#FlashbackFriday Together Again by Janet Jackson was No. 1
ON this day in 1998, Janet Jackson was sitting pretty on top of the US Billboard Hot 100 Chart with Together Again. The dance number was the second single from her album The Velvet Rope. In an interview with
NewNowNext in 2008, Jackson said the song was inspired by her own personal experience.
Together Again was written as a tribute to friends who died of AIDS. She revealed that the label thought the song was a bad idea at that time.
“Before I wrote the song, I told some of the people at the label the concept for the song, and they didn’t think it was a good idea: ‘I don’t think you should do that.’
“I said, ‘Why shouldn’t I?’. I thought, ‘You know, this is really stupid...’. It was in my heart,” she recalled.
Jackson maintained her decision to write the song and it became one of her biggest hits.
Together Again was praised by critics for Jackson’s delivery and the single sold over six million copies worldwide.
Despite the song’s sombre inspiration, the song has a joyful feel to it, like she meant it to be.
“Well, I decided that I wanted to do a song about my friends. I wanted to do a song that was uplifting, rejoiceful, that would reflect their personalities. I do believe that it just ends here. That they’ve gone into another life. And that I will see them again,” she said to MTV in 2000. –