It’s hard to compete with yourself, especially when you’re as successful a hit-maker as Janet Jackson has been.
No, but Unbreakable does fit quite nicely in between Damita Jo and All for You, two very good albums that serve as bonuses to an already expansive catalog. It does not top the four fantastic albums she released one after another: Control, Rhythm Nation 1814, janet., and The Velvet Rope respectively. How much that means to you depends on how strict of a Janet fan you are. One can confidentially say that this is Janet’s best, most cohesive body of work since 2004 ’s Damita Jo, an underappreciated gem overshadowed by the scandal surrounding her Super Bowl Halftime performance. With that in mind, the anticipation has given way to the ultimate test: Is Unbreakable actually any good? While there was somewhat of a brouhaha surrounding my claims of Janet’s best student among the crowded crop of new singers, I made it very clear that there will never, ever be another. Speaking of, for those of you who have either seen Janet on tour, or, in my case, cheated and hunted down clips online as I await my respective tour stop, it is very much clear that the 49-year-old legend can still out dance the majority of her peers. The third preview of the album, “BURNITUP!” featuring Missy Elliott, just makes you happy to hear Janet’s voice-with the just as musically missed Missy Elliott, no less-on an uptempo track. The title track successfully conveys the overall theme of the album and Janet’s state of mind-self-assured, truly ready to sing again, and very much in love. era while its J.Cole-featuring remix manages to add a hip-hop twist without it feeling forced, or worse, futile as many guest raps on R&B tracks have proven to be. The rollout for the pop icon’s first album in seven years has been executed ***flawlessly. Despite the misfires, it still shows that Jackson, as an artist and performer, still has something to say-and it’s brave to open up and say it after seven years of relative silence, which, in today’s pop music landscape, can feel like a fucking lifetime.Ģ015 Album review Anhedonic Headphones J.I approached Janet Jackson’s Unbreakable with equal parts excitement and trepidation. Unbreakable is neither a career misstep, nor is it a redefining moment. But will they even bother #blessing the world with a review of it?įor Jackson, she doesn’t care, as she won’t care about my review of her album: “ It’s never the critic that counts/Cause critics only wanna talk,” she says on “Shoulda Known Better.” Just look at how Pitchfork has covered her every move since “No Sleeep” was announced earlier in the year. Jackson may or may not be made for modern times, but if anything, Unbreakable is an attempt to make her relevant in 2015-and it’s working. However, there is a slight reprieve near the album’s conclusion in the form of the album’s slow burning anthem “Well Traveled,” Unbreakable’s most self-aware track: “ I’ve come a long way, I’ve got a long way to go,” she sings in the song’s powerful refrain. The album’s weakest and least successful material is saved for its second half. Slightly less effective is the similarly large sounding “Take Me Away,” which falls into the album’s second half-a song that, while catchy, feels a little less sincere in its execution. It’s a gigantic, frisson inducing, go for broke statement, and man, does it work-it gives chills where it’s supposed to, and you just want to pump your fist along with the refrain when it kicks in again. While those albums didn’t exactly succumb to the popular styles of the time, but rather defined a specific sound, in a sense, one of the problems with Unbreakable is that it tries too hard to cater to today’s pop landscape.Īnd in some cases, that works-like the HUGE sounding “Shoulda Known Better” which sounds like the kind of thing that Zedd would have produced. Unbreakable reunites her with the dream team of producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, who are responsible for the sound of her trilogy of unbeatable albums- Rhythm Nation, Janet, and The Velvet Rope. The answer is both yes, and no, because Unbreakable is a total mixed bag-it buckles under its own weight by the second half, it’s got its fair share of songs that are tepid at best, but it also shines at moments-showing Jackson’s weirdness, as well as that her voice (when not assisted by a multi-tracker) is still phenomenal.
Unbreakable is also the first album she’s put out since the untimely passing of her brother Michael in 2009-something that she discusses on the rather poignant, but uplifting “Broken Hearts Heal.”
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