Janet Jackson “Make Me”
While the ‘09 VMA’s will likely be most remembered for being the show where Kanye totally did poor, sweet Taylor Swift wrong (two wagging fingers of shame directed at you, Mr. West; standing ovation and rapturous applause to you Beyonce for being a Grade-A class act!), let us not forget the other interesting-to-great moments produced by this year’s “M”TV Awards: Lady Gaga’s “death” (and her continuing climb up Mt. “WTF”); Pink managing to make a dull song like “Sober” so much more interesting thanks to a really cool (and quite uncomfortable-to-watch) high-wire act; a teary-eyed Eminem and tone-deaf Tracy Morgan reminding us once again that Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time” is one of the best pop songs ever; Madonna’s surprise appearance and her touching, though somewhat awkardly Madonna-centric, tribute to the King of Pop; Asher Roth NOT winning the Best Hip Hop Video Moonman (we can’t stress how important that is)…and of course, Janet Jackson’s opening live performance of her and her bro’s “Scream”.
Perhaps like most of you, while watching JJ strut her (once again slimmed down) stuff to the aggressive dance-pop of that 1995 semi-hit, we were reminded of how much we really longed for Janet to give us something new and exciting…something that hearkened back to her reigning Control-thru-“All For You” heyday…something unlike the passable, but oh-so-far from “WOW!!!”, stuff heard on her most recent albums.
Imagine our excitement to receive something close to that…erm, “something” in “Make Me”, a “gift” she very recently posted on her website. And oh what a great present it is!!
A disco-licious R&B workout in which she coerces some guy to get up off the wall and help “save the party” by lighting up the dancefloor (and her nether-regions) with his electric moves, “Make Me” gives us everything we could possibly want from a Janet record in 2009: It’s sexy, but not pathetic-sexy (as she’s been prone to deliver for quite some time now); features her disregarding that annoying, edge-of-orgasm talk-rap thing she likes to do for some actual singing; and, most importantly, bears this buoyant, roller skate jam of a groove we can’t get enough of.
Could we FINALLY be getting the real Janet “comeback” album we’ve anticipated for what seems like forever now? From the sounds of this, maybe so…
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