Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Justin Timberlake - Futuresex/Lovesounds

Buck Fifty wanted a bad review…Buck Fifty will get a bad review.
Giddy-up.
So, from what I hear, Justin Timberlake is a big deal. How this happened I’ll never know. We never would’ve even known Nick Lachey’s name if he hadn’t screwed up his relationship with Jessica Simpson. The only reason we know that AJ guy from The Backstreet Boys is because he’s been in and out of rehab more times than Scott Weiland. So why should we know the curly-headed guy from ‘Nsync? We know Joey Fat-One because his name is great and accurate. Lance Bass is gay. Justin Timberlake…well, he’s dating Cameron Diaz. And he put out one album in which he pretty much told the world of his massive man-crush on Michael Jackson.
But this new album is supposed to be something else. A major artistic step forward. “I wanted to do something that isn’t what you normally hear on the radio.” His words. So what does he do? Hire Timbaland…a fantastic beat-maker, but someone that everyone and his mother has used at one point or another. There’s not much unique about using Timbaland for your artistic step forward.
Of course, by now, everyone has heard his single, “Sexyback”. Is it catchy? Yeah…I suppose. It’s basically a club song, with Justin half-singing half-talking his (distorted) way through a skittering beat with synth stabs everywhere you look. It’s fine, I suppose, for one song.
Here’s what kills the album. It’s the same song for the entire album. Okay, so I overexaggerated there. There’s a break or two with the needless prelude/interlude, and, of course, the all too predictable “aw-girl-you-know-I-love-you” slow ballads. You can almost hear him proclaim, “That’s right gentlemen. Now’s the time of night when you just find that special girl, hold her tight, and dance all night. And don’t stop…just keep dancing…here, on The Quiet Storm.”
I suppose it’s not as bad as it could’ve been. I mean, he did try something a little different. For him. It’s not like this hasn’t been done before by a thousand different artists. But, all the sudden, because it’s Justin Timberlake, we’re supposed to sit up and take notice of him. In fact, I think that Gunther album might be better than this.
It’s not terrible, and parts of it are extremely catchy and sound fairly cool. But it’s just another “roll up in the club” album, full of energy, beat, sex, drinks, and, I suppose, anything else that you can find in a club. This much I can guarantee you: if this was anyone other than Justin Timberlake, there is no way on earth that anyone would be talking about this album, let alone buying it in droves. Unless it was The Indigo Girls or something.
It’s Justin Timberlake gone quasi-crunk. Can you think of a single person that was asking for that?

Rating: 4.4

Fairly Decent Track: “Sexyback”

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sadly, I know people who not only love Sexy Back, but play it not one, not two, but THREE times at any given party.

You know what the really scary part is? These people are in graduate school. Just goes to show that GRE scores do not highly correlate with musical taste.

Anonymous said...

I'm not ashamed to say I like Justin Timberlake, but I liked his last album. I haven't heard any of this new one except for Sexyback on the radio, and it is kind of catchy, though I couldn't listen to it over and over again... hehe, but I'm not surprised that you were not impressed by his album. :)