Discipline

There she stands, a leather whip wrapped around her torso, those infamous boobs bulging out of a teeny bikini top, latex gloves stretching up her arms, one finger coquettishly placed between her teeth as she looks down demurely.

The picture on the back of Janet Jackson's new album tells you everything you need to know about the overlong 'Discipline' — as she has since 1997's 'The Velvet Rope', Michael's little sister is selling sex and innocence. Once again dance tracks as energetic as they are explicit (on robotically thrusting 'Feedback' she heavy-breathes: "Something heavy like a first day period") are paired with self-satisfying interludes, and tender sweetness in the tradition of '90s hits 'That's The Way Love Goes' and 'Again'.

So she's "soaking wet" on the celebratory '2Nite', discussing inches with Missy Elliot on brassy 'The 1', imitating S&M Smurf on the repetitive turnoff 'So Much Better', begging "Strum me like a guitar, blow my amplifier" on standout 'Feedback', and writhing in front of a video camera for a Paris Hilton-style taping on the cheesy X-rated groove 'Curtains'.

But it's 'The Meaning', a panted whisper through "some of her favourite definitions" of the word discipline, and the title track that find Jackson in full-blown pornstar mode. "Daddy I disobeyed U/ Now I want U to come punish me," she admits demurely on the latter, with all the sex appeal of an inflatable doll. A grinding R&B slow jam rendered impotent by sheer overkill, the song is one of three flaccid contributions from the genre's current wunderkind, Ne-Yo — only his luminous 'Can't B Good', which could have been a 'Thriller' outtake it's that good, lives up to the hype surrounding the rising star.

But one track isn’t enough to provide the balance between hard and soft that 'Discipline' is so clearly after. With the borderline boring 'Greatest X', from the guys behind Rihanna's 'Umbrella', the only other ballad not beaten into submission by Rodney Jerkins' dirty dance anthems, Jackson's 10th album relies too heavily on her waning sex appeal.

Just as her brother uses plastic surgery to stay young, Janet uses her sexuality. But as Michael's face proves, there's no such thing as eternal youth. Let it go, girl.