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Justin Timberlake Relies on Past Sex and Love Sounds on the Middling ‘Everything I Thought It Was’: Album Review
Justin Timberlake channels past love and sex sounds on his suitable but uneven sixth album, 'Everything I Thought It Was.'
At his best, he managed to craft complete artistic visions so powerfully focused that the singles from them felt like events of their own: “Rock Your Body” and “Cry Me a River” validated the duality of 2002’s “Justified,” featuring split production from Timbaland and the Neptunes; “SexyBack” and “My Love” glistened with the electronic flourishes that fused the sprawling “FutureSex/LoveSounds”; “Suit & Tie” and “Mirrors” matched the grandiosity of “The 20/20 Experience” (at least, for the first of the two-part project). At present, Timberlake is coming off of a public reckoning for past faults, namely how he treated former girlfriend Britney Spears (who kicked dust back up by revisiting their relationship in last year’s bombshell memoir “The Woman in Me”), and for letting Janet Jackson take a brutal career blow after their Super Bowl performance while he walked away unscathed. Timbaland returns to the boards on five of the album’s tracks, and you can sense them trying to replicate the magic of “FutureSex” right down to the beat shift halfway through the seven-minute “Technicolor.” But it all often feels like a recall of past successes without the suave sexiness Timberlake once exuded.
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