. She simply says, “Loyalty comes first to me.”

She then added that she doesn’t hold a grudge against the singer and still considers him a friend.

Janet’s official website at Janet-Jackson.com has been relaunched. Jermaine Dupri has asked fans to act as “promotors” this weekend and to help him promote Janet’s new album. He also stated that the fan designed covers will be released in limited quantities.

A new message from Janet has appeared on her official website, Janet-Jackson.com:

Hey u guys –

Quite a bit has happened since my last message 2 u so lets just get right 2 it. 1st of all I know you’ve seen the new video for “So Excited” by now. The feedback I’ve been getting from all of u about it is crazy….thanx 4 the love!

And I can’t thank u enough 4 making “Call On Me” #1 song on Billboard Magazine’s Hot R&B/Hip-Hop chart. Words will never be able 2 express how much I thank and appreciate u 4 supporting me and this record.

And next week on September 20th, we are going to announce my picks of the “20 Y.O.” album covers from the Yahoo Fan Contest. Thanks so much 4 submitting such beautiful work n creative work.

I know you’ve seen my new covers of FHM, Ebony, Giant and W — they all did an amazing job. They are so beautiful and so uniquely different…and there is more 2 come. We’re not through yet! And if you’ve checked out the promos, I know you saw I taped the Oprah show the other day in Chicago. I performed two songs (an old and a new) and chatted with Oprah for the hour. We have a few “behind the scenes” surprises too. It will air on September 25th so tune in.

My next stop? New York City! Want to hang out with me? I’m doing a special fan event with Hot 97 on September 19th. The following week I’m back in New York to tape 106 & Park on September 25th and a signing at Virgin Megastore in Times Square on September 26th. Line up early because you’ll need a wristband to enter. After the signing, I’m going to have an album release party at a new club in New York — should b lots of fun!

Then on Friday, September 29th, I’m performing on The Today Show live from the Plaza. I recorded a special promo that will air exclusively on NBC promoting the performance…and if you can make it, you’ll be able to see my new kids, my new band and get a chance to party, dance and sing – with me. Nelly is going to be there too! I am looking forward to seeing ALL of my fans that morning.

Life is great and I can’t WAIT 4 u to hear my new album.

Keep in touch.

MYM
Love,
JJ

A party to celebrate the release of Janet’s new single Call On Me and her new album 20 Y.O. in the UK has been organised for this coming Friday. The club night, at Camouflage in Soho, is hosted by Virgin Records. If you want to get your name on the guest list, email josie.1[at]btopenworld.com quoting JANET LOVE as your reference to get a special entry price!

Janet appears in the latest edition of Q, a British music magazine. Read the interview here:

“We want the room swept for bugs.” In a London hotel suite, one of Janet Jackson’s managers is tweaking plans for the star’s forthcoming advance into Europe. She barks orders to an Italian hotel manager on the phone. But it’s clear the hapless flunky at the other end misunderstands. He is promising the maid will definitely get into all those fiddly corners before Jackson arrives. “No! Sweep for bugs!” insists the manager, tartly. “A counter-surveillance sweep for recording devices. That’s an absolute must.”

At least everything at London’s Metropolitan hotel is at its luxury zenith. Four managers, two publicists, her nutritionist, Dave, and her gym instructor, Tony, huddle and gabble in the Jackson operations nerve centre. With talk of a stalker in the vacinity, visit conditions are at optimum frenzy level. Which is a shame, since Jackson’s ninth album 20Y.O., is a further attempt to establish the youngest of the R&B dynasty as “the normal one”. But Jackson has still contributed much to tabloid mythology. It began with a secret marriage aged 18 to James DeBarge and persistent, though denied, rumours of a love-child. Eager to establish a persona outside the Jackson family, she has released a succession of emotionally confessional and highly sexualised albums over the last decade.

American moral arbiters baulked at the simulated phone sex on 1997’s The Velvet Rope. By 2004 they had all the ammo they needed. At the Superbowl performance with Justin Timberlake that February there was outrage when her right breast was exposed to 100 million TV viewers. Timberlake tore away her top during a dance routine to ‘Rock Your Body’ and later described the incident as a “wardrobe malfunction”. There were fines, lawsuits and even a change in indecency law passed in the US House of Representatives.

Janet has turned to super-producer and boyfriend Jermaine Dupri to effect a now-familiar diva transformation. He achieved it spectacularly with Mariah Carey’s The Emancipation Of Mimi last year. Janet, too, requires reinvention as a streetwise vamp. The night before the interview, Dupri invited me to a West London studio to hear 20Y.O. He was voluble on the “many Janets” we will encounter on this album, but maintained a robot distance when asked if executive producing a track about your girlfriend giving herself a hand-job is weird. “It’s business,” he said in a Cyberman voice.

Before meeting Janet, there are email, telephone and verbal warnings – neither the Superbowl nor her brother Michael may be mentioned. Entering her suite it feels like a supervised prison visit in a future world where felon care has been farmed out to World Of Leather. Jackson – looking like an African-American Vicky Pollard: ripped jeans, a fitted denim jacket showcasing bunched breasts, scraped-back hair in a scrunchie and big, hooped earrings – sits staring at her knees. The frail, falsetto Jackson “Hello” is inmistakeable. Initially the interview experience is awful, Jackson burning with defensive energy. There is prim, nervous coughing and that little voice cracks as though she might start crying.

The new album 20Y.O. stands for 20 Years Old. But you’re 40.
That’s a statement. Are you going to ask me a question?

Why is it called 20 Years Old?
Because it’s 20 years since Control, which is where I begin… OK, I never wanted to sing. I did it because my father told me to. I got a contract aged 14. I was given music: “Here, do this. Do that.” I never made any waves. I actually wanted to go and do Business Law and pay for that by acting. I could be an actress with something to fall back on. By 18 I was in (US TV Series) Fame. I was married and I wasn’t happy at all. I tried to get fired and finally asked them to let me out of my contract, which they did. Only then did I think, “I want to try singing again.” But this time, my way. I fired my father as a manager and made Control. This anniversary is so important to me. It took a lot for me to do that, given the shy kid that I was.

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