Janet's new disc 'Disciplined' is exactly what it's not

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on February 22, 2008 at 10:00 PM, updated February 22, 2008 at 10:46 PM

Jackson has been a star for more than two decades, sold millions of albums, and filled arenas all over the world. Yet she's still as eager to please as an "American Idol" contestant.

DESPERATE-TO-PLEASE DIVA: "Discipline" Janet Jackson (Island Def Jam)

"Curtains," from the new Janet Jackson album "Discipline," is a risque, double entendre-filled song where she fantasizes about fulfilling (wink, wink) her No. 1 fan. "Just tell me what you want me to do," she purrs, "I promise you, you'll be screamin' encore when I'm through."

It's weird and a bit creepy, but also, strangely appropriate. Jackson has been a star for more than two decades, sold millions of albums, and filled arenas all over the world. Yet she's still as eager to please as an "American Idol" contestant.

"Discipline," due in stores Tuesday, has some fine moments. But it is such a calculated attempt at a comeback it almost seems beneath her. You might think that the disappointing sales figures for her last two albums (2004's "Damita Jo" and 2006's "20 Y.O.") would free the 41-year-old Jackson to make more adult, more personal music. But she's still chasing the pop/R&B diva dream. Hard.

She works with high-powered producers and writers, like Christopher "Tricky" Stewart and Terius "The-Dream" Nash (best known for Rihanna's "Umbrella"), Ne-Yo and Rodney Jerkins. She links the songs with elaborate spoken interludes: some find her casually chatting with girlfriends while on others, she indulges in an incomprehensible virtual-reality subplot. Undeterred by the hysterical reaction to her 2004 Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction, she tries to push conservative buttons with the S&M-themed title track.

Yet the only one who seems to be having fun on this album is rapper Missy Elliott, who adds some uproarious verses to the party jam, "The 1." "Let me be the one for ya, playa/Let's see what's behind them Gucci underwears," she raps, pronouncing the last word "underwayas."

The album's most dance-oriented tracks are bunched together toward the beginning, with Jackson playing, alternately, a seductress and a lovestruck innocent. "I'm so confused/Don't know what to do/And it's 'cause of you," she sings on "Rollercoaster."

The album's middle section is more complex, with Jackson ruminating over an ex-lover on the irresistible power ballad, "Greatest X," and singing dark lyrics over sunny music in the mid-tempo "Can't Be Good" (which features some gorgeously layered harmony vocals, all by Jackson herself).

The last third of the album is the weirdest, with songs like "Curtains," "The 1" and the avant-robofunk number "So Much Betta." Preceding the kinky "Discipline" is the album's prettiest, dreamiest pop song, "What's Ur Name."

What this album really needs, ironically, is a little more artistic discipline. With that, perhaps, the songs would cohere a little better, and Jackson would sound a little more emotionally invested in the material, and the between-song sketches would have been rejected as unnecessary filler. She doesn't really seem in control here -- it's more like she's being controlled by her whims.

Download this: "The 1"
-- Jay Lustig

POLICE BEATS: "Spirits In the Material World: A Reggae Tribute to the Police" 
Various Artists (Shanachie)

There are some tribute albums that seem like stretches. Metallica songs, as interpreted by a string quartet. A bluegrass tribute to the Sex Pistols.

And then there is this one, featuring Police songs as interpreted by reggae artists. Reggae often played a big part in the sound of the Police, so this album sounds like a natural extension of the band's music, rather than a drastic reimagining of it.

Indeed, this kind of thing has been done before, on 1997's similarly titled "Reggatta Mondatta: A Reggae Tribute to the Police." That album featured artists like Ziggy Marley, Steel Pulse and Maxi Priest. Among those on board this time around are Toots & the Maytals (a slowed-down, soulful "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da"), UB40's Ali Campbell (a lilting "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic") and Inner Circle (a genial, dance floor-ready "The Bed's Too Big Without You").

"Invisible Sun" shows up twice. Horace Andy sings a straightforward pop-reggae version of it, but Lee "Scratch" Perry, more memorably, turns it inside out with his dub remix.

Joan Osborne adds a reggae beat to "Every Breath You Take," which had a distinctive, non-reggae beat in its original incarnation. But, strangely, the resulting track feels less revolutionary than the group Pepper's take on "Can't Stand Losing You," which was reggae-rock to begin with. Pepper speeds it up, and amplifies the punk anger at the song's core. It's one of the few songs here that sounds thoroughly reinvented, not just set to a new beat.

Download this: "Can't Stand Losing You"
-- Jay Lustig

NOT-SO-CLASSIC ROCK: "Working Man's Cafe" Ray Davies (New West)

Kinks singer/songwriter Ray Davies, 64, was a late bloomer as a solo artist, not making his "official" solo album debut until 2006's "Other People's Lives." It wasn't a masterpiece, but it was a start.

Issued last fall in the U.K. and just now receiving a hype-free release in the States, "Working Man's Cafe" isn't a masterpiece, either. The disc features several songs Davies wrote after his extended sojourn in New Orleans, marred in 2004 when he was shot in the leg chasing a mugger who stole his companion's purse. But it sounds like Davies had the core of a concept album about crime, punishment and the Big Easy he didn't have the heart to finish after Hurricane Katrina.

