Janet Jackson’s upcoming appearance at this year’s Glastonbury Festival has already made headlines. When the singer tweeted the poster for the internationally-renowned British weekender in March, fans spotted that she’d doctored the original image to promote herself from fifth on the bill to first, leapfrogging headline acts The Killers, The Cure and Stormzy, plus Kylie Minogue, who’s playing the Sunday afternoon ‘legends’ slot.

It was a brazen and amusing bit of self-aggrandizement from the US star, who is back in the limelight this summer, with her new Las Vegas residency being hailed as a return to “top form” when it began last month. But many fans felt it was more than justified. For, despite a glittering career that includes 10 US number one hits, estimated global record sales totalling 100 million, and a recent induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Janet remains a strangely underrated pop icon.

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Janet’s iconic career is especially impressive because it’s involved having to emerge from the shadow of a wildly successful older sibling. When she dropped her eponymous debut album in September 1982, Michael Jackson was just months away from unleashing Thriller, the pop culture phenomenon that became the best-selling album of all time.

Performing as the Jackson Five, Janet’s brothers had been a popular act since the early '70s, and being a Jackson surely gave Janet a head start in the highly competitive music industry. But it didn’t guarantee her a hit: neither 1982’s forgettable Janet Jackson album nor 1984’s slightly stronger follow-up Dream Street,which includes an almost-quaint duet with British pop legend Cliff Richard, sold very well. Their largely characterless blend of contemporary pop sounds offered few clues that by the mid-90s, Janet would be the highest-paid recording artist in history.