As her brother Michael's infamous Neverland Ranch goes into foreclosure, Janet Jackson adds another line to her already long résumé by putting out her tenth album, "Discipline." For those expecting a delicious slice of pop genius, this will come as a very by-the-numbers platter that lives up to its namesake. But even the blandest fare ends up growing on the masses, and the best songs on Janet's latest sound catchy to the extreme.
The first single, "Feedback," comes straight out of the Timbaland/Nate Danja playbook, which has of late taken over the airwaves. This hook-laden remedy has been used by artists such as Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears, to name two of its more conspicuous patrons. The song is more fun than Britney's "Gimme More," with only moderately less insipid lyrics, except for the one bizarre moment in which Ms. Jackson refers to her "swag" as "heavy like a first-day period." But in her defense, Ms. Jackson has never been terribly insightful with her lyrics. The album starts off fairly strong with the tracks "Feedback" and "LUV," an infectious piece of synthesizer madness, which lacks a little T-Pain to surpass the infectious goodness of Kanye's "Good Life."
The Jermaine Dupri-produced "Rock With U," not to be confused with Ashanti's "Rock Wit U," is one of the stranger cuts to make it on the album, as it features what sounds like a late 80's house beat. The robot voice from "Half Life: Portal" also seems to make a cameo on this track, an appearance that sticks out like a sore thumb. The tech-inspired track is listenable, but fails to really catch the listener's attention for anything other than its strange sound.
Unfortunately, the album goes into a rather bland middle section with comparatively tired-sounding club bangers and slow jams that nobody will remember two weeks from now. The frequent interludes present us with a completely nonsensical mix of club bathroom breaks and Janet's personal robot (yeah, the one from "Half-Life") introducing songs. But with a swag as heavy as Janet has, this should be no surprise.
Ms. Jackson does manage to pull off a couple more memorable tracks, the first one being the poorly named "Greatest X." This slow rocker brings the listener back to Janet's better days and feels like something she would have put out at the height of her career. For those of us that can remember, that era would include albums such as "The Velvet Rope" (1997) and "Rhythm Nation," (1989) but most certainly not "Damita Jo" (2004), the album she was attempting to push during the Super Bowl debacle of 2004.
The robot lady then introduces the most innovative track of the bunch, the Dupri-produced "So Much Betta," which features a unique beat, a Daft Punk sample and a couple of breaks even Michael would be proud of. "The 1," the only collaborative effort on the album, features the vocals of Missy Elliott over a rather bland beat that fails to deliver the promised goods and turns out, in fact, not to be "The 1."
The title track brings the album to a disturbing close with Janet taking a page from Michael's book of crazy as she utters masochistic rants she strangely decided to share with the now-confused listener. As one may have gathered, this album will not be popping up in anybody's top ten, but the presence of a few strong tracks and some truly bizarre lyrics and interludes could well be worth a listen or two. But then again, with only a few highlights among 24 tracks, it certainly could have been better.
This article has been amended from its original version. The printed version was incorrectly credited to Grant Beighley.
