For all the she-can’t-sing criticisms that have dogged her career, I actually prefer Janet’s vocals powder-soft like they are on “Black Eagle.” On Unbreakable she occasionally drops her register on a song like the shuffling “The Great Forever,” where the result sounds so much like Michael that it’s unsettling and kinda creepy.

All three produce the entire album, with help here and there from Dem Jointz (who helmed the highlight “Genocide,” among other tracks, on Dr. Thank goodness the gang - Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis, and Ms. “I lived through my mistakes, it’s just a part of growing,” she sings on the opening track before shrugging and reclining back into a swingy, breezy Sunday afternoon of a beat. The older you get, the less compelled you feel to assert yourself all the time, though, and that’s probably why Janet’s albums - including Unbreakable, her just-released 11th - have proceeded to sound more effortless, and also sexier. Madonna’s perma-bedhead and “boy toy” belt were sexually sophisticated and therefore mostly confusing to elementary schoolgirls, but from the minute Janet barked, “Gimme a beat,” there was no mistaking her message. Instead of rhinestone-spangled gloves or stacks of jelly bracelets, she dressed in all-black ensembles usually topped with a blazer. Sure, the smile that melts snow was still there, but she was serious about her s–t. It was her third studio album, but it felt like her debut.

“I will be bigger than Michael,” she says, before firing her dad and flying to Minneapolis to work with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, associates of Michael’s only competition, Prince.Ĭrazy to think that it’s been almost 30 years since Janet Jackson danced out from under the shadow of both Madonna and her big brother Michael when she released the revolutionary Control.

Inside, Miss Jackson is screaming - at him, at all the hands constantly pawing and trying to tear off any little piece of her. Fan fiction: It’s 1985, and an apple-cheeked Janet Jackson perches on a chair across from her father.

Janet jackson unbreakable song credits