The Guardian: Janet Jackson: is her past pop stardom 'Unbreakable' enough to stay relevant?

[SonofBaldwin]

Janet Jackson: is her past pop stardom 'Unbreakable' enough to stay relevant?

The pop icon piqued online curiosity when she announced her first album in seven years, but she’ll need more than her nostalgic fame to make a comeback

 

Janet Jackson kicks off her Unbreakable tour in Vancouver. Photograph: R Chiang/Splash News/Corbis

Michael Cragg

Friday 4 September 2015 12.10 EDT Last modified on Friday 4 September 2015 20.38 EDT

 

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There’s a tier of proper pop megastars whose gloss can seemingly never be dulled, even when their record sales slip well below average. This is down to the perfect storm of nostalgia that continues to swirl around their past glories, the hard work they’ve already put in and the flickers of genius that remain. Prince, for example, hasn’t made a properly brilliant album in a very long time, while Madonna’s last two veer more towards the “oh yes that one” end of her discography – yet both are still capable of causing media meltdowns. Fellow pop icon Janet Jackson – who recently announced details of her first album in seven years, Unbreakable, to an online frenzy – finds herself in a more interesting position, having spent enough time away for people to actually want to know what a new Janet album in 2015 might sound like.

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For a proper megastar, whose run of commercial imperiousness ran from 1986’s Control to 2001’s All For You, Janet’s influence can sometimes get lost in the talk of the 80s and 90s holy trinity of pop (Michael Jackson, Prince and Madonna). While her last three albums have all had their moments, it felt like her legacy was being tarnished, the hullabaloo surrounding her 2004 Super Bowl half-time show and the now notorious “wardrobe malfunction” pulling the focus away from the music.

That latter aspect is perhaps why there’s so much goodwill towards her return, with artists as diverse as Ciara, Dev Hynes, Tinashe and Jason Derulo all citing her music and performance style as an inspiration. Her influence has also bled into the more alternative pop fringes, with blog-friendly downtempo R&B practitioners such as How To Dress Well and Shura citing 1997’s The Velvet Rope as a huge inspiration. Launching the Unbreakable tour in Vancouver earlier this week, it seemed like Janet herself was also keen to put the focus back on her legacy, with hit after hit squeezed into the 33-song setlist.

In the 80s you could get away with being an aloof megastar, but social media means fans want to feel directly connected

But nods from your peers about your past glories doesn’t necessarily suggest an appetite for new material, as any hoary old rock goliath will tell you. Perhaps the surest sign to fans that Unbreakable is a serious comeback is the return of collaborators Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, whose presence was missed on 2008’s Discipline. So while they haven’t exactly been challenging the upper reaches of the charts during Janet’s absence, theirs is a creative alchemy on par with that of Quincy Jones and 1980s Michael.

So will Unbreakable fit into radio’s current love of rib-rattling dancefloor behemoths? Well if lead single No Sleep’s sultry R&B purr is anything to go by, then no, but as with Beyoncé – another massive fan and the closest we have to a new breed of megastar – you sense that Janet’s more focused on cementing a legacy and creating a body of work, itself a fairly old-fashioned notion now, rather than trying to fight it out with Pitbull et al on the singles chart. As Madonna’s found, chasing constantly shifting musical trends when you’ve helped shape the fabric of pop itself can sometimes make you look a bit desperate.

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Another key factor in people’s excitement is the promise of an insight into the real Janet Jackson. The Velvet Rope is often cited as her masterpiece – a deeply revealing song suite about her battles with depression and loneliness that also featured a handful of bangers. Her albums since have often told us about how much Janet enjoys having sex and little else. In the 1980s you could get away with being an aloof megastar that no one will ever truly know, but social media means fans want to feel directly connected and part of the story (interestingly, the new album’s title, release date, artwork and single details were all announced by Janet via Twitter, while the song’s title track is a dedication to her fans). According to the press release, Unbreakable also marks the first time Janet has written about her brother (Michael, obviously, not Tito) and her childhood, creating the sense that this is an album she needed and wanted to make, rather than to fulfill a contract. As she/her social media team keeps saying on Twitter: “Let’s keep the conversation going.”

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/sep/04/janet-jackson-unbreakable-new-album-comeback

 

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[Aquaria]

"Unbreakable also marks the first time Janet has written about her brother (Michael, obviously, not Tito)"