Justin Timberlake - The 20/20 Experience (Part 2)

Making a double album is a risky proposition for any artist. Plenty of the greats, from Bruce Springsteen to the Beatles to the Smashing Pumpkins, have stumbled into the pitfalls of self-indulgence and/or plentiful filler material en route to creating their own double albums, and those records are considered the classics of the medium. Imagine what a complete double album disaster could sound like. Expansive and interconnected musical projects hardly become easier when you break them up into separate releases and space them out across several months (just ask Green Day), and it all becomes a little bit trickier when you have nearly seven years of built-up anticipation waiting on the receiving end of your return.

Such was the perfect storm of intensity waiting for Justin Timberlake when he made his comeback earlier this year with the first part of The 20/20 Experience. Timberlake’s answer to handling the “double album” pressure was, unsurprisingly, to play it cool and not tell anyone he was actually making a double album: The 20/20 Experience 2 of 2 wasn’t even announced until well after the first part had scored a just-shy-of-a-million-copies first week of sales. Timberlake also subverted expectations with the music, inflating his song lengths to the five, six, or seven minute range (if not more), meaning that his two 2013 albums have ended up with a collective running time of 144 minutes, enough music for three or four records. Needless to say, the 2013 version of Justin Timberlake has been a guy with a lot of songs to share and plenty of surprises up his sleeve.

One of those surprises is that The 20/20 Experience 2 of 2 actually sounds significantly more like Timberlake’s older solo work, specifically 2006's FutureSex/LoveSounds, than the introductory part of the project did. The first half of this record, from the freaky jungle funk of “Gimme What I Don’t Know (I Want)” to the foreboding grandiosity of “TKO,” seems to rest in the same dark grooves that Timberlake and superstar producer Timbaland cultivated on FutureSex or Justified. “Gimme What I Don’t Know” is reminiscent of “Sexy Ladies,” while “TKO” is the closest any of the 20/20 songs have come to recreating the vibe of the career highlight single, “Cry Me a River.” “True Blood,” this record’s most disastrous track, even feels like an attempt at a weirder, darker retread of “SexyBack,” with elements of Halloween standards like “Thriller” and “Monster Mash” thrown in for good measure. At 9:32 in length, the song is a mess, with some good qualities (the incredibly groovy guitar clip at the 4:30 mark) and some patently dreadful ones as well (pretty much every cheesy vampire reference that comes out of Justin’s mouth). It’s a mixed bag, and plenty of people will skip it every time, but “True Blood” makes perfect sense in context: it’s this record’s “Exhibit A” for double album self indulgence.

While some older fans will enjoy Timberlake’s return to his darker influences after the swooning neo-soul of The 20/20 Experience’s part one, it's hard to ignore the fact the first three or four tracks on Part 2 feel like a bizarre step back of sorts for a guy who was clearly ambitious to move forward musically just seven months ago. These new songs are fine, but for a solid half hour of its runtime, The 20/20 Experience 2 of 2 feels like it’s traveling down a familiar road. Even the sex-obsessed “Cabaret” (complete with a rapidfire Drake feature) and the Michael Jackson-channeling “Take Back the Night” (a charismatic summer party anthem, loaded with colliding horn arrangements and sleek dance floor grooves) feel somehow less impressive than a lot of the songs Timberlake was slinging last time around, if only because they don’t add up to an “experience” greater than the sum of their parts. It’s all still very enjoyable, of course, but during the first five tracks, The 20/20 Experience 2 of 2 just doesn’t really feel like a actual cohesive album.

But then suddenly, around Part 2’s halfway point, Timberlake throws the rulebook out the window and starts having a ball, and the resulting string of tracks is arguably the strongest in his catalog. The kickoff is “Murder,” a kinetic should-be chart-topper that turns the lovelorn sweep of the first part of The 20/20 Experience on its head by likening lust to a dangerous and deadly game. Jay Z brings the energy down a notch with an Awful (no, that capital “A” is not a typo) guest feature about Yoko Ono's sexual prowess. If you didn’t like his “Suit and Tie” verse, this one is considerably worse, but that’s a small complaint considering the infectious nature of the song and the bulletproof string of hits it sets in motion. A radio edit with Jay Z excised entirely would be much appreciated.

