As feminism seeped out of the white middle class and into the black community in the early Seventies, it inspired a flurry of female singers who asserted their sexual independence and told off men (as well as other women) in no uncertain terms. Whereas Diana Ross and Aretha Franklin had sung in the Sixties about submission, suddenly the recurrent refrain was: "Mister Big Stuff/Who do you think you are?" Were these new singers liberated? To be sure, but they were "free" to compete in an erotic marketplace as cruel as capitalism. Because if they could dump men who either didn't do them right or turn them on, they could also just as easily be ditched in favor of other, hotter tamales. The lookout for a better lay, like the search for a better mousetrap or margarine, bred insecurity as well as independence.

The independence was short-lived, however, for the disco deluge drowned out the tough-talkin' mamas with a series of coos by veritable legions of multiorgasmic kewpie dolls. The obstreperous assertions of, say, a Betty Wright's personality disrupted the impersonal rhythms of the dance floor. Denise Lasalle was displaced by Donna Summer.

Which is why the new albums by Millie Jackson and Ann Peebles seem so defiantly anachronistic. The difference between the two is that the defiance of Get It Out'cha System is deliberate, while The Handwriting Is on the Wall sounds behind the times because Peebles and producer Willie Mitchell apparently don't know how to catch up with them.

Mitchell relies on the tried-and-true formula that yielded Peebles such hits as "I Can't Stand the Rain" and "I'm Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down," but he's lost the original ingredients: only one musician remains from the brilliant band that used to play behind Ann Peebles and Al Green. Though the new gang is reasonably proficient, it doesn't have the muscle to punch through the queasy string arrangements Mitchell has always favored. The old Stax/Volt riffs are recycled but not revitalized.

And Peebles sounds a little short on spunk, too. At her best, she is a subtle, grimly matter-of-fact singer who more than makes up for her undistinguished vocal range with a unique mixture of vulnerability and viciousness. But her heart doesn't seem to be in these songs, only two of which she helped write. Numbers like "Old Man with Young Ideas" ("Now when we go out, he hops around on a stick/But when we're makin' love, I have to beg the old gentleman to quit") and "Bip Bam Thank You Mam" (which dismisses a Johnny-come-quickly lover as "a regular one-minute Sam") cry out for more sass than Ann Peebles can summon.

Perhaps these songs should have been sung by Millie Jackson, whose vocals are as exaggerated as Peebles' are understated. Jackson's Amazonian lasciviousness is played strictly for laughs. Even at her smuttiest:

There's a different kind of log in the fireplace

A log bigger 'n yours

A longer log than yours

And it just burns for...

It's time for you to gather your twig and split,

she radiates good humor and intelligence. The force of her personality is such that she can overcome material ("Here You Come Again," "Sweet Music Man") as mediocre as that to which Peebles falls victim, and no amount of production can blunt the gruff edges of her voice. Indeed, Jackson is so fully in command of Get It Out'cha System that when guitarist Pete Carr plays a jumpy solo, she cuts him short and chides: "Pete, you do have your own album. I think I gotta take this over again myself."

Get It Out'cha System doesn't depart from the pattern cut by Jackson, coproducer Brad Shapiro and the Muscle Shoals band four years ago on Caught Up. The raunchy R&B, romantic pop and lewd monologues tell a story of sorts, but the plot is ripped to shreds by the razor-sharp performances of the singer and her entourage. "Forget about all your chauvinistic pride," she sings at one point, and I forgot not only that, but also, for the moment, that it's high time Millie Jackson cleaned up–or, at least, altered–her act. (RS 274)

KEN EMERSON