‘DISCIPLINE’

‘DISCIPLINE’

Janet Jackson (Island Def Jam)

Grade: C-

You’d think that after the flops of her last two sexually charged albums — “Damita Jo” and “20 Y.O.” — Janet Jackson would be in full career-reinvention mode. Instead, on her latest disc, “Discipline,” Jackson plows ahead down a similar path, teasing and titillating over dance-club beats and sultry-sounding ballads. The results, however, are decidedly mixed.

Despite a lukewarm reception at radio, the disc’s first single “Feedback,” is classic “sexy, sexy, sexy, sexy” Janet. The track’s electro-synth melody and pumping bass line make for automatic dancefloor fodder. Meanwhile Jackson’s familiar breathy vocal gushes one of the disc’s better sex metaphors: “Strum me like a guitar/ blow out my amplifier/ when you hear the feedback/ keep going, take it higher.”

Other highlights on the disc (which notably does not include any songs from longtime collaborators Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis) include “Luv,” built on similar whiny synths and processed keyboards that T-Pain has popularized, the foot-stomping “Rollercoaster” and the pop-house track, “Rock With U.” But too many between-song skits and slow jams detract from the disc’s good times. The longing pleas on the piano-driven “Never Letchu Go” sound dated, while “Greatest X” is a saccharine-sweet reflection on an ex-boyfriend. The emotion seems calculated, rather than honest. By disc’s end, her message becomes painfully obvious: Jackson’s a hot fortysomething with a sensitive side. Yet sadly we’ve heard it all before.

—Brett Johnson, Associated Press

‘NEW AMERYKAH: PART ONE (4TH WORLD WAR)’

Erykah Badu (Universal/Motown)

Grade: A

On her fourth studio album, “New Amerykah: Part One (4th World War),” Erykah Badu moves even further away from the neo-soul conventions she helped usher in more than a decade ago.

Instead of re-treading the simple melodies and succinct, pop song structures from her 1997 debut, “Baduizm,” she has mined an increasingly looser approach with each subsequent release. “Mama’s Gun” (2000) ends with a 10-minute suite, and “Worldwide Underground” (2003) is a moody, 50-minute EP full of rambling grooves and hazy lyrics.

More than ever though, Badu challenges fans to keep up with her creative impulses. Those who do will be richly rewarded for their effort. The CD is more daring than the album’s current single, “Honey.” Hidden as the disc’s closing bonus track, it’s almost an anomaly given the preceding material.

Dark, mesmerizing head-nodders largely produced by hip-hop eccentrics Madlib and Shafiq Husayn and Taz Arnold of Sa-Ra Creative Partners dominate “New Amerykah.” Incantatory chants, esoteric spoken-word rants and Badu’s quirky vocals — whether achy blues or mumbled coos — add to the funky jumble.

Indeed, it’s a brilliant mess where songs often switch tempo midstream then settle back on-track. Yet the disc is also where Badu’s lefty socio-politics (“The Cell”), messages of self-acceptance (“Me”) and the power of perseverance (“Soldier”) reveal an artist willing to share herself as the unfinished article. On the hypnotic “Master Teacher,” she confesses: “See, I’ve been in search of myself/ for it’s just too hard for me to find ... cause I’m in the search of something new.” This effort is certainly a huge step in the right direction.

—Brett Johnson, Associated Press

‘BACKWOODS BARBIE’

Dolly Parton (Dolly Records)

Grade: B

Dolly Parton parades her best and worst creative impulses on “Backwoods Barbie,” her first album since launching her own record label.

Fortunately, the emphasis is on what she does best. Writing nine of the 12 tunes, she focuses on autobiographical lyrics set to upbeat country music that blends old-school acoustics with new-school rhythms.

She opens the album with a bold song, “Better Get to Livin’,” about her answer to the constant question of her how she stays so positive. On “Made of Stone,” she adds depth to this theme by recognizing that even the most enthusiastic person can feel betrayal and loss. It’s not a contradiction; it’s an acknowledgment that even she hurts from time to time.

Not everything works so well. Parton’s often chooses ill-fitting cover songs, either in a stab to reach a pop audience or because she likes classic tunes. She repeats that crime with ineffective versions of Smokey Robinson and The Miracles’ “The Track of My Tears” and Fine Young Cannibals’ “Drive Me Crazy.” She does little to refashion either track in her image.

Fortunately, such gaffes are few. She makes up for them with plenty of down-the-center country songs, including the Celtic-tinged “Only Dreamin”’ and a ’60s-style heartbreaker, “I Will Forever Hate Roses.”

