Jackson’s ‘All for You’ Concert Misses the Beat

Timing is (almost) everything in pop, and Janet Jackson’s timing feels way off in her new tour--on several levels.

Though you’d never know it from the cheering of the audience in the packed Arrowhead Pond in Anaheim on Saturday, Jackson’s show felt dated and irrelevant.

Michael Jackson’s younger sister had timing on her side in the ‘80s, a decade when audiences lowered their standards dramatically by prizing flashy videos, stage spectacle and other grand gestures over songwriting craft, vocal skills and intimate reflection.

In light of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, those traditional values suddenly seem enticing again. That doesn’t mean every performer has to challenge us intellectually, but it would be nice if they could find new ways to touch us emotionally.

Jackson’s limitations were magnified by another piece of bad timing: Her tour arrives on the heels of the far more satisfying and forward-thinking Madonna tour.

Madonna, of course, benefited as much as Jackson when it came to videos and other image-building devices in the ‘80s and ‘90s. But the Material Mom has matured significantly as a singer and songwriter in ways that Jackson hasn’t.

Though her writing remains uneven, Madonna filled her shows in L.A. last month with enough absorbing elements to make you feel you were in the presence of a genuine artist, and someone who could surprise you at any moment.

There were times during Jackson’s two-hour set when you felt you could leave for a half-hour without missing anything. Indeed, you may have wished you were in the lobby during a wearisome moment when Jackson called a volunteer on stage for what was meant to be a steamy interlude.

She tied the man to a rack so he couldn’t move, then tormented him with a lap dance. It was an elaborate version of the same gimmick she has used for three tours now, and it’s time to move on.

In fact, Jackson needs to move on in many ways. Where Madonna focused almost exclusively on material from her last two albums, Jackson clung to the past, doing all or parts of most of her hits, including such proven items as “Nasty,” “What Have You Done for Me Lately” and “Got ‘Til It’s Gone.”

Like Madonna’s, Jackson’s “All for You” concert is tightly scripted and executed with the precision of a Broadway show--complete with flashy sets, video footage (including a probably inadvertent glimpse of the World Trade Center in one), eight dancers and even more costume changes.

Jackson is personable, but there’s an unsettling, almost adolescent quality about the show. At 35, Jackson is only eight years younger than Madonna, but her presentation feels more akin to Britney Spears’. Madonna knows how to dig beneath the surface; Jackson lives on it.

As on her records, Jackson’s musical foundation on the upbeat numbers was so catchy and hard-edged that they all seem to have been dance-floor tested in a fitness center. And they were delivered sharply by a band that has the firmness and muscle of Jackson’s always on-display abs.

Record producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis have helped keep her up with the times sonically with settings that help downplay her vocal and songwriting weaknesses. And her themes in various albums have provided a dramatic sense of personal statement: the struggle for career independence in 1986’s “Control,” the sexual awakening in 1993’s “janet.,” the self-affirmation of 1997’s “The Velvet Rope.”

But there is little sense of overriding drama in the new “All for You” album, and it leaves Jackson vulnerable as an artist.

One hopeful sign Saturday came during the encore, when she stepped away from the razzle-dazzle for some intimacy with a pair of songs from the new album, including “Someone to Call My Lover.”

It’s no deeper than most of her songs, but it was winning to hear her in the raw, so to speak. Without racing around, she could just sing--not rely on the apparent vocal enhancements that help carry her through strenuous numbers.

In that moment, you had the sense that Jackson, whose career has been marked by determination and hard work, is better than what she is giving us in this show. The burden for her at this turning point in her career is to prove it.