'Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation 1814'

Where is Rhythm Nation located? Is it a member or OPEC or the United Nations? Was it an Allied power during World War II?

Is Margaritaville or Suffragette City located in Rhythm Nation? Is its main export "danceable beats?" Does it import Swiss cuckoo clocks, South American rubber, Chinese children's toys or Japanese VCRs? Does it have a debt, a democratic government, a legislature, a national bird?

Clearly, its president is Ms. Janet Jackson. Judging from her outfit, it was a military dictatorship. It's national anthem is "Escapade." And its past time is getting down.

God bless Rhythm Nation.

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If I can go back in the time machine, Rhythm Nation has a little bit of history for me. Listening to it now, I realize what shitty pop music we had to choose from back in the day.

Rhythm Nation was released in 1989. I was nine years old. This was the peak of my pop music days. I had just received for a birthday a smallish tape deck/radio. Small but servicable. Nowhere near a "boombox" it was more like a squeak box. My first tape -- received that same birthday -- was a copy of The Beach Boys' Greatest Hits Vol II. To this date, I've never seen Vol. I.

I remember sitting next to my little radio with a blank tape inside listening to top 40 radio for hours on end. Once they played a song I like (Jackson, Milli Vanilli, Jon Secada, Madonna, Bonnie Raitt, Bobby Brown, Bell Biv Devoe ... to name a few) and I'd quickly hit the "record" and "play" buttons simutaneously. I became an expert in identifying songs by the first five seconds of the song as the disc jockey talked over it.

I'd have tape after tape just chockful of pop songs. I dreamed of owning them on tape or ... gulp! ... compact disc like my older sister.

I'd also watch "America's Top 10," a music video show hosted by Casey Kasem on Saturday mornings. The show was later hosted -- to my delight -- by Tommy Puett, who portrayed Tyler Benchfield in the Sunday night dramedy with a retarded kid, Life Goes On. He was the mulleted, good-looking stud, who inexplicably is interested in the homely Kelly Martin.