Janet Jackson follows her siblings into mediocrity

"Discipline" certainly is the right name for Janet Jackson's so-called comeback album. Where her groundbreaking late-'80s, early-'90s pop masterpieces were breathlessly inventive, hook-filled joyrides, everything about this new record is safe, restrained and utterly unexciting.

It really is a sad story. Like her brother, Janet Jackson could hardly be topped in her heyday. Sure, Madonna had more shock value, and Whitney Houston had a better voice, but at her record-breaking peak in 1989, nobody provided sugary pop perfection better than Janet. And, like her brother, she still exerts a massive influence on contemporary music. Just take a look at the charts, and you can see that where Ne-Yo and Justin Timberlake are the wannabe Jackos, every breathy, vaguely racy R&B singer owes a large debt to Janet. The tragic thing is that Janet herself hasn't released any memorable music in at least a decade, if not longer, and "Discipline" is just continuing that downward trend, proving that she, or at least her songwriters, lyricists and producers, have finally lost that golden touch.

What makes the album especially disappointing is the handful of promising songs frontloaded at the start of the album. The first single, "Feedback," is a thumping, bass-heavy slice of robo-pop that's 50 times sexier and edgier than anything Janet's done for a while, and even if it rather obviously follows the rules of Timbaland pop (squelching synths, tick; clattering percussion, tick; top-heavy groove, tick), at least it does it well. Equally impressive is the Ne-Yo-helmed second single "Rock With U." Now, I'll be the first to admit that it's got a damn odd name (next she'll be doing a song called "Thrilla" or "Billie Joe"), but aside from that, "Rock With U" is exactly the kind of fluffy, hook-filled pop that made Janet's name. The only other song that could fairly be called a success is the aggressive electro-rocker "2Nite," a horrendously catchy track that proves that Norwegian production team Stargate, who was behind Beyonce's ubiquitous "Irreplaceable," hasn't lost its touch.

That's about it, though. Three songs in, and my compliments have already run dry. Everything else on the record - and I mean everything - falls somewhere between blandly dull and downright abominable. On the inoffensive side there's the endless soft-core slush of the title track, replete with incestuous undertones, and the clunky, monotonous "Rollercoaster," in which Janet imaginatively compares love to a rollercoaster "'cause it goes up and down." Wow, gold star for that one. Even a guest spot from Missy Elliott can't shake the feeling of "been there, done that" that pervades the album, and the near-parodic level of Janet's signature breathy vocals doesn't help either. On certain songs it actually sounds like she's lost her voice, or at the very least has just been running a marathon. Seriously, there's no other way to justify such ridiculously weak singing.

Two songs here deserve special mention though because they are so cataclysmically bad - look them up on youtube.com, because you have to hear them to believe just how low some people can sink. First off, we have the horrendously sappy and melodramatic "Greatest X Ever," which is worse than the worst ballad Celine Dion ever recorded. I don't really want to write anything about this abomination of a song, and all you really need to do is look at its name. That should really be enough to ward you off. And if that song doesn't have you switching off your iPod, then the next track, "So Much Betta," the trendsetter to end all trendsetters, certainly will. I can even picture this song being written. Janet's producers are sitting in a room looking at the charts, when they notice Kanye West's "Stronger" at the top. "Hmm," they say to themselves, "sampling Daft Punk seems to have worked for Kanye, maybe we should try it too!" Sadly, where "Stronger" showed relatively (and I stress relatively) inventive use of its sample, "So Much Betta" is disastrous, simply grafting irritating processed vocals and a few clips of Janet breathily moaning on top of the untouched beat of Daft Punk's "Daftendirekt." Shameless.

"Billie Jean," "Rhythm Nation," "I Want You Back," "That's the Way Love Goes," "Don't Stop Til You Get Enough"... it really is incredible that so many era-defining songs came from one family. Sometimes it's hard to believe, but through the controversy, through the dramas, it's impossible to deny how extraordinary a legacy the Jackson family has left behind. But that's the problem right there - it already feels like a legacy, because it's been more than a decade since a Jackson released anything close to brilliant. Sometimes I convince myself that there'll be another "Thriller," another "Control," but as time goes by, and the lackluster albums keep on coming, it's getting harder and harder to keep my hopes up.

 2 out of 5 paws

Pros: First three tracks are fluffy fun.

Cons: The rest of the album is either lackluster or outright terrible. Janet fails to strike gold again.