Music / All For You

Tell me you're the only one
Soon we'll be having fun

Back on the road again, feeling kinda lonely
And looking for the right guy who'd be mine
Friends say I'm crazy 'cause easily I fall in love
"You gotta do it different J, this time"

—"Someone to Call My Lover"

All For You is the seventh studio album by American singer Janet Jackson. It was released through Virgin Records on April 16, 2001.

In 2000, Janet had separated from her second husband, René Elizondo Jr. Their marriage was secret, but the divorce was public...and very messy. While dealing with that, and working on this album, she also starred with Eddie Murphy in the film Nutty Professor II: The Klumps. The soundtrack for that film featured a #1 song, "Doesn't Really Matter". With that song added to this album as well, it would serve to set the tone for the songs that it would accompany.

While her divorce was reflected in some of the songs with themes of deceit and betrayal, she was also inspired by her new experiences with dating and fresh love, and wrote plenty of songs about romance and sex. The tone for much of the album was Lighter and Softer than The Velvet Rope was. The R&B was joined by Dance Pop, Funk, straight Rock & Roll, and even a little Disco. And unlike her past releases, the songs on the album were explicit enough to both earn Janet her first Parental Advisory sticker—which, like The Velvet Rope, got the album banned in Singapore.

Critics commended the generally upbeat sound of this album; the most common criticism had to do with overproduction in some of the songs. It was Janet's fifth-consecutive album to hit #1 on the Billboard 200 album chart in the United States, and went triple-Platinum, ultimately selling over 5 million copies worldwide.

Not including "Doesn't Really Matter", three singles were released from the album: the Title Track, "Someone to Call My Lover", and "Son of a Gun (I Betcha Think This Song Is About You)". The last of those was a duet with Carly Simon, and one of the deepest dives into her divorce. All three were Top 40 hits; "All For You" would ultimately go #1 in the US, and hit #3 in the UK.

"All For You" would win the Grammy Award for Best Dance Recording in 2002.

Janet did a world tour to promote the album from July 2001 through February 2002. She was originally set to star in the halftime show for Super Bowl XXXVI, but stepped aside in favor of U2 in the wake of 9/11. The terrorist attacks resulted in the cancellation of several tour dates in the European leg of the tour, including a planned live appearance at the 2001 MTV Europe Music Awards in Frankfurt.

A Limited Edition CD-DVD combo was released on November 20, 2001. It added two remixes of "Son of a Gun", and included a DVD with various behind-the-scenes features from her recordings with Virgin, as well as all the music videos to that point from her Virgin albums. The cover for the set features her wearing an American flag-themed bikini top and jeans.

Tracklist:

1. "Intro" (1:00)
2. "You Ain't Right" (4:32)
3. "All for You" (5:29)
4. "2wayforyou" (Interlude) (0:19)
5. "Come On Get Up" (4:47)
6. "When We Oooo" (4:34)
7. "China Love" (4:36)
8. "Love Scene (Ooh Baby)" (4:16)
9. "Would You Mind" (5:31)
10. "Lame" (Interlude) (0:11)
11. "Trust a Try" (5:16)
12. "Clouds" (Interlude) (0:19)
13. "Son of a Gun (I Betcha Think This Song Is About You)" (with Carly Simon) (5:56)
14. "Truth" (6:45)
15. "Theory" (Interlude) (0:26)
16. "Someone to Call My Lover" (4:32)
17. "Feels So Right" (4:42)
18. "Doesn't Really Matter" (4:24)
19. "Better Days" (5:05)
20. "Outro" (0:09)

"I bet you think these tropes are about you"

• Intercourse with You: "All For You" has among her most explicit lyrics about having sex:
  All my girls at the party, look at that body
  Shaking that thing like you never did see
  Got a nice package alright
  Guess I'm gonna have to ride it tonight
• Let's Duet: Janet wanted to sample "You're So Vain" for "Son of a Gun". But Carly wanted to re-record her lines. Both singers liked the combination so much, it turned into an actual duet.
• Lighter and Softer: Despite some of the tribulations in Janet's life at the time, the album strikes a lighter tone than The Velvet Rope.
• Studio Chatter: Most of it is just used for interludes throughout the album, but "2wayforyou" actually blends in with the ending of the preceding title track, segueing in by Janet's pager (which uses the melody of the song's refrain as its notifier) going off during recording.
• Title Track: "All For You".
• Woman Scorned: "Son of a Gun", which was based on her divorce from René Elizondo Jr., and the resulting fallout stemming from it.