ok, i'm super late to this but i'd heard so much negativity about it and saw that it didn't get much traction after the lead single and the one with Nelly that I figured it must not have been that good. also after i got DJ years late and didn't like it too much, i didn't want to hear more mediocrity from my once future baby mama. the best material from those two albums should have been culled together into one and unforutnately to my ears, 20y/o only had

Take Care

Love 2 Love

Enjoy

& So Excited

to offer.

Enjoy is gorgeous and should've been a single with a nice breezy, colorful "poppy" video (in the vein of You Want This or Someone to Call My Lover) to cross it over. she had the "urban singles", i think Enjoy could've been the pop hit from the lot. some of the other tracks had decent production, but they didn't seem to be tracks for her, not to mention the writing was just bad; more overly sexual nonsense. I'm far from a jan stan, but it pains me to hear how far off track she'd gotten (past tense intentional, cause I did enjoy most of Discipline). I didn't comb thru the liner notes yet, but from the back of the cd, i can't tell who did what. What tracks did Jam & Lewis do?

datdude said:

ok, i'm super late to this but i'd heard so much negativity about it and saw that it didn't get much traction after the lead single and the one with Nelly that I figured it must not have been that good. also after i got DJ years late and didn't like it too much, i didn't want to hear more mediocrity from my once future baby mama. the best material from those two albums should have been culled together into one and unforutnately to my ears, 20y/o only had

Take Care

Love 2 Love

Enjoy

& So Excited

to offer.

Enjoy is gorgeous and should've been a single with a nice breezy, colorful "poppy" video (in the vein of You Want This or Someone to Call My Lover) to cross it over. she had the "urban singles", i think Enjoy could've been the pop hit from the lot. some of the other tracks had decent production, but they didn't seem to be tracks for her, not to mention the writing was just bad; more overly sexual nonsense. I'm far from a jan stan, but it pains me to hear how far off track she'd gotten (past tense intentional, cause I did enjoy most of Discipline). I didn't comb thru the liner notes yet, but from the back of the cd, i can't tell who did what. What tracks did Jam & Lewis do?

i couldn't tell u but damito jo was where i looked at janet with a ? mark expression ..20 yo solidified it 4 me. only because at this time, janet was letting jermaine dupri do most of the production and jam and lewis kind of being pushed aside in favor of rodney jenkins. so it's hard 2 tell what jam and lewis did on this album but i really belive it wasn't much. i would love 2 see janet return back in the studio with just jam and lewis maybe even jesse johnson and get the minneapolis funk back in her bones

I agree with you accessment of 20YO. I think that it is probably the worst Janet album ever. Not to say that there are some good songs on there, though. I think "Enjoy" would have made a great second single after "Call On Me."

I think that "Call On Me" was a good first single, especially considering that Nelly was extremely hot on both pop and urban radio. It was the obvious first choice.

You can definitely tell that Jermaine Dupri did everything on this project and Jam and Lewis did very little. I think Virgin had a lot to do with that (for some reason). It makes sense especially since Jermaine was still semi-hot at the time and had just written all of the big Usher hits as well as his stuff with Mariah, it was the obvious choice for Janet to work with Jermaine. I think Jermaine had a hard time working with a pop/dance person. I know he had worked with Mariah, but Mariah's dance hits were not written by Jermaine. If they were, they were remixed by a dance remixer. Jermaine is not diverse enough to pull of dance/pop music.

I would love for Janet to get in the studio with Jam & Lewis, Jesse Johnson and just GEL and i'm sure they can come up with yet another SMASH IMO.......So that was a great idea if only those 4 get into the studio and just create MAGIC like i know they can......Funky,Fierce & just plain AWESOME!!!!!!!

