A few years ago, there was a commercial for Charles Schwab featuring an imaginary retirement home for worn-out athletes. Charles Barkley, Evander Holyfield and Mike Ditka played shuffleboard and participated in craft activities, for their bodies were no longer fit for the rough and tumble world of professional sports. They just couldn’t keep up.
Somewhere there is a similar retirement home for worn-down and played-out rockers, and Michael Jackson’s registration form is there, waiting for him to limp on in.
How ironic that the two men who go simply by “Michael” (Jackson and Jordan) staged their official comebacks on the same day in 2001. But as Jordan put up mid-range double figures in a mildly impressive return, Jackson put up a double zero. From now on, “Michael” means Jordan and only Jordan.
Falling in line with a wave of washed up or struggling musicians, Jackson released his guest-filled Invincible this week to mild fanfare. Joining him for his latest go ’round (his sixth solo release) are Brandy, Teddy Riley, Babyface, R. Kelly, the ghost of The Notorious B.I.G. and a slew of lesser-knowns. These are the familiar tactics of an old schooler trying to prove he can compete with the new schoolers ,and while Jackson proves he can at least hang, this isn’t Michael’s style. It looks pathetic.
While nobody fully expected anything more than a few jumping beats equal to the album’s first single, “You Rock My World,” the album lags with tracks that would struggle even to make the weak roster of his History‘s second disk.
As Biggie jumps in with a remixed flow from a previous release on “Unbreakable,” the stage is set for a musical experience tailored to today’s music scene, with a small hint of Michael Jackson. The deceased emcee’s extended flow seems tacked on for the sake of show rather than substance, and although it instantly evokes a longing for late-’90s polished rap, one easily forgets this is a Michael Jackson song.
The following track, “Heartbreaker,” stands as the single greatest example of the fact that Invincible is Michael Jackson trying really, really hard to embody 2001 pop. From the complex Timbaland-style beat (complete with “boing”s) to the sing-song refrain, the track fits any definition one can find for the abstract concept of “pop music.”
The slow “Break of Dawn” starts out love ballad-style, but eventually molds its way into a Michael Jackson rehashing of De La Soul’s “Breakadawn” — a better song in every fashion off of the group’s underrated Buhloone State of Mind. Who would have thought that the table would ever be turned on the infamous sample-masters?
“You Rock My World” typifies the fine-tuned, finger-snapping, crotch-grabbing material one would expect from Michael, complete with his punctuated “unhh”s and “aaiee”s. Not surprisingly, it stands out as the album’s most stellar track. Against that measuring stick, though, the rest of the album struggles to reach any form of consistency or achieve any groundbreaking change in Michael’s style.
Between his failures at modern pop, however, are buried a number of slower “Heal the World”-feeling songs, most notably “Speechless.” Not exactly what the average buyer is looking for in a Jackson album, but there’s more than enough heartfelt emotion here to satisfy any real music fan and just enough to justify its mainstream release. Elton John resurrected and rebuilt a career on such a re-imagining of his style, and Jackson would do well to follow suit. He may not be invincible, but with a little change he just may stick around . . . for a while.
