QUIZ: What can deteriorate one of our scores? A) CAPITALLETTERS! B) Missy(?!) C) Vanessa Carlton got a 7.8 from Pitchfork today, what is a score
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[5.86]
Thomas Inskeep: Janet’s Unbreakable is great, much better than I think anyone expected from Miss Jackson in 2015: credit her confidence, and her reunion with Jimmy “Jam” Harris and Terry Lewis. “BURNITUP!,” however, is one of the few tracks on the album that feels just a scosh trying-too-hard, its rhythm a little too fast. Additionally, Missy Elliott sounds like she’s become her old collaborator Fatman Scoop: filling the role of hype(wo)man, yelling unnecessarily. This isn’t a bad single, really, just not all that good. But if you’ve not heard the album, check it out.
[5]
Alfred Soto: Unbreakable‘s zippiest track is also its weakest: while the rest of the album imagines a quiet space to think, “BURNIUP!” flails in its attempt at currency. Look at the title. Capital letters mean you’re trying too hard.
[6]
Anthony Easton: What does it mean for a revival when the originals stop by? It might kill the party, or it might remind an audience of its history. This is newer than one would expect, and smarter — and though I could imagine it 20 years ago, it becomes slightly more interesting after decades of marinading.
[7]
Katherine St Asaph: Call it retribution, if it actually was: Janet Jackson lifts “SexyBack” in near-entirety, with Jam & Lewis doing their best Timbaland, complete with gruff interjections by Missy and others and (mercifully short) choral fakeoutro. What Janet’s voice has lost in, well, everything, it’s gained in nimbleness, letting this Jackson, deliciously, out-Michael 90% of the erstwhile Michaels of this year. Missy in 2015 is more of a signifier than a rapper, but people love her for it, no matter what BEP references and meow-meow-meowing she turns in. It’s hard to say whether “BURNITUP!” will become the hit it clearly wants to be, given that “sounds like a wedding band hit” is a winning formula nowadays, but given the right conditions, shit burns.
[7]
Micha Cavaseno: Generically danceable, while Missy “people are really always hype no matter how much worse and worse she gets at rapping with the years” Elliot does some Fatman Scoop-type hype-up.
[4]
Will Adams: The music’s cool, all club-ready until the filters render it squelchy and unique. Janet’s fine, her thin voice bolstered by several tracks of pitch- and formant-shifted vox. But Missy’s just bad. Her hoarse party-starter rap not only clashes with the smoothie groove but fails to even fulfill its won function.
[5]
Jonathan Bogart: Slinkier, slower, and softer than the all-out bonkers jam promised by the title, it’s still Janet Motherfucking Jackson with Missy Motherfucking Elliott, so it’s a masterclass in feathery delivery and machine-tooled funk.
[7]