Unbreakable

Janet makes up for that lack of intimacy with her most sonically diverse set since 1997’s quirky, hypersexual The Velvet Rope.

All-in-all, Janet has made an album that is sophisticated and personal, but carrying that trademark carefree, freewheeling atmosphere that makes her so wonderful.

It's the ballads--a side of her repertoire that had taken a back seat to forgettable chart-chasers--that show Jackson's at her vocal and songwriting best.

Unbreakable is the mature album, free of commercial ambition, her all-too-breakable brother never made.

It's a successful return for Ms. Jackson, a grown-ass album that refuses either to pander or wallow in nostalgia.

It plays like the natural next phase in Jackson's discography, which individually might be markers of their time but are ultimately ageless.

The best thing about Unbreakable is that it proves Janet can still surprise us.

Together on Unbreakable they [Jackson with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis] create grand-scaled but meticulously detailed songs that almost sound as though they’ve been under construction since 2008.

The low-key approach may not be enough to storm the charts. But the mood suits her.

Unbreakable is overall Jackson’s strongest album in a decade, a mature and nuanced career progression that sounds effortless. Unsurprisingly, independence and taking full control of her own destiny and career suits Ms. Jackson quite well.

Overall Unbreakable, while it feels like Terry, Jimmy and Janet may have over saturated the album with essentially too many tracks (if there can be too much Ms. Jackson if you're nasty) making the album more than 60 minutes of run time, it works.

Janet has calculatedly played the humble-grateful card countless times in her career, but Unbreakable, a ready-made collection of deep cuts, is one of the first times she’s given a fully convincing performance.

Even when its lyrics made a turn for the bland, Unbreakable nonetheless feels like the liveliest, freshest album we’ve received from Miss Janet in nearly 15 years, and one that feels like a genuine step forward for her artistically.

Janet is reflective, optimistic, and offering encouraging, motivating lyrics to those listening.

Unbreakable is much closer in sound and spirit to her peak self, and her most solid release in years.

While the album is unrelentingly positive and clean-cut--a relief for listeners who winced at the lurid content laced through Discipline and certain earlier points in the discography--it's a little erratic in style and quality.

For most of Unbreakable, she plays big sister--someone who’s happily in love, willing to offer advice and wishing for a better world. It’s a benign role but a modest one, reinforced by the music.

Too often, when Janet needs Jam & Lewis to "gimme a beat," they don't. [Dec 2015, p.108]

There’s plenty of straight-up R&B--No Sleeep, Dammn Baby and Night find Jam, Lewis and Jackson on nicely updated form--but Lessons Learned, for one, is a country-leaning guitar ballad, one of a large handful of songs about hard-won maturity and making the world a better place that play more to the Oprah demographic.

Clocking in at over an hour, it’s a classy work which doesn’t try to reinvent its star, so much as give her a space in which to shimmer, simmer and occasionally simper her way through a surprisingly subtle and inventive spectrum of musical moods.... Lyrically, there’s often a lack of narrative, but Jackson succeeds in reining in the badly written sex talk which let down her last few records.