Enjoy, Take Care, Daybreak and Get It Out Me saved the album. The rest had to grow on me and even then, only a few managed to. It was hard to admit cause I prefer Janet over current acts, but they kicked her ass big time in 2006.

datdude said:

ok, i'm super late to this but i'd heard so much negativity about it and saw that it didn't get much traction after the lead single and the one with Nelly that I figured it must not have been that good. also after i got DJ years late and didn't like it too much, i didn't want to hear more mediocrity from my once future baby mama. the best material from those two albums should have been culled together into one and unforutnately to my ears, 20y/o only had

Take Care

Love 2 Love

Enjoy

& So Excited

to offer.

Enjoy is gorgeous and should've been a single with a nice breezy, colorful "poppy" video (in the vein of You Want This or Someone to Call My Lover) to cross it over. she had the "urban singles", i think Enjoy could've been the pop hit from the lot. some of the other tracks had decent production, but they didn't seem to be tracks for her, not to mention the writing was just bad; more overly sexual nonsense. I'm far from a jan stan, but it pains me to hear how far off track she'd gotten (past tense intentional, cause I did enjoy most of Discipline). I didn't comb thru the liner notes yet, but from the back of the cd, i can't tell who did what. What tracks did Jam & Lewis do?

Jam & Lewis if I'm not mistaken, produced three out of the four songs you mentioned: Take Care, Love 2 Love, and Enjoy. "Enjoy" I think was also co-produced by the Avila Brothers, who were part of the Flyte Tyme's production camp. I think, "So Excited" was JD's.

For me "Take Care" and "Enjoy" was the best songs on there. JD doesn't have a good sound for Janet. The best thing he did for her was "Rock With U" and that relied heavily on a looped sample and was written by Ne-Yo. Plus that was on "Discipline" anyway so.

I think Rock With U was more Ne Yo than JD, he did dance music too time to time, so yeah...

I'm pretty sure Jimmy and Terry were credited on most of the 20 YO songs alongside JD if you go back and read it, but I think there was very little involvement. I don't know how JD produced a great album for Mariah (Mimi) and crap for Janet. I prefer Janet from the two, but if she has a shit album, I'm not going to pretend I like it. Discipline was awesome though.

[Edited 12/6/11 6:16am]

Jimmy & Terry had a hand without co-production from JD with

Love 2 Love

Take Care

Enjoy

Daybreak

Weekend

and the interludes

alphastreet said:

I think Rock With U was more Ne Yo than JD, he did dance music too time to time, so yeah...

I'm pretty sure Jimmy and Terry were credited on most of the 20 YO songs alongside JD if you go back and read it, but I think there was very little involvement. I don't know how JD produced a great album for Mariah (Mimi) and crap for Janet. I prefer Janet from the two, but if she has a shit album, I'm not going to pretend I like it. Discipline was awesome though.

[Edited 12/6/11 6:16am]

I liked it better than 20 Y.O. I'm hoping this ample time off has given her a sense of direction musically. Genuine inspiration. Without the pressures from the past she should be clear of all distractions and just focus on making great music again.

Yeah I'm really hoping for a great album with music she wants to make, I get the feeling she has not been getting her way for many years at times, though I could be totally wrong too. It's just that over the past 10 years I've heard her talk about wanting to make an album about racism & anger (around damita jo time) and something with Brazillian jazz or hip hop after VR, but not getting that, and then complaining Def Jam wanted her to sound like Sade though that wouldn't have been a bad idea either. And all those unreleased album tracks that put some of the final cuts to shame floating around as well. Discipline was her last great era though, Damita Jo and 20 YO weren't all that though Damita Jo has it's share of really good and really bad IMO

kenkamken said:

All For You was the last song of hers I liked, not the album though. I should check out your recommendations Oh wait, what was that one last year, Make Me Move or something [Edited 12/6/11 11:09am]

Make Me Move has been the best Janet song in years... next to Take Care...

regcart said:

I would love for Janet to get in the studio with Jam & Lewis, Jesse Johnson and just GEL and i'm sure they can come up with yet another SMASH IMO.......So that was a great idea if only those 4 get into the studio and just create MAGIC like i know they can......Funky,Fierce & just plain AWESOME!!!!!!!

