ALBUM REVIEW / POP : Jackson Lets Loose Battle Cry

With his new single “Scream,” Michael Jackson becomes the second mainstream mega-star currently to have an angrily self-defensive broadside that prominently features a four-letter expletive in its refrain. (The other, of course, is Madonna’s “Human Nature.”) Michael’s message to the anti-Jacko armies of the world: “Stop [expletive] with me.”

Not that you’ll hear that on radio necessarily. The broadcast-friendly edit has been masked to sound something like either “Stop pressurin’ me” or “Stop fishin’ with me.”

Fortunately, Jackson lays off the “woo!” sounds and works up an effectively gritty vocal style that sounds like he might mean it, as close to guttural as he’s going to get. Sister Janet is on board too, though her sweeter counterpart vocals are more a condiment than part of the main course here, rendering the song anticlimactic when considered as a long-awaited sibling duet.

As strictly a Michael moment, though, it’s probably the right tack at the right time. No one will mistake “Scream” for one of the great Jackson singles, and in texture, it’s too close to “Jam” to count as actually innovative. But producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis complement the violent R&B; rhythm with plenty of dynamic, off-the-wall touches to make “Scream” more interesting than your garden-variety me-against-the-world hip-hop track.

It feels immediate, if not immaculate. “Childhood,” the flip side of the single (not due for commercial release till Sunday), also plays out as autobiographical apologia, albeit in Jackson’s literally weepy ballad mode. “Have you seen my childhood?” he repeatedly queries, with verses such as “It’s been my fate / To compensate / For the child I’ve never known” sounding more like a self-psychoanalytical Oprah session than songwriting per se.

The breakdown into tears at “Childhood’s” end might be more effective if he hadn’t already tried out that kicker before.