Songoftheday 12/15/20 - Have a feeling now believing that you were the one I was meant to be with...

 

 

"Got 'Til It's Gone" - Janet Jackson featuring Q-Tip and Joni Mitchell

from the album The Velvet Rope (1997)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: ineligible to chart

Billboard Hot 100 Airplay peak: #36 (two weeks)

Weeks in the Airplay Top-40: 3

 

Today's song of the day is by Janet Jackson, who had recapped an amazing ten years of success with A&M records with her Design of a Decade compilation, which also produced a top ten pop and R&B hit with "Runaway" in the autumn of 1996. Jackson returned a year later with her second record for Virgin, with whom she signed a newsmaking 80 million re-up contract with. The result, The Velvet Rope, was self-described by Janet as an intensely personal work for her, as she fought with her demons and string of relationships that had damaged her psyche. Noting the rift in her famous family, she released the set as just "Janet". The lead promotional "single" for the set was the rather low-key jazz-funk of "Got 'Til It's Gone". Built on a foundation of Joni Mitchell's folk-pop classic "Big Yellow Taxi", whose looped sample provides the title, the record credits Joni as well as rapper Q-Tip, who cameos on the song co-written by Janet with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. Despite the subdued choice for a first single, it did have a memorable music video from Mark Romanek, one that ended up winning a Grammy for the clip...

Since "Got 'Til It's Gone" wasn't released as a commercial single you could buy in stores, it wasn't able to place on Billboard magazine's official Hot 100 pop chart. However, the song got enough radio love to reach the top-40 of the airplay component of that tally in September of 1997. The song was an even bigger success on "urban" stations, spending two weeks at #3 on Billboard's R&B Airplay chart. The dance remixes of the track from the likes of Armand Van Helden and Soul Solution helped it rise to #6 on the Dance Club Play list. Internationally, where the song was released as stand-alone single, it reached the top ten in Hungary (#3), New Zealand (#4), Denmark (#5), the UK (#6), Sweden (#6), the Netherlands (#9), and Australia (#10). The record also made the top-40 in France (#11), Switzerland (#11), Norway (#13), Iceland (#14), Ireland (#16), Germany (#17), Finland (#17), Canada (#19), Italy (#19), Austria (#21), and Belgium (#23F/#29W). The Velvet Rope album, released that October, debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 sales chart, going on to sell over three million copies. 

 

One caveat, however: Jackson and the Flyte Tyme production team were sued for plagiarism for lifting the melody from British singer Des'ree's song "Feel So High" from 1991. The similarity is quite remarkable, and they eventually settled with Des'ree getting part of the royalties.

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Here's Janet appearing on Top of the Pops in the UK to promote the album...

Next up is the Armand Van Helden dance remix that helped the track make the top ten on the club chart in Billboard...

Janet of course performed the track on her Velvet Rope tour in 1998...

...and again on her All For You show in 2001...

and lastly, on her State of the World tour...

This will be my final "song of the day" for 2020 as I get my year-end recap of the biggest hits on my weekly music chart. So please stay tuned, and thanks for stopping by.