“‘It was in summer that you left me, the fall and winter never felt so cold, and Lord knows words can never express it, life feels so empty I miss you much”, Janet Jackson sings about her late brother, Michael Jackson. She shared the lyrics to “The Great Forever” in August and in September she offered up the title track.
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Well, not really. The album, which reunites the R&B songstress with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis (“Control”, “Rhythm Nation 1814”), is indubitably one of the season’s recording must-haves. “I’m glad you’re still here”.
And that’s exactly it: Jackson’s album, “Unbreakable”, is a reminder that dance music is more than fast, loud electronic beats pounding to the floor.
In 2012, she quietly married Qatari tycoon Wissam Al Mana and again shunned the limelight until earlier this year when she announced “Unbreakable”, for which she has started a 92-date arena tour of North America and Japan.
Janet Jackson has topped the charts once again. Although those are respectable numbers with today’s commercial climate, Unbreakable’s first week numbers are her lowest since her first two albums (her self-titled debut and Dream Street). Jackson is also the third act in history to have a No. 1 album in each of the past 4 decades.
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Janet remained close to her late brother, despite the notorious dysfunction elsewhere in his life and their troubled relationship with their domineering father. In fact, guest rapper Missy Elliott (in “BurnItUp!”) opts to go by way of braggadocio when she declares that Ms Jackson has “a brand-new sound/ Got a brand-new style”.