The follow-up, a country-tinged, organ-drenched stomper called “Drink You Away,” might be the most immediate track on either 20/20 album, with a slick, soulful vibe that transcends Justin’s not-so-stellar heartbreak-equals-drinking metaphors (“Feel it in my brain/Tall shot of pain” is another indication that lyrics are not Timberlake’s strong suit). The chorus itself is a wrecking ball, instantly memorable after a single listen, and the way that Timberlake delivers the song’s key refrain line (“Don’t they make a medicine for heartbreak?” he begs repeatedly) is just one terrific vocal moment in a record full of them. As for the organ, which rollicks along like one of the many carnivalesque color splashes of Springsteen’s The Wild, The Innocent, The E-Street Shuffle, it ties the song together and makes it sound instantly timeless.

One of the biggest complaints from original 20/20 Experience dissenters was that the album was long on sprawling track lengths and layered sonic soundscapes, but relatively short on hooks. Here, the tracks have hardly gotten shorter, but the hooks certainly feel more striking. Timberlake has called Part 2 “the hotter, older evil twin sister” of Part 1, and that certainly feels true during the record’s dark second half. Take the rousing penultimate cut, “Only When I Walk Away,” whose jacknife guitar riff and rapidfire chorus are virtually impossible to dislodge from your brain once they’ve taken up residence there. Or “Amnesia,” which parlays the first entry’s multi-part sensibility into one of the most seamless and beautiful tracks Timberlake has ever written. It’s a shattering break up song, played out through the eyes of a guy who sees the girl he used to love on the dance floor at some seedy, hazy nightclub. The first half is dark dance pop, but the latter, a luminescent dream sequence of unrequited longing, is where Timberlake really shines. “Go and on tear me apart, and do it again tomorrow,” he sings right after the song breaks in two. These may be the musings of a global superstar, a guy who “has everything,” but “Amnesia” is a refreshing reminder that everyone still bleeds the same way.

The 20/20 Experience comes to a fitting and logical conclusion on “Not a Bad Thing,” a simple radio friendly pop jam that calls back to Timberlake’s ‘N Sync days. And while it doesn’t carry the album out with the same lingering impact that Part 1’s “Blue Ocean Floor” left, it’s hard to argue with a song that, after nearly two-and-a-half hours of experimental, meandering music, still brings it all back home with a hands-in-the-air sing along. An acoustic bonus track called “Pair of Wings” offers a pleasant epilogue, but “Not a Bad Thing” is the de facto closer, and it feels comfortably like the completion of a journey.

Who knows how long it will be before Timberlake drops another album. He could turn around and release a concise pop record next year, or he could wait another half a decade before returning with something long, indulgent, transformative, and divisive. Regardless of what’s next though, The 20/20 Experience is a remarkable accomplishment in the here and now, not because all of the songs are great, but because they are a collective portrait of an artist who isn’t afraid to try anything and everything. From Prince to Michael Jackson, from arena rock to country-tinged blues, and from his own boy band roots to the mature Timbaland beats that helped make him a solo star, Timberlake throws every influence he’s ever touched at the canvas here, and he somehow gets away with it. Double albums are never perfect, and they rarely age well, but at its best and worst, The 20/20 Experience still stands as a comeback-plus-victory-lap milestone for one of pop music’s greatest modern innovators; it’s nice to have him back in the game.

