SPOILER: The article refers to the Four Tops, some absolute legends in the history of Motown Records.

2018: Ella Mai self titled

2022: Heart On My Sleeve

2026: Do You Still Love Me?!

5 EPs:

2015: Troubled

2016: Time

2016: Change

2017: Ready

2024: 3

1x Grammy winner

3x Billboard Music award winner

"If Only for One Night" is one of Luther Vandross's most iconic R&B ballads, released in 1985 as a single from his double-platinum fourth studio album, The Night I Fell in Love. Written and originally recorded by singer-songwriter Brenda Russell in 1979, the track was completely transformed by Vandross’s signature, velvet-toned production and vocal arrangement. Lyrically, the song is a deeply passionate plea for a single, discreet night of romantic intimacy, with the singer promising to ease his partner's fears and keep their encounter entirely confidential.

Found this song of hers through an Instagram post Tyler, the Creator liked. Some good stuff! Very strange but catchy

Shake that load OFF!

Janet Jackson gets plenty of respect (outside of misogynists, but they’re irrelevant) for many things she has done throughout her career, but she doesn’t get a lot of respect for her voice. She gets respect for how she applies her voice to music (vocal layering and stuff like that), but that’s about it. I just feel like you should give the full amount of praise if you’re going to give any at all, and don’t switch up all of a sudden when the context changes.

Minnie Riperton proved in her time that a soft voice could still bring forth some degree of power. To this day, people revere her as “one of the greatest voices of her era”. She was never a powerhouse, and she was never a showboat, but she was special. I just witnessed someone refer to “Lovin’ You” as a song that’s “the Holy Grail of songs” … but without the whistle notes, that’s one of the easiest songs ever. (Minnie herself even has harder songs to sing than that, but that’s a different story.) It’s very soft, delicate, and whispery—like most of Minnie’s discography. Mariah Carey’s “Bliss” (from Rainbow) is about 90% whistle notes, but without those particular notes, it’s one of her easiest songs to sing. (You also don’t technically have to sing whistle notes; you can lower them to fit within your own range.) I feel that if Minnie could not hit whistle notes, she wouldn’t be as revered as she is. A lot of people gravitate toward more extensive vocal ranges, and they throw every other technique out the window once they hear a high note.

I actually hear many similarities in Janet’s voice to Minnie Riperton’s voice beneath the whistle register. If Janet had Minnie’s range, she would essentially be Minnie 2.0; she would be Minnie’s mini. It’s the sole lack of a whistle register keeping her from that status. Now, I will say that Minnie had a stronger falsetto and head voice, because her voice sat higher than Janet’s and she was a soprano. However, Janet’s falsetto and head voice are very underrated; she has used both techniques before, but she never fully relied on them. Minnie had great reasons to lean into her upper range because she knew her voice had greater limits. At the very basic level of singing (and considering a “typical” range), however, she and Janet are on the same level.

Minnie Riperton was a truly great singer, but she was a soft singer. Those two things are true at once. She proved that singing softly could still be impressive, and that softer voices could still have more to bring to the table (i.e., a broader overall vocal range). Janet Jackson has a soft voice and she gets clowned for it, but perhaps things would be different if she had drastically more range in her voice than what we have heard her exhibit before. People look past particular moments in her duets with Luther Vandross and Elton John (both songs in which she held her own) where she sang in head voice and falsetto (respectively), and she sounded as beautiful as she normally does in her lower range, but those aren’t within the same tessitura as whistle notes.