—Michael McCall, Associated Press

‘WORKING MAN’S CAFE’

Ray Davies (New West/Animal)

Grade: B

Since he has suddenly become prolific in his dotage (two proper solo albums now in three years, after a four-decade delay), it’s fair to ask whether 63-year-old Ray Davies is still able to crank out quality material on the same regular schedule he once observed fronting the Kinks. Given that this most British of performers recorded “Working Man’s Cafe” in Nashville, the questions multiply.

But just as Davies successfully turned the Kinks into tongue-in-cheek arena rockers during the ’70s, he sounds every bit as comfortable working with rootsy American sounds and producer Ray Kennedy. In fact, “Working Man’s Cafe,” often a look at individuals displaced in the global economy, is something like an updated version of the Kinks’ 1979 “Low Budget,” with more of Davies’ wry observations about his adopted homeland.

If the lyrics occasionally seem first-draft rough, the melodies are sharper than on 2005’s “Other People’s Lives,” and the varied musical settings — such as the rockabilly of opener “Vietnam Cowboys” or the spooky New Orleans blues of “The Voodoo Walk”— throw into sharper relief the classic Kinksian pop of songs such as “You’re Asking Me” and the title track, which show Davies alternately snarling and sighing at the world as winningly as ever.

—Dan LeRoy, Hartford Courant

‘SEVENTH TREE’

Goldfrapp (Mute)

Grade: D

Maybe Goldfrapp was just bored and egotistical enough to think fans would play along, but on its new “Seventh Tree,” the duo comes across as openly contemptuous of followers who hopped aboard with its previous release, the dance-oriented breakthrough “Supernature.”

Vocalist Alison Goldfrapp and instrumentalist Will Gregory drain their sound down to little more than hazy atmosphere, a self-indulgent and potentially self-destructive move that shocks, amuses and ultimately bores.

The syrupy blend of acoustic guitar and strings meshed with Goldfrapp’s high-end vocals on snoozy opener “Clowns” serves as a stunning manifesto: There won’t be dancing today.

After that initial revelation, “Seventh Tree” starts to make sense, sort of, with its subsequent cuts — the trippy “Little Bird” and the faux-Beatles hallucination “Happiness” tap into understated cosmic energy, as if Goldfrapp is taking a mystical journey and bringing us along.

But by the swirling fourth track, “Road to Somewhere,” it’s clear that the duo is on the road to nowhere. The tracks amble by in various slow incarnations — the off-kilter lullaby “Eat Yourself,” the piano-based “Some People,” an “A&E” that drifts around like untethered noise. ...

The pair obviously aimed to create an arty adventure in psychedelia, but they weren’t up to the task. Gregory fails to make his minimalism sustain interest, and to make up for her own limitations, the singer merely pours on the breathiness and slips into fits of poor enunciation in an apparent attempt to add intrigue.

Lyrically, well, who cares? Listening to “Seventh Tree” is like listening to a lecturer with a monotone. The message may be there, but it’s simply too taxing to pay attention.

On penultimate track “Caravan Girl,” Goldfrapp suddenly slashes into a peppy and jangling rhythm — not quite the dancey electronica the group perfected on “Supernature,” yet something with unpretentious life.

Teasing fans like that could be “Seventh Tree’s” greatest offense.

—Chuck Campbell, Knoxville (Tenn.) News Sentinel

‘LUST LUST LUST’

The Raveonettes (Vice)

Grade: B

While the Raveonettes have always been candid about their obsession with rock’s first decade, they’ve never seemed quite sure how best to approach that hallowed era.

Their first album, “Chain Gang of Love,” filtered rockabilly, doo-wop and girl-group sounds through a distracting haze of industrial-strength fuzz. Comparisons to the Jesus & Mary Chain’s debut, “Psychocandy,” were inevitable, and some even accused the Raveonettes of outright theft.

On its sophomore effort, “Pretty in Black,” the Danish duo again followed the Jesus & Mary Chain’s lead, ditching distortion pedals in an attempt to prove that it didn’t need electronic gimmickry.

That experiment failed, as it turns out the band just isn’t as much fun without its overdriven, dirty-bubble-gum edge. Luckily, in crafting their third album, Sune Rose Wagner and Sharin Foo found the Goldilocks touch.

This time, instead of sonically mauling listeners or lulling them to sleep with over-safe nostalgia, Foo and Wagner effectively balance their earlier impulses. Tunes such as “Lust” and “Aly, Walk with Me” are sleek and subtle, even when the guitars buzz like power tools.

As with past records, the songs run together, but the band’s newfound depth and knack for creating mysterious moods make the repetition less noticeable and more palatable than ever before.

—Kenneth Partridge, Hartford Courant