janet dont need from jesse johnson.jam and lewis yes if they remain current and not try 2 recreate the past with her janet is older and needs 2 mature in her sound and in her songwriting.id like 2 c her do something else with q tip.only with her sound janet need 2 get rid of gil and all that gay tranny looking dancers. for the past couple of cds all her videos got that same gay gothic look and she needs 2 seriously break away from that

cbarnes3121 said:

regcart said:

I would love for Janet to get in the studio with Jam & Lewis, Jesse Johnson and just GEL and i'm sure they can come up with yet another SMASH IMO.......So that was a great idea if only those 4 get into the studio and just create MAGIC like i know they can......Funky,Fierce & just plain AWESOME!!!!!!!

janet dont need from jesse johnson.jam and lewis yes if they remain current and not try 2 recreate the past with her janet is older and needs 2 mature in her sound and in her songwriting.id like 2 c her do something else with q tip.only with her sound janet need 2 get rid of gil and all that gay tranny looking dancers. for the past couple of cds all her videos got that same gay gothic look and she needs 2 seriously break away from that

That's what I said when I saw the Rock Witchu tour. They all look like they came straight out of the gay night clubs. I think that has to do with Gil. Most of the male dancers are about his height and weight and I don't see many African American dancers either. I don't think she should have the same race of dancers, but for them to put the black dancers in the back annoys me. It may not be intentional, but is really noticable...especially when she performed at the Essence Fest and on American Idol.

I think releasing "Call on Me" as the lead-off single was a mistake. "Get it Out Me" should have been the first single, accompanied by a slammin' video, with "Enjoy" as the second single. "GIOM", "Do It To Me" (with its clever Brenda Russell "If Only for One Night" sample), "Enjoy", "Take Care", and "So Excited" are my faves from the album (although "So Excited" would be ten times better without Khia on it). Jermaine Dupri having an executive producer title on the album was another mistake. He and Janet just.don't.mix musically. I really dug the whole Create Your Own CD Cover contest they did with it. This was my favorite one

As a whole, I think Damita Jo is a better album. I don't know why it hardly gets any love (Super Bowl aside), because DJ was brilliant. It had one of her best dance tracks in years on it ("All Nite"), and excellent production from JJ/TL, Babyface, Dallas Austin, Kanye and BAGS & Arnthor (not to mention the sultry interludes produced by Telepopmusik).

[Edited 12/6/11 15:00pm]

The only song I liked from her this album is one of the bonus tracks on the Japanese Import called "Roll Witchu".

SEANMAN said:

I think releasing "Call on Me" as the lead-off single was a mistake. "Get it Out Me" should have been the first single, accompanied by a slammin' video, with "Enjoy" as the second single. "GIOM", "Do It To Me" (with its clever Brenda Russell "If Only for One Night" sample), "Enjoy", "Take Care", and "So Excited" are my faves from the album (although "So Excited" would be ten times better without Khia on it). Jermaine Dupri having an executive producer title on the album was another mistake. He and Janet just.don't.mix musically. I really dug the whole Create Your Own CD Cover contest they did with it. This was my favorite one

As a whole, I think Damita Jo is a better album. I don't know why it hardly gets any love (Super Bowl aside), because DJ was brilliant. It had one of her best dance tracks in years on it ("All Nite"), and excellent production from JJ/TL, Babyface, Dallas Austin, Kanye and BAGS & Arnthor (not to mention the sultry interludes produced by Telepopmusik).

[Edited 12/6/11 15:00pm]

Everything that is said here. Damita Jo has held up way better than the rest of J's 2000s outupt and that is saying alot. All For You is not that far behind, but Janet had something going with Damita Jo.

i hadn't seen that cover. nice. i got the one with the silouhette of her. i bought it used so couldn't choose.

i'm not surprised that the main tracks i like from 20y/o were done by Jam & Lewis. I admit that I thought ppl were just hating on JD because the album didn't do well, but upon hearing the album, they DON'T mix musically well together. some of those tracks could've been given to anyone.