Janet Jackson's Lax 'Discipline'
By Jess Harvell
Special to The Washington Post
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Janet Jackson almost always puts a sure foot on the dance floor. After making her name with the up-tempo electronic R&B of 1986's "Control," Jackson briefly became the queen of urban dance pop. But from 1997's "The Velvet Rope" onward she's often faltered -- thanks to, among other things, an insatiable taste for oily ballads.
No such worries for the first five tracks of her new album, "Discipline," which squeeze an entire night's worth of clubbing into 20 energy-packed minutes. The vocoder-swathed "Rock With U" veers toward the same fizzy French house music Kanye West tapped when he sampled Gallic dance giants Daft Punk. Tunes like "Feedback," "Luv" and "2Nite" are likewise thrillingly juiced on strict beats, squelchy keyboards and synthesized string swells.
The result is an album with a bracingly robotic palette. A notable break comes with "The 1," fleet old-school funk built around bluntly syncopated horn blasts and a sampled rhythm that rattles a little like go-go. On a less future-shocked R&B album, "The 1" would be an appealingly anachronistic throwback to soul music in the days before drum machines. On the defiantly digital "Discipline," it becomes a standout by default.
Its comparatively gritty sound also highlights the album's main weakness: its star's weak, wispy voice. "Discipline" finds Jackson compensating for a long-standing lack of chops with a voice that's been wrung through the vigorous vocal processing of the album's techno moments. But it's also a voice electronically whipped far too high and thin to truly get down and dirty on a cut like "The 1."
Her fluttery delivery on the pornographic litany of the title track is meant to sound like she's trembling on the verge of ecstasy. Instead it feels more like someone, well, faking it. This is a problem, considering that unbridled sexuality is the binding theme of "Discipline," much as it's been Jackson's muse for well over a decade.
To say that muse has failed her in recent years is something of an understatement, judging by the public's chilly reaction to her hot and heavy music. (But was it the randy themes or weak beats that made her last two albums such flops?) Thankfully, "Discipline" isn't as banally smutty as 2004's career nadir, "Damita Jo," even if she does occasionally start panting about whips and "self-abasement."
Yet if "Discipline" goes flat, it has less to do with lyrics or the voice singing them than Jackson's failure to maintain the breakneck momentum of those first 20 minutes. The inevitable string of slow jams starts strong but quickly turns sickly with the atrocious quiet-storm piano of "Never Letchu Go." "Greatest X," another forced stab at poignancy, is slightly better but still mostly notable for the awkward way it sets up the strange, gargling electro of "So Much Betta." Ballads butting heads with bangers proves Jackson has the beats but lacks a good DJ's sense of pacing. (The album's padded with no less than nine pointless interludes and skits, momentum killers all.) But take a firm hand editing out "Discipline's" weaker moments when transferring it to your iPod and you've still got the strongest Janet Jackson album in years.
