Justin Timberlake
The 20/20 Experience

It was 2006 when Justin Timberlake, having shed the teenie image of Disney's cheerful battalion and having set fire to his smurf-colored tights with a safety pin, decided to make a great leap forward toward definitive pop-mainstream recognition without the help of the kids and youngsters who were the other members of his former band Nsync. Futuresex/Lovesounds represented one of the milestones of the Timbaland era, brushing aside the competition from other puppets of the music industry without much effort and proving to the world that you can't spend your whole life being a foot soldier to a big mouse-shaped puppet. The image Timberlake chose for his second studio work, the refined gentleman capable of swiftly morphing into the Rocco Siffredi of MTV clips, worked so well that even pop's monumental heritage itself, namely Madonna, chose him as a guest star in her song 4 Minutes, a strategy also used to win over a U.S. following that no longer saw her as favorably as before. Yet despite the success, the numerous features, the abundance of collaborations, and a fan base constantly drooling over his photo shoots, Justin retired for years to pursue acting, mostly in modest blockbusters that weren't even that significant, and temporarily hung up his microphone.

The return of Timbaland’s protégé to music was an event architecturally cloaked behind a stunning curtain of secrets and suppressed rumors so that the new album, The 20/20 Experience, emerged into the limelight almost without previews and various spoilers. Having left behind sets, takes, and scripts, Timberlake embraces the musical staff again as a lost first love and resurrects the elegant (both figurative and literal) outfits of the acclaimed FutureSex/LoveSounds. The aim of the former mouse sidekick is indeed to transform himself into a sort of crooner of today's commercial pop, a lover of glamour and luxury, yet so distant from the trashy-robotic wafts of the last chaotic chart season. And here we have Mr. Elegance made into a record managing, for the second time, to produce a great mainstream masterpiece: The 20/20 Experience is perhaps the demonstration that extravagance, eccentricity, and soulless versatility can easily be replaced by the simplicity of a song and a handful of intense and sincere tracks, well-crafted in instrumental arrangements and overall mood. Confident of replicating the acclaim achieved with his previous work, Timberlake enlists Timbaland once again, who reaffirms the traditional pop-R&B "lounge" line, worldly, "chic," dense with retro and classic elements, funky, at times hip-hop, rock, and vaguely danceable. We find ourselves, therefore, facing ten tracks able to even "split" into multiple souls within themselves, reaffirming the will to enrich the pieces with outros and conclusions distinct from the rest of the dominant melodies.

Pusher Love Girl is a more than scenic start, a kind of funky-jazz-soul melody with a notable retro 007 groove that anticipates a second chapter of immersion in pop sophistication represented by the first single Suit & Tie, an R&B piece flirting with Hip Hop with a "champagne&glasses&jewels" atmosphere. Then follow the album's three pearls, namely Don't Hold The Wall, centered on a tasty ethnic-tribal melody, the delightful chill-out/ambient cauldron of Strawberry Bubblegum, and Tunnel Vision, a magnificent 2.0 version of the looming pathos of What Goes Around... Comes Around. Mention also goes to the seductive Let The Groove Get In, another example of urban-pop embracing afro-tribality, the semi-electronic/trance dreaminess of the ballad Blue Ocean Floor, and Mirrors, a classic dance-R&B piece in Timbaland's style easily comparable to the glories of Cry Me a River.

When the kid becomes a man and Mickey Mouse's jacket turns into a suit and tie: The 20/20 Experience definitively symbolizes the transition from insipid fantasy to a multifaceted reality made of feelings and melodies, the abandonment of Big Brother for kids in the form of puppets and castles, the settling into a stable chair in the mainstream community. Justin Timberlake reenters the sacred conclave of pop, sitting relaxed and enjoying the catfights of starlets and fake starlets pulling hair and wigs to snatch an ever-bigger slice of non-avant-gardism and non-futurism.

Justin Timberlake, The 20/20 Experience

Pusher Love Girl - Suit & Tie - Don't Hold The Wall - Strawberry Bubblegum - Tunnel Vision - Spaceship Couple - That Girl - Let The Groove Get In - Mirrors - Blue Ocean Floor