Janet Jackson's lover has blamed record bosses for her new album being a
flop.

Music producer Jermaine Dupri has threatened to resign as president of
Virgin Records' urban division because he claims label chairman Jason Flom
has failed to promote Janet's LP '20 Y.O.'.

A source revealed to the New York Daily News newspaper: "Jermaine blames
Virgin for not getting the album enough airplay and not working it."

Jermaine is desperate to boost record sales and is trying to persuade Mariah
Carey to record a duet with Janet on a track that would be added to a new
version of the disc.

It is estimated that there are still 200,000 unsold copies of the first
batch.

A source close to Flom has hit back at Jermaine's claims, saying: "Jason
wants the CD to be a hit as much as anyone. But Janet just didn't have the
goods."

Sales of '20 Y.O.' dropped by 74 per cent in the second week of its release
and it fell from number two to number nine on the Nielsen SoundScan chart.

Jermaine was also furious with the way Virgin record bosses handled Janet's
last album, 'Damita Jo'.

He fumed: "They just didn't push the project."

Love is blind.

Oh god.

a sucker for love lmao

Blind and deaf apparently.

But seriously, I love Janet - this is a well known fact. But this just simply isn't her best album. It really didn't help that "Call On Me" was the first single. In retrospect, it wasn't a surprise move though...and not a smart one either.

Consider this: since the janet. era, Janet has released 5 albums. Of those five albums, only ONE - All For You - had an upbeat first single. During janet. and The Velvet Rope, Janet was coming into her own and going through some troubles. This was by far Janet at her creative best. Eventually, however, that act of finding your womanhood and sexuality will get old. She was smart to switch it up a bit (and I stress, a bit) and evolve a bit further with All For You, but not doing the same thing with Damita Jo and 20 Y.O. just continued the same act. Compare "That's The Way Love Goes" and "Got Till It's Gone" to "I Want You" and "Call On Me" - get the picture?

In a time when record sales are low, I can almost guarantee you that if everyone who (illegally) downloaded albums as opposed to buying them were added to record sales, almost everyone would have at LEAST double their sales. Remember when *NSYNC and Britney Spears and Eminem were doing 1 million copies plus in their first week? Yeah, those days are gone. A first week of 300K+ is a blessing in and of itself.

So yeah, love Janet as I do, and I admittedly very much enjoy the 20 Y.O. album, what made Janet great was her role as an innovator in pop music. Now, to her credit, this album was never billed to be innovative - it was billed to be a retrospective of Janet's 20 years in the business. In my opinion, I think they did a decent to good job of that. But unfortunately, that sort of thing these days will be received as a Greatest Hits-type album. Still, Janet's move back to the top of the pop world - which I don't think anyone was really expecting from this album - will depend on her ability to once again turn the music world upside down. Her next album, not 20 Y.O. will be critical to Janet's remaining longevity.

So Jermaine, chillax.

that's too safe to blame the label
janet's album ain't excellent. it's just average, which means it's bad for someone like jackson.
if she had excellent songs, even without the label, she would have conquered the radios
he better blame himself for pushing jackson into a cheap urban sound.
he ain't rené elizondo for sure.

anyway, what's pathetic is that now that he says it's a flop, that will be official.
and that's just plain stupid.

she better quit him fast.

I Wish I Could Quit You!

v---(To Kworb) Oh I think she'll stay away from it. She doesn't love Jermaine that much.

Mariah better stay away from this

He didn't mention MTV. Now I can see Mtv not promoting her hurt the album sales.

Wow, that guy needs to take a few lessons from Kevin Federline to just sit down and let the Cheetos shut him up.

If anything: The label + Janet released Call On Me, which was a forgettable track with a ****** video. So Excited should've been the first single. ~ Likely, Jackson would've #1 album if she went that way.

Lmao. She f'd her herself up with this album. She's officially done now.

Well 20 Y.O. was her last contract album under Virgin and Virgin could've easily felt that they didn't need to promote or support her since she'll be leaving anyway. Labels have done that before.

I so wanna hear the mariah duet , that would make my whole year.

Call Mariah ,RE-release the damn disc and get down on your knees infront of MTV studios during TRL.

Agreed even thou it grew on me. call on me should have never been the first single period. .

Well at least it's going GOLD, maybe . Either way i dont think it's the labels faul. Damn JD, why couldn't you pull a Mariah and help Janet out huh, Just kidding.

Lets see, CALL ON ME was okay, which is too bad because it could of been great. You have Janet Jackson an icon and Nelly who is widely popular i dont know what went wrong. Sure it went #1 on BB R&B Charts but it has been quite a slow year for R&B.

Then SO EXCITED, first if you're going to get a female MC' and Khia is the best you can do, then... that's not a good sign.

She will be going on tour she can pull a PRINCE and help the album go Platnuim. Her tour will do great.

Look i love Janet i own most of her albums including 20YO, i dont think we should blame the record company.

I agree. For me, her music lost it's originality with that Nutty Professor track but she still later did very well with All For You. It was at that point, imo, that she adopted the 'sex sells' attitude' and lost it because she continued with it. That works for some people but she was lucky because even though she doesn't have the best voice, she knew how to use it and couple it with interesting and catchy music. She didn't need to do the 'sex sells' pitch and even if she wanted to do it, she could have kept it alongside her music rather then making it the central point. There's no need to reassure and re-affirm her sexuality all the time, we know she's gorgeous and knew it before it was all we saw, the disappointing bit is that we also know she's capable of much more.

Janet is goin thru her Glitter/Charmbracelet stage. Her next album if she goes back to her roots then she'll have her huge comeback moment. But she needs to stop with tryin to be sexy and using outside producers.

This album is a flop and yall need to stop sugarcoating it. This album has been a flop since Call On Me was released.

you said it all.
exactly what i would have said.

after THE VELVET ROPE, nothing was the same anymore.

in fact, after René Elizondo's departure.

exactly.

and also:

"damita jo" was janet jackson's "american life" (madonna)
"20 YO" is janet jackson's "glitter" (mc)

Next album in 4 years is going to be janet jackson's "invincible" (michael)