AND AN UPDATED JANET

By CHRISTOPHER JOHN FARLEY

R -and-B. dance diva Janet Jackson, like a really successful software program, has been steadily issuing updated versions of herself over the years. Janet 1.0 was tentative, but Janet 2.0 asserted her identity on Control (1986). On Rhythm Nation 1814 (1989) Janet 3.0 began to address social issues (her solutions: dancing and uniforms). Finally, on janet., her 1993 CD, Janet 4.0 adopted a bohemian, just-kicking-it-at-a-Brooklyn-house-party cool, posing on the back cover with jeans unzipped and midriff bare, her body ready for anything.

The latest Janet, on her new album The Velvet Rope, is omnivorous, sexually and musically: folk, hip-hop, man, woman, it's all in play. Her basic sound, however, is the same--her small, soft voice surrounded by imposing, muscular dance beats. The album has more than a few striking moments, from Vanessa-Mae's rubbed-raw violin solo on the title track to the brutal frankness of What About, in which a woman rejects a marriage proposal from an abusive boyfriend. Jackson occasionally relies too heavily on others--Got 'Til It's Gone draws smartly on Joni Mitchell's Big Yellow Taxi (credited) but clumsily on Des'ree's Feel So High (uncredited). She is more creative on her cooing cover of Rod Stewart's deflowering ballad Tonight's the Night. She directs the lyrics toward another woman and turns the song into an anthem of sexual liberation. At the end, a man joins in for a menage a trois. She downloads her inhibitions and challenges ours.

--C.J.F.