The advance publicity for this album has been so over the top (the most expensive ever, a $21m masterpiece etc.) that most critics have delighted in labelling it a turkey. But whatever you think about Jackson as a human being, his pop genius is undeniable - and it hasn't deserted him yet, even if it is spread rather more thinly here than on previous efforts. The handful of heavyweight RandB tracks are by far the best thing about Invincible, slick, funky and as infectious as anything he's done for years. It's on the ballads where things start to seriously go wrong, as Jackson's warblings about healing the world sound more creepy than uplifting. Not a complete disaster then, but at 16 tracks and 76 minutes Invincible could certainly have done with some judicious pruning.
