Control by Janet Jackson

Control, Janet Jackson's third album, hit the racks on A&M on February 4, 1986, and it's the record where the youngest Jackson stops being somebody's kid sister. The songs are her own declaration of independence: a marriage to James DeBarge annulled, business ties to her father Joseph and the family cut, a new manager in A&M's John McClain, and a new creative partnership with producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis.

Jam and Lewis gave her a sound as hard and shiny as chrome: R&B and funk welded to disco, rap-style vocals and machine percussion, riding a swung triplet beat that would soon feed new jack swing. "What Have You Done for Me Lately", "Nasty", "When I Think of You", the title track and "Let's Wait Awhile" all went top five on the Hot 100, a first for a woman from one album, and Control became her first Billboard 200 chart-topper. Jam and Lewis took the Producer of the Year Grammy for their trouble.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.