The Process

Janet's brother Todd has been making music ever since seeing the Beatles on Ed Sullivan in 1964.  He's played in bands like X-teens, 4 Who Dared and The Blusterfields.  He has a project studio, HUGE Sound Generation and Capture Facility, that he uses to make records for himself, his bands and interesting projects.  Knowing his kid sister Janet's love of music and pontificating,  he has recorded her vocally over the years.  Her work is a unique blend of hip-hop, spoken word and preaching that Todd has dubbed "truthin'."  Todd wrote the musical arrangements, developed themes based on topics of interest to Janet (but not for "Push," which is pure Janet freestyling), performed, recorded, engineered and produced Janet's record, by himself and with myriad musicians from the Triangle area of North Carolina, where he's lived and performed for years.

Once the music was largely in place, Janet would come and record one or two songs at a time.  Todd would prompt her with the general message of the song and let her record many takes over the music.  Occasionally, Todd would provide a lyrical hook, but for the most part, the goal was to capture Janet's unfiltered, straight-from-the-hip truthin'.  After the session, Todd would comb through the vocals, find the best passages and assemble them into verses, choruses, ultimately into a pop song format.

The process began in 2013, but took years to complete, as Todd's vision required many different musicians to span the many genres referenced in this work.  For background vocals, Todd recruited a choir of women singers, to reinforce the girl power of the project.  But Todd lent his own falsetto here and there, because he can't help himself sometimes.

The project has been recorded, cried over, laughed with, mixed, over-mixed, remixed, mastered to bring you the sonic curiosity that is The New Technique of Ways of Challenging Greater than Great Changes.