how do you guys feel
about this album?

I remember being the biggest
Cherrelle fan off of her singles alone
we didn't have the albums
but I had the 12" for "You Look Good To Me"
and "Saturday Love"... which were
given to me by my older cousins
I know for sure they had the
High Priority album on vinyl

but back to Fragile
this has the Minneapolis sound all over it!!!
definitely puts me in the mind of


I've got a new favorite album
there won't one bad song on this joint
[Edited 6/17/07 15:14pm]

Love Fragile and High Priority (and Affair, for that matter).

Great Jimmy Jam & Lewis production pieces.

yes I finished up High Priority
and they are BOTH indeed great!!!
I surprisingly found myself
singing along with "Artificial Heart"
I don't really recall that one much
but hearing it just now
took me back down Memory Lane
I was a lil boy all over again

these are up next:


***@VoicesCarry - is Affair
the one with "Everything I Miss At Home"?
I always loved that track of Cherrelle's too
[Edited 6/17/07 17:22pm]

This WHOLE album would've been Cherrelle' career breaking point but she turned it down....



Speaking of which, there's an old rumor that Prince ghost-written "What Have U Done 4 Me Lately?",,,,,did I just go off-topic?

@ Alex's debut album,,,,I love the Kashif-feel in "What's Missing" and I love '17 Days' influence on "A Broken Heart Can Mend"(Esp the ha ha ha in the bridge)
[Edited 6/17/07 17:34pm]

Harlepolis said:

I can't wait to hear them now!
I've still gotta hear Chrisette Michele too
so much music, so little time

Harlepolis said:

Harle, it wasn't Cherrelle who turned down the chance to have an entire album produced by Jam & Lewis in 1985, it was Atlantic Starr's Sharon Bryant. Furthermore, the Control songs were not prepared in advance (some of the rough beats had been worked out, and were played for Sharon, but she wanted to make a less hard-hitting record), which is why Janet gets cowriter credit on most of them. After Sharon turned them down, A&M then gave Jam & Lewis a list of contract artists, and they chose to work with Janet because they had met her at a Time concert in the early 1980's.
[Edited 6/17/07 18:21pm]

VoicesCarry said:

You serious?

All this time I thought it was Cherrelle who turned down the album(even the songs sound right up her alley) turned out it was Sharon?

Wow,,,thats a trivia for you right there.

You believe the Prince involvement myth, though? That he wrote the song?

I read once that he played a verse from the song and then turned to the audience with a wink and said "Who wrote that?". If he didn't write it, he sure helped creating the myth

Harlepolis said:

Here is an excerpt from the Billboard Book of Number One Albums:

Initially they were set to produce former Atlantic Starr singer Sharon Bryant, but the deal fell apart. A&M Records A&R executive John McClain asked the duo if there was any other artist on the A&M roster that Jam & Lewis were interested in working with. Their response was Janet Jackson. (there is a long quote from Jimmy re: meeting her at the Time concert).

Also, from the Billboard Book of Number One Hits:

Jam & Lewis had already composed the beats for Control before McClain contacted them about working with Jackson. The tunes were written for Sharon Bryant, who had sung with Atlantic Starr until a bitter split. She decided the music was too rambunctious for her first solo effort. "Sharon just wanted a different feeling, I guess," Janet told Stevenson in Spin, "so Jimmy & Terry saved the tracks. What you hear on the album is the result of a lot of jamming that they did right there in the studio. All the music is pretty much them. But the lyrics, the vocal arrangements, the keyboards and synthesizers, that's where I came in."

I think the songs sound right up her alley because they are definitive Jam & Lewis productions, and Cherrelle worked so well with them. The lyrics were definitely written with Janet's life experience in mind. I don't think a Cherrelle or Sharon Bryant record would have turned into a concept album about asserting your womanhood at age 19. Also, who can ever know if The Pleasure Principle, a Monte Moir composition and production, would have wound up on someone else's album?



No clue. Somehow I don't think Prince would ghostwrite a song for Jam & Lewis, though.



Yes, this is true.
[Edited 6/17/07 18:46pm]

All Time Favorites from Flyte Time Productions.