Justin Timberlake - The 20/20 Experience (Part I)

Justin Timberlake – The 20/20 Experience
RCA, 2013

B+

There’s nothing in music criticism that bothers me more than writers lambasting an artist and tearing down their latest work for “overreaching.” No matter the cause, be it one particular critic’s self-important, pageview grabbing arrogance, or the word of a listener who is so emotionally tied to an artist’s initial sound that they refuse to accept any new directions, attacking a musician for trying to do too much with their sound, or for trying to adopt influences outside of their initial wheelhouse, has always struck me as a “beside the point” sort of criticism. Isn’t the job of a music critic to judge the art at hand as a standalone product, and not to examine it in light of previous triumphs? That may be easier said than done, but I at least always try to appreciate an album for what it is rather than brooding over what it’s not.

And that brings me to The 20/20 Experience, Justin Timberlake’s third full-length record and his first foray into new music in nearly six years. Since 2006’s FutureSex/LoveSounds, Timberlake has filled his time acting (The Social Network, In Time, Friends with Benefits), hosting Saturday Night Live, and working on his comedy chops, but despite pleas from every direction, begging him to return to music, the pop star offered no indication until very recently that he would return at all. And you couldn’t have really blamed him if he didn’t. After all, Timberlake was basically a legend by the time he was 25: he’d conquered the world with ‘N Sync, transitioned into a successful solo career with 2002’s Justified—and its still-ubiquitous flagship single, “Cry Me a River”—ripped off Janet Jackson’s shirt on international television, and gained respectable critical approval with FutureSex/LoveSounds. Where could he go next? What did he still have to say or to prove? And would his long-awaited return to music even be able to meet the stratospheric expectations of fans and critics? Yes, it might have been safer for Timberlake just to call it a day. After all, 31 is a bit too young to enter the “past their prime” bracket.

But Timberlake, thankfully, has never been “safe,” and his latest album is the exact antithesis of the word. Those looking for another FutureSex will probably be disappointed. There’s no monster single here, no “SexyBack” or “Cry Me a River,” or even a “My Love” or “What Goes Around…” Where Timberlake’s sophomore album was largely grounded in up-to-the-minute pop sounds, dance-floor textures, and urban rhythmic drawl, The 20/20 Experience spends most of its runtime in classic, slow-burning soul and R&B mode. Timbaland is back in the producer’s chair, but the emphasis this time is more on atmosphere, flow, and mood than on catchy earworm hooks. And that’s not to say that these songs are forgettable, because the falsetto-driven hooks on songs like “Pusher Love Girl” and “Spaceship Coupe,” or the stadium-filling chorus of “Mirrors,” are as melodically resplendent as anything Timberlake has ever produced. Rather, these songs don’t quite have JT’s normal knack for latching themselves to the side of your brain after a single listen, and while that’s not really a shortcoming, it means that The 20/20 Experience probably won’t have the same pop-cultural ubiquity as his last two records did.

But if the album lacks something in the radio singles department, Timberlake more than makes up for it in terms of overall cohesion. The themes here are simple ones: love, lust, adoration, devotion, etc. etc., all likely inspired by Timberlake’s recent marriage to actress Jessica Biel. If the lyrics aren’t romantic gestures we’ve heard a million times before, they’re clumsy metaphors and analogies that would fall flat without the musical flourishes that prop them up. But Timberlake’s voice is, as always, a flawless instrument, lilting on gorgeous falsetto lines, delivering sultry, slinky melodies right and left, throwing in tasteful riffs, or moving into a full-on belt when the songs require it. Timbaland plays his part well too, somehow making the swirl of organic instrumentation, hypnotic samples, electronic loops, and other digital augmentations coalesce into sprawling sonic arrangements that feel both intimate and explosive, innately welcoming and dauntingly ambitious. Regardless of how listeners react to these songs on a personal level, there is no denying that The 20/20 Experience is an absolutely exquisite-sounding record from top to bottom, and with a pop music album, that’s sometimes half the battle.

