The 1980s File Feature
Let's Wait Awhile
Janet Jackson: "Let's Wait Awhile" (1987) By the time "Let's Wait Awhile" was released in late 1986 and charted into early 1987, Janet Jackson had already un…
01 The Story
Janet Jackson: "Let's Wait Awhile" (1987)
By the time "Let's Wait Awhile" was released in late 1986 and charted into early 1987, Janet Jackson had already undergone one of the most consequential artistic transformations in contemporary pop history. Her 1986 album Control, produced by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis for A&M Records, had redefined her career trajectory and established her as an independent creative force in her own right, separate from the formidable Jackson family shadow. Control generated an extraordinary run of hit singles, and "Let's Wait Awhile" was the fourth consecutive major single extracted from that album.
Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, the Minneapolis production duo who had built their reputations working with the Time before being dismissed by Prince, co-wrote "Let's Wait Awhile" with Janet Jackson and Melanie Andrews. The song represented a notable tonal shift from the harder funk and electro-influenced tracks like "Nasty" and "What Have You Done for Me Lately" that had opened Control's commercial run. Where those earlier singles had established Jackson's assertive public persona, "Let's Wait Awhile" revealed a more introspective, emotionally vulnerable dimension.
Recording and Production
The recording was produced at Flyte Tyme Studios in Minneapolis, the facility that Jam and Lewis had established as the creative home for their signature new jack swing-adjacent sound. The track is built around a slow, deliberate groove with a pronounced bass line, layered synthesizers, and Jackson's vocal performance placed at the center of the mix with a directness that contrasts with the more heavily produced textures surrounding her. The production is restrained relative to other tracks on Control, a deliberate choice that serves the song's message of emotional caution and deliberation.
The single was released by A&M Records in late 1986 and entered the Billboard Hot 100 on January 17, 1987, debuting at number 75. Its chart ascent was gradual but sustained, moving steadily up through the winter months as radio programmers on both pop and R&B formats embraced the song's accessible emotional content. "Let's Wait Awhile" reached its peak position of number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 during the week of March 21, 1987, spending 19 weeks on the chart in total. The song was simultaneously a major hit on the Billboard R&B chart, where it reached number 1.
Chart Performance and Commercial Success
The song's number-2 Hot 100 peak made it one of the biggest pop hits of the first quarter of 1987. Its success consolidated the commercial phenomenon of Control, which had by that point established itself as one of the most successful albums of 1986. The sustained chart presence of five consecutive major singles from a single album was an achievement that demonstrated both the depth of Jam and Lewis's production work and the extraordinary public appetite for Jackson's newly assertive artistic voice.
The single's success was also significant in the context of A&M Records' marketing strategy. The label had invested heavily in the Control campaign, and the song's ability to reach number 2 on the Hot 100 from a slow debut confirmed that the album retained commercial vitality well into its second year of release. The accompanying music video, directed to emphasize Jackson's evolving visual persona, received extensive rotation on MTV and BET, contributing to the single's sustained radio performance.
Impact on the Control Campaign
In the broader context of the Control campaign, "Let's Wait Awhile" stands as the emotional counterpoint to the album's more confrontational material. Its inclusion demonstrated the range of Janet Jackson's artistic vision and the sophistication of Jam and Lewis's ability to tailor production approaches to serve varying emotional registers within a single album project. The song extended the album's commercial life significantly and helped ensure that Control remained one of the dominant pop releases of both 1986 and 1987, an unusual achievement in an era of rapid commercial turnover.
02 Song Meaning
Themes and Legacy of "Let's Wait Awhile"
"Let's Wait Awhile" is one of the most significant songs in the history of pop music's engagement with sexual restraint as a positive, empowering choice. In an era when popular music frequently celebrated immediate sexual gratification, Janet Jackson and her co-writers crafted a slow-tempo ballad in which the narrator actively chooses to delay physical intimacy in order to build a more emotionally grounded relationship. The song's central argument is that patience and emotional depth are prerequisites for a meaningful romantic connection, not obstacles to be overcome.
This message resonated with enormous power in 1987, particularly among younger female listeners for whom Jackson had become an aspirational figure following the assertive stance of "Nasty" and "Control." Where those earlier hits had addressed the right to set boundaries against unwanted advances, "Let's Wait Awhile" addressed the more nuanced territory of managing desire within a consensual relationship. The narrator is not rejecting the other person; she is asking for time to ensure that physical intimacy is accompanied by emotional trust and genuine connection.
Representation and Cultural Impact
The song's cultural impact was substantial. It was one of very few mainstream pop hits of the 1980s to address the concept of sexual abstinence from a position of personal agency rather than religious prescription, framing restraint as a sophisticated emotional choice rather than a moralistic prohibition. This framing made the song accessible to a broad audience that might have been resistant to more explicitly religious messaging, while still conveying a conservative-adjacent message about the value of slowing down in romantic relationships.
Health educators and youth counselors adopted the song as a cultural touchstone during the AIDS crisis, when public health messaging around sexual caution was reaching enormous audiences. The song's arrival in early 1987, as awareness of the AIDS epidemic was expanding beyond gay communities into the general population, gave its message an additional layer of urgency that the lyrics themselves did not explicitly address but that listeners and commentators recognized immediately. Janet Jackson's willingness to record and promote a message of sexual deliberation at the height of her commercial success lent the song a credibility that public service announcements could not replicate.
Janet Jackson's Artistic Voice
Within the arc of Jackson's career, "Let's Wait Awhile" represents a pivotal demonstration that the artistic maturity she and Jam and Lewis had brought to Control extended beyond the assertive anthems that had initially defined the album's reception. The song showed that Jackson could modulate her emotional register with subtlety and that her voice, often overshadowed by the production work on harder tracks, was capable of carrying intimate material with real feeling. Her vocal delivery on the slow passages of the song is widely regarded as among the most affecting performances of her 1980s catalog.
The song has retained cultural visibility across the decades since its release, appearing in retrospective assessments of the Control era and in discussions of pop music's engagement with themes of sexual health, agency, and emotional intelligence. It remains one of the most thoughtful treatments of romantic patience in the mainstream pop canon and a reminder that the Control album's depth went beyond its more frequently celebrated high-energy moments.
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