| A singer/songwriter both celebrated and decried for her pointed handling of taboo topics, Janis Ian enjoyed one of the more remarkable second acts in music history; after first finding success as a teen, her career slumped, only to enter a commercial resurgence almost a decade later. When she was just 15, she recorded her self-titled debut; the LP contained "Society's Child (Baby I've Been Thinking)," a meditation on interracial romance written by Ian while waiting to meet with her school guidance counselor. While banned by a few radio stations, the single failed to attract much notice until conductor Leonard Bernstein invited its writer to perform the song on his television special Inside Pop: The Rock Revolution. The ensuing publicity and furor over its subject matter pushed "Society's Child" into the upper rungs of the pop charts, and made Ian an overnight sensation. With 1975's "Between The Lines," Ian eclipsed all of her previous success; not only did the LP achieve platinum status, but the delicate single "At Seventeen" reached the Top Three and won a Grammy. By 1979 she was coaxed into recording a disco number for producer Giorgio Moroder. "Fly Too High" was recorded for the motion picture "Foxes." The song was more popular than the movie. Janis then spent 14 years without a contract before emerging in 1993 with "Breaking Silence" (the title a reference to her recent admission of homosexuality), which pulled no punches in tackling material like domestic violence, frank eroticism, and the Holocaust. Similarly, 1995's "Revenge" explored prostitution and homelessness. Two years later Ian returned with "Hunger; God and the FBI" followed in the spring of 2000. |