Of course, all of the studio sheen in the world can’t save an artist if they don’t have the songs to back it up, and Timberlake certainly has a dense wall of material on hand this time around. The 20/20 Experience is only ten tracks long, but seven of them cross the seven-minute mark, and the two most-likely bids for mainstream radio airplay—the lounge-meets-club first single “Suit & Tie” and the brassy soul rave-up “That Girl”—still extend well past the accepted model of the three-and-a-half minute pop song. This album is long, full of shape-shifting tunes that drop from one style to another with almost no regard for genre boundaries. “Pusher Love Girl” swells at the top of the record with a string arrangement that feel ripped straight from a classic film score, morphs into a rousing piece of pop vocal bliss, and then settles into a magnetic neo-soul groove for its final minutes. The first half of “Strawberry Bubblegum” takes a cue from Frank Ocean’s tripped-out brand of R&B, while the outro accelerates into something that could almost have fit on an ‘N Sync album. And “Let the Groove Get In” begins as a hip-shaking nod to Latin music and ends as a pitch-perfect Michael Jackson impersonation.

And that’s where the accusations of overreaching will likely come in. It would be hyperbole to say that The 20/20 Experience has suffered a critical slapping, but compare its reception to the legacy of Timberlake’s last album—or perhaps even more notably, to the orgasmic praise that Frank Ocean’s similarly ambitious, similarly meandering Channel ORANGE earned from all corners last summer—and all the scores in the “8” or “B” ranges start to feel a bit more disappointing. Most writers, even the ones who like the album, accuse Timberlake of writing long songs for the sake of having epic track lengths, not because his musical creations actually justify those lengths. The review posted yesterday morning from The AV Club found the record so bloated that almost every song could stand to lose a minute in length—if not more—while Joe Caramanica of the New York Times essentially called the record a pretentious mess, a weak collection of songs disguising themselves in layers of false “artistry.”

But aside from a terribly-misguided rap verse on “Suit & Tie”—from Jay-Z, a once-great modern musical figure who now falls squarely into the “past their prime” bracket I referred to earlier—I can’t really find a minute here that I’d excise. Most of these songs save their finest moments for the back end, like the gloriously catchy “I’ll love you ‘til I make it pop” hook from “Strawberry Bubblegum,” or the dizzying conclusions to “Don’t Hold the Wall” and “Tunnel Vision,” where Timbaland meticulously builds layers of production elements into towers of sonic force. On “Spaceship Coupe,” Justin mixes the attitude and sound of Prince with a hook that could have been culled from a Beyonce record. The song  is hooky and fun throughout, but doesn’t reach its euphoric peak until nearly four minutes in, when an 80s-esque slow-jam guitar solo cuts across the center. It’s true that we could have reached these moments faster, but Timberlake gives the songs time to breathe, grow, and shift, and as a result, the peaks feel higher and more well-earned. Some listeners won’t have the patience to sit through one seven-minute song after another—especially on repeat plays—but for those who are, there’s a bounty of rewards to be found here.

By the time The 20/20 Experience takes its final left turn—with the gorgeous, somber ballad that is “Blue Ocean Floor”—Timberlake has truly run the gamut of pop music. A halting cassette-tape loop plays in the background, decaying with pulsing synths, distant piano lines, and a haunting tidal atmosphere as Timberlake delivers one of his most restrained vocal performances ever. “If my red eyes don’t see you anymore/And I can’t hear you through the white noise,” Timberlake warns on the cathartic chorus. “Just send your heartbeat I’ll go to the blue ocean floor/Where they find us no more, on that blue ocean floor.” It’s a strikingly intimate and serene ending to a record that often explodes in communal, lovelorn bombast, and for me, it’s the unquestionable highlight. But that’s the thing about The 20/20 Experience: this is the kind of record where everyone will have different favorite song, where what someone calls dull or overlong or indulgent will resonate perfectly with someone else, depending on that listener’s past musical tastes and experiences. And some critics may call that “overreaching,” may yearn for a more consistent style or wish that Timberlake didn’t try so many new things. But those kinds of people were also the ones who told the Beatles they were “just a pop band” when they started experimenting with studio art, or booed Dylan when he went electric. And we all know how those situations turned out.