What Do I Call Her If I'm Not Nasty?

(Blogger's note: This post was chosen by Blogcritics as an Editor's Pick of the Week, 10/4-10/10. Assistant Music Editor A.L. Harper said: "Janet Jackson still talks to my naughty side and Don Baiocchi knows it. His review of Jackson's latest album, 20 Y.O., convinced me to buy the album and I love it!" I can feel the power coursing through my critic-veins as we speak. Thanks, A.L.!)

It was twenty years ago that Janet Jackson broke out onto the pop and R&B charts with Control, a defiant independence anthem that paved the way for the culture warrior she embodied in 1989's Rhythm Nation 1814. Those two blockbuster albums barely hinted at the nymph beneath the armor, and soon their angular, industrial beats were replaced by a softer, warmer sound on 1993's janet. Emerging like a gym-toned Venus on the cover of Rolling Stone, Janet announced that, at 27, the shy pop star of "Let's Wait Awhile" had found her G-spot.

It's been a bumpy road since that hit-machine triumvirate for Ms. Jackson, with sales declining even before the infamous wardrobe malfunction. Each successive album has had at least one great single ("Together Again," "All for You," "I Want You"), but after 2004's disappointing, sex-drenched Damita Jo, Janet (and her record label) seem eager to remind people why she's still around.

Which leads to 20 Y.O., her ninth album. The title is a reference to both how old she feels (with a body to match) and to her breakthrough in 1986. The album is at odds with itself, trying to reclaim the dance hits of the 80's and 90's without losing the liquid R&B of her more recent albums, all while trying to create a modern sound to attract new fans without alienating long-term fanatics. Whew. That's a lot of pressure to put on eleven songs.

And Janet is responding to that pressure by having nothing but fun. No angst, no anger, no nasty boys or son-of-a-guns to piss her off, which is strange, since Control was all about asserting herself. "I want to keep it light, I don't want to be serious. I want to have fun," she says in the opening spoken interlude. OK, fine, that sounds good, but then how is this a throwback to...oh, nevermind. The first half of 20 Y.O. is a five-song suite that blatantly tries to put Janet back in the dance clubs where she belongs. The album lead-off and second single, "So Excited," isn't the flawless dancefloor anthem fans were hoping for in the tradition of "If" or "Miss You Much." On any other Janet album, it would be a good 3rd or 4th single, but the breathy vocals and monotone chorus are way too laid back to create any urgent excitement promised by the title.

The one-two punch of "Get It Out Me" and "Do It 2 Me" are where the album really takes off, and either song would have made a much better lead single to announce that Janet's back, she's having fun and she's ready to dance. Her whispery coo is just one of two or three vocal personas that Janet pulls out on the former in a three-minute kitchen-sink anthem praising the mysterious skills of her lover, and while it may be trying too hard, I'd rather see Janet work her ass off to please her audience than coast on her charms.

The second half downshifts into "break it down" mode, with gauzy ballads and mid-tempo "Escapade" throwbacks that are much better than those descriptions would imply. This is where this album accomplishes what it set out to do. "With U" (aren't her U's and 2's so endearingly dorky at this point?) is a stripped-down ballad that recalls the forgotten beauty of 1990's "Come Back to Me" with a modern sound that Mariah should be jealous of. "Daybreak" and "Enjoy" are smooth, sweet trifles, complete with carnival charms, sing-along melodies and even a children's chorus in the latter.

The last two songs continue Janet's tradition of baby-making music. From "Let's Wait Awhile" to "Someday Is Tonight" to "Anytime, Anyplace" to "Rope Burn," Janet's sexual evolution has been a thoughtful, fascinating one, especially compared to the one-dimensional skankocity of many poptarts these days. Unfortunately, Damita Jo's "Warmth" and "Moist" were basically audio porn that brought Janet to a completely unsexy dead-end. Luckily, someone must have told her that less is more. "Take Care" and "Love 2 Love" are carefully crafted and reward repeat listenings. Especially "Love 2 Love," with Janet's jazzy vocals, pelvis-thumping bass bumps and second-verse beat break that add up to one of the most original sexy songs in the pop landscape right now. Cut it by a minute for a radio edit, throw it on commercial radio around 1am, and couples will be pulling over to see how far back their car seats decline.

The album isn't without its faults. The spoken interludes, a trademark of Janet albums, distract from what Janet's accomplishing now by insistingly (and ineffectively) reminding us of what she's done in the past, all while being the exact same interludes we've heard from her before (rain, inside jokes with her dancers, sexy phone calls, etc.). And while Janet doesn't have a powerhouse voice by any means, she still full-out sang on past hits like "Love Will Never Do (Without You)" and "All for You." The airy whisper that she now employs by default (such as on the entire Damita Jo album) is just plain annoying and detracts from her songs. Luckily, she doesn't indulge such laziness as much this time around.

Unfortunately, the marketing of this album makes no sense. It's a desperate combination of "I made a great album twenty years ago!" and "I want to be a stripper!" For the woman who made 1997's The Velvet Rope, a smart, dark, challenging album that no other contemporary pop star would dare to make even if they were could, this current direction is a little disappointing. Especially since it doesn't have all that much to do with the album, which is a celebration of a confident woman happily in love. And to kick off a comeback with the mediocre "Call On Me," a duet where she actually makes Nelly sing, is just plain wrong. Since she's basically banned on MTV after the Super Bowl incident (since, you know, MTV has such strict standards on how much skin its stars should expose), Janet needed something much stronger to break her way back into mainstream media besides a US Weekly cover touting her recent wait loss. "Call On Me" wasn't the way to do that, and "So Excited" didn't pick up the slack.

Marketing aside, Janet's crack production team of Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis are joined by her producer boyfriend Jermaine Dupri (who also helped orchestrate Mariah's comeback with The Emancipation of Mimi), and all are on their game here...for the most part. Certain details like the tinny hand claps in "Call On Me" are bizarre missteps, but most of their sonic creations, like the slinky electro-funk of "This Body," ensure that Janet is doing something different from her younger contemporaries and doing it well.

For all of its bump 'n grind aspirations, 20 Y.O. never fully merges the contradicting needs of Janet's smooth R&B and sharp dance-floor pop. Whether it pleases her legion of diehard fans while convincing the younger set who don't even remember Control to buy her album remains to be seen. The point is, Janet sounds as self-assured, sexy and relaxed as ever. While there may be no signature single like "Rhythm Nation" or "That's the Way Love Goes," this album has multiple singles ready to climb their way onto radio and up the charts. We'll see if a forty-year-old pop star (supposedly) free of neurosis can achieve what her assertive twenty-year-old self did two decades ago.