Invincible man?

Just as it took Michael Jackson five years, two dozen songwriters and a reported $30 million to make Invincible, it took all five of our music writers to review the darn thing. After all, if there's one thing our self-anointed King of Pop inspires, it's debate: Whether it's about his incessantly changing nose or his increasingly immutable music, everybody has a take on Wacko Jacko.

Trapped together in a windowless room with nothing but a boom box, a tape recorder and Jackson's new CD, Invincible, TONY's entire music staff tried to come to terms with the latest from Tito's little brother.

Margeaux Watson: The first song, "Unbreakable," is completely of the moment—except that moment was five years ago. Rodney Jerkins was a hot producer when Michael hired him to do this, but he's not hot anymore.

Jay Ruttenberg: This almost sounds normal.

Elisabeth Vincentelli: That's an interesting take on what normal is.

Ruttenberg: I didn't mean normal; I just meant that he doesn't sound like an utter lunatic.

K. Leander Williams: What does a lunatic sound like?

Ruttenberg: The way Michael sounds when he speaks!

["Break of Dawn" starts.]

Watson: I like this!

Mike Wolf: His songs always seem to be about breaking down the barrier that's separating him from a girl he wants.

Ruttenberg: He's like the Elephant Man wooing a girl.

Watson: Are you saying that he can't sing a love song?

Ruttenberg: He can, but he's created this image that is so grotesque that it's impossible for the listener to separate it from the songs.

Watson: But he's also created a reputation based on music. You can't listen to somebody based on their image alone.

Williams: Hey, the ballads work so far.

Vincentelli: [Grudgingly] They aren't so bad.

Watson: But we've heard him do the exact same song so many times before.

[The intro to "You Rock My World" kicks in.]

Williams: Is that country-ass Chris Tucker?!? [It is. Suddenly, Michael whines, "She iiis banging" and laughter erupts in the room.]

Ruttenberg: That's the best thing on the album. It probably took him 25 takes to get it, too.

Wolf: Can we listen to this without laughing?

[Back to the intro—everybody laughs again.]

Wolf: What fanzines does Michael read to keep up with street slang?

Watson: It's a great club song, though. You just need to get a glass of champagne and a joint, get up in a club and get it on. That's when it sounds best.

Wolf: What wouldn't sound good under those conditions? Actually, this wouldn't be such a bad song if he didn't end every line with [Makes hacking noises] "Ack!" He sounds like Bugs Bunny after drinking Elmer Fudd's poison.

Vincentelli: [Reading liner notes] Looks like Michael and Rodney Jerkins basically play everything on this album.

Watson: And it sounds like they just took turns on the synthesizer.

Ruttenberg: On the new reissues of his earlier albums, they include some demos. There's an announcer who says, "Here's Michael in the studio with Janet and Randy," and they seem to play their own percussion and stuff.

Williams: Your knowledge of all this amazes me.

Wolf: It's important to note that Michael is bringing us all closer together.

["Butterflies" starts.]

Watson: Oh, I love this song.

Williams: I think we're liking this album a lot more than we thought we would.

Ruttenberg: Are we? Would you buy it? Would you recommend that anybody buy it? 'Cause I wouldn't.

Williams: But that's because you have issues with his persona.

Vincentelli: My God, now he sounds like Mandy Patinkin.

Ruttenberg: Or Judy Collins.

Williams: This album is all Michael's formula. It wasn't a bad formula in the beginning but now it's like, so what?

Watson: I can't deal with these children singing and the "We Are the World" shit. I just can't deal. Michael needs to let it go.

Williams: This sounds like bad Prince.

Watson: Prince with the New Power Generation.

["Privacy" begins.]

Watson: He's just another celeb-rity talking about the pitfalls of being a celebrity. Please.

Wolf: This record doesn't tell me much about his personality, besides the sort of things that lead people like us to say, "Michael Jackson is so weird."

Ruttenberg: Traditionally, a lot of music is made by people who are trying to be weirder than they are. And here's this really weird guy going out of his way to try to sound like a normal person. To me, Michael Jackson is an incredibly interesting person. I would love to hear an album of him uncensored, talking about what he really thinks, and expressing in music what he expresses in plastic surgery.

Vincentelli : His true art is his ever-shrinking face.

[Cue "The Lost Children"]

Wolf: I'm amazed to hear something that I recognize as the strings of an acoustic guitar.

Vincentelli: This is the song with Santana!

Ruttenberg: Maybe two negatives will make a positive.

Wolf: [Wincing] That is the weakest Santanaism I've ever heard.

Vincentelli: The last song, "Threatened," has loooong Rod Serling samples.

Ruttenberg: There's no way that kids who listen to Britney Spears would like this.

Watson: I just like the fact that after all these crazy years, after all these albums, we still sit here talking about Michael Jackson. Plus, you know that some people have great stories. Lisa Marie Presley—girl, we need to talk!

Ruttenberg: I think the opposite. We've heard such weird and grotesque things about him that the secrets would just be boring.

Williams: That's my take, too. He's like a house plant.

Vincentelli: Mariah Carey, on the other hand...

Watson: Everything she does is like a new brush stroke on the portrait of crazy.

Ruttenberg: Michael is like Elvis in the late '70s. Elvis started the whole rock thing only to turn into this outrageous caricature off in his own never-never land.

Williams: And then Michael went and married his daughter.

Invincible is out now on Epic.