Published on Dec 20, 1997
After a diva-quenched hip-hop-overbalanced Billboard Top 10
year, “The Normal One” released a “let’s call it ‘dance music’ for
now” album after a four year hiatus which included a depression,
enemas and other stuff you don’t want to hear about. The result is
a surprisingly personal mindscape of the singer-songwriter, even
for a singer-songwriter who’s built her success on being personal.
From Vanessa-Mae doing her thing in the elongated-interlude title
track (she sounds like an e-guitar doing doublestops) to Lisa Marie
Presley phoning in the middle of a masturbation in the interlude
“Speaker Phone”, it’s proven that the Jackson Family is truly
unique to have such a mindscape dubbed Normal.
Sequels. “What About” has the content of “This Time” with a
Morissette twist. This observation initially makes for a very poppy
single but the assumption is crushed with the lyrics “what about
the times you said you didn’t fuck her she only [I won’t ruin this
track for you]”. Immediately the track is scrapped from the
Singapore version of
The Velvet Rope. “Every Time” is so much like “Again”, it’s
astonishing they’d even try to put it in the tracklist. Different
subject matter, same breathless voice. For those of you who hate
over-the-top, here’s relief; a seamless ballad from a voice that’s
impossible to go over-the-top.
She started it on
janet. The kinky stuff is tight, four songs dealing directly
with sexual intercourse. Descriptive, but nothing the Korean
Censorship Committee jumped over; “My Need” is my personal
favorite, a more mellow, suspended version of “You Want This”.
“Rope Burn”‘s hyper-intimacy with her voice and suggestive imagery
is a close second. An amusing remake of Rod Stewart’s “Tonight’s
the Night” is achieved in grand 90’s style by throwing in the
menage a trois element. “THROB” had effectively kick-assed
Madonna’s “Erotica” for me and this album takes the bait. Even if
“Anything” is so blatantly leftover from “Anytime Anyplace”.
More of her respect-yourself messages are in “You” and “Special”
(the latter is so saccharine, so Jacko-We-Are-The-World, it’s plain
bizarre to see it in the same album “Rope Burn” is in) and the
“hidden” track “Can’t Be Stopped” (how can a track be hidden if
I’ve known it existed months before the album is released? They
gotta start thinking of new gimmicks).
The new stuff is half-and-half. Fast tracks aren’t what they
used to be but we’re all trying to pretend we don’t miss raw funk.
The tedious “Go Deep” doesn’t have that drive to make it a good
club number it’s supposed to be, but “Free Xone”, an honest anthem
against homophobia, definitely cuts it. It’s a multi-textured
affair with an appealing bohemian frenzy. “Empty” might’ve been fun
but the lyrics moves on from Internet love to repeating “I feel
empty” for the remaining couple of minutes. “Together Again” is
genuine happy-feeling. It sounds lame at first but pay attention to
what she’s singing; that vocal smile changes everything.
“I Get Lonely” starts off radio-friendly then moves on to Miss
Janet sounding almost disinterested. She’s even resorted to the
airily chopping-note-to-pieces thing Mariah does (ever try to sing
along to the first verse of “Butterfly”? Oxygen depravation). My
opinion on the Joni Mitchell-sampled “Got ‘Til it’s Gone” isn’t
much different from other critics. Nice sampling, nice rapping,
more Miss Janet needed. It’s a great track to me because it’s not
something I expected I would like.
Another relief is not having interludes before and after almost
every song. I don’t care if you write the running time down
next to them; they’re misleading. And on
janet., it was overloaded with one-liners that didn’t quite
contribute to the songs that came before/after. Amongst the songs
in
The Velvet Rope, the sound of a modem being activated leads
into “Empty”, aforementioned former Mrs. Jackson talks about Miss
Janet’s “coochie” before “My Need” and Miss Janet talks about
depression and spiritual gardens before going into “Special”. It
all … makes … sense!
Janet Jackson grows up with every album. Grows more sure, more
sexy, more thoughtful. Growing up is what she does for a living.
Does it better than Madonna.The distance between
Dream Street and
The Velvet Rope is staggering. Change is scary. But with
Miss Janet, change is better. Someday she’ll be over it. That would
mean she’d be all grown up by then.