Janet Jackson arrives in London with the glow of her Together Again world tour overshadowed by controversy. Buried deep in a Guardian interview were her thoughts on the coming US election. Alas, she chose to repeat a lie perpetuated by Donald Trump about Kamala Harris’s racial identity, with inevitable results. Events then took a turn for the weird, as is the wont of events in the Jackson family. A retraction was subsequently issued, then the retraction was retracted – the “manager” who issued it apparently having nothing to do with Jackson. Within 48 hours the US press was talking about a “PR nightmare”.
It’s not a situation that seems to be bothering tonight’s audience – largely, but not exclusively, old enough to recall Jackson’s 1980s and 90s purple patch first-hand – but it’s a little unfortunate nonetheless, because her tour is presumably supposed to be about reframing a career held to have slumped because you couldn’t hear her music over the noise of controversy, following her infamous appearance at the 2004 Super Bowl. Whether her subsequent commercial decline might also have had something to do with a dip in the quality and consistency of her albums in the 00s is an interesting question, but Jackson herself clearly thinks they’re worth reassessing. The opening of her show is daringly light on hits and heavy on tracks from the 21st century: one house-influenced track segues into another, as if a DJ were mixing a set of tunes you can’t quite place.
