Control is the third studio album by American singer Janet Jackson, released on February 4, 1986, by A&M Records. Her collaborations with the songwriters and record producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis resulted in an unconventional sound: a fusion of rhythm and blues, rap vocals, funk, disco, and synthesized percussion that established Jackson, Jam, and Lewis as leading innovators of contemporary R&B. The distinctive triplet swing beat used on the record is a precursor to the new jack swing genre. The album became Jackson's commercial breakthrough, helped her transition into the popular music market, and made Control one of the defining albums of the 1980s and contemporary music. With its autobiographical themes, most of the album's lyrics reflected a series of changes in her life: a recent annulment of her marriage to singer James DeBarge, severing business ties with her father and manager Joseph and the rest of the Jackson family, hiring A&M executive John McClain as her new manager, and her subsequent introduction to Jam and Lewis. Critics have praised the album as both an artistic achievement and a personal statement of self-actualization. From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control...) under Creative Commons Attribution CC-BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...)