Oddly, the highlight of the release's U.S. edition is a bonus track, which should have been the center of that could-have-been concept album. The guitar-charged "Angola (Wrong Side of the Law)" finds Davies angry in the aftermath of getting shot, as stirred melodically as he is lyrically. Referencing one of America's more infamous penitentiaries, he sings about waiting for his morphine drip in a Crescent City hospital:

"There's a jailhouse in Louisiana state/ At times like this, I really do appreciate/ The desperate cries of all the inmates/ Because when you're on the inside, they're gonna make you sit and wait .¤.¤. I might as well as rot in Angola/ For all the D.A.'s done for me/ I was the one who ended up taking the bullet/ I'm lying here, but he's still running free."

Before the Kinks hitmaker had his run-in with New Orleans justice, he also experienced a calmer jolt of mortality, recollected in the breezily tuneful "Imaginary Man": "Walked down to Preservation Hall, looking for the old trad band/ It was just a momentary glance/ I saw my reflection in the glass/ Watched as the world went flashing past/ I knew the face but .¤.¤. couldn't recognize myself."

"Working Man's Cafe" has a more coherent sonic feel than the haphazard "Other People's Lives," but it's disappointing to hear the other bonus tracks, a pair of demos. These initial arrangements for "The Voodoo Walk" and "Vietnam Cowboys" boast an off-kilter funkiness that make them far more appealing than the polished tracks. The rough-cut vocals also sound more involved; perhaps Davies got bored with the songs along the way.

One can imagine that he would, because several numbers are ho-hum. Davies lamented a vanished Britain more memorably in his 20s than he does on the title track here, while "Peace in Our Time" is just another "love is a battlefield" snoozer. "Morphine Song" sees Davies back in New Orleans, and even if he sounds more like Blur here than Blur sounded like the Kinks, it's at least catchy and full of strange lyrical detail.

The non-New Orleans high point is the exuberant "You're Asking Me," in which the Davies protests his status as a '60s eminence -- "If you're asking me, don't take my advice." The singer is saying that, for all his accomplishments, he's just as flawed as the next guy, which the imperfections of his albums help underline, frustratingly enough.

Download this: "Angola (Wrong Side of the Law)"

-- Bradley Bambarger

PUNK-Y REGGAE: "Greatest Hits" Todos Tus Muertos (Nacional)

While the stereotypical Argentinian music is tango, young Argentinians have been rocking out for decades, many to the hard-edged reggae of Todos Tus Muertos, which formed in the mid-1980s.

This collection is a good place for newcomers to start. Though their political and social lyrics are not translated, the music does speak -- or shout -- for itself. While the group's touchstone is reggae, this is not the balmy laid-back sound of Bob Marley.

Skanking rhythms predominate, but the group is liable to toss in anything: "Tu Alma Mia" takes a left turn into the speed metal of "Adelita"; "Mate" has thrashing rap interspersed with a undulated bass line. The music is filled with surprises and spiked with a passion that spills into rage; call it uneasy listening music.

Download this: "Se Que No/Requebra"

-- Marty Lipp

OUD IMPROVISATIONS: "Majaz" Le Trio Joubran (Randana)

This trio of Palestinian brothers all play the oud, an Arabic lute, improvising with a complexity that hints at their familial bonds.

The all-instrumental album is their second as a trio and sees them adding a percussionist. The songs have a Middle Eastern flavor and are a bit moody, evocative like a soundtrack. The group can build up to a compelling intensity, but their highly improvisational tunes don't have the buoyant swing of jazz.

The brothers' almost-telepathic playing can be reminiscent of the classical guitar-playing Assad Brothers, and like the duo, the Joubrans play music that skitters among genres without being easily categorized in any specific one.

Download this: "Laytana"

-- Marty Lipp

LEAN METHENY: "Day Trip" Pat Metheny (Nonesuch)

Guitarist and composer Pat Metheny's unique and wide-ranging musical aesthetic runs from country and folk to blues, rock, and jazz. All five, and Latin realms as well, are idiosyncratically brought to life on this new spiffy trio CD, with bassist Christian McBride and drummer Antonio Sanchez. Here, the guitarist, who wrote all the selections, favors a tighter, leaner sound than with his famed Group. For speedy contemporary jazz, the title track and "Let's Move" fill the bill. The theme of "Move" boasts some racing guitar lines, often together with McBride, and some sparer, and slower. Soloing, Metheny lays out flowing statements, and ones with rhythmic punch, all with his customary melodic bent. McBride's solo has concise moments, then contrasting bursts of juicy notes. "At Last You're Here" has a country-pop-jazz feel, and song-like remarks from the composer and bassist. The latter, employing his bow, is serenely vocal-like on "Is This America? (Katrina 2005)," a tender Americana-esque ballad. For blues grit, look to the funky "The Red One," where Metheny crackles, his wiry sound via guitar synthesizer, and Sanchez scores with intriguing percussion thoughts.

Download this: "At Last You're Here"
-- Zan Stewart

Also in stores: "New AmErykah, Pt. One: 4th World War," Erykah Badu (Motown); "Seventh Tree," Goldfrapp (Mute); "The Mande Variations," Toumani Diabate (Nonesuch); "Another Country," Tift Merritt (Fantasy); "You're Awful, I Love You," Ludo (Island); "SSB," Salvador Santana Band (Tsunami); "Evil Monkey Man," David Yazbek (Ghostlight); "On a Clear Night," Missy Higgins (Reprise); "Sunday Morning in Saturday's Shoes," Richard Julian (Manhattan)