Justin Timberlake Brings Sexy Back

The thing about Timberlake is that he’s always been a guilty pleasure. Even the hippest & most underground people have some cheesy, non-hip things they love. We’ve personally known fashion designers who love trash TV like Springer and Gilligan’s Island, hot DJs who played Dungeons & Dragons, and a radical artist who shopped at Banana Republic. So in a sense, Justin Timberlake is OUR Dungeons & Dragons, our Banana Republic. His music is cheesy, corny and whatever else you want to call it, but it’s fun too - so we like it anyway.

So, now that you know why we’re talking about his latest, FutureSex / LoveSounds, let’s get into the review. Once you get past the bad title and bad picture of Justin in the Michael Jackson “Moonwalker” suit, the album has its moments. Those moments are mainly thanks to Timbaland, the producer that made Justified a hit: “SexyBack” is OK, and the goofy raps on “Chop Me Up” are kinda fun, thanks to (again) Tim and Three 6 Mafia. Justin tries to look a little street by shouting out to DJ Screw, which is either stupid or funny depending on how you look at it.

“Sexy Ladies” is just an imitation of Prince; the closer, “(Another Song) All Over Again” is just an imitation of Brian McKnight. Neither are very good imitations, but there’s some decent music in between. “Love Stoned” and “What Goes Around” stood out in particular, along with the odd “Losing My Way”. On this one, Justin sings as a crackhead who wants to clean up. Yes, a Disney brat who was raised squeaky-clean by a Baptist minister & became a millionaire before he was 21, is trying to explain the inner mind of a crackhead. The lyrics are so cliche they’re laughable — they’re almost as bad as the ones for “Sexyback” and “Sexy Ladies,” and those are really bad. Once again, Tim comes to the rescue. His production work makes “Losing My Way” listenable, instead of the trite pop garbage it could’ve been.

So our secret love for Justin Timberlake and his cheesy pop goodness has faded somewhat. His voice is as strong as ever, but the songs aren’t quite as solid as they were on Justified. They’re a little more experimental then they were before, which is good — but it would’ve been better if all the experiments had been a success.

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