Having put his music career on hold for the last three years to concentrate on his “movie career”, the once mop top pop tart is back with FutureSex/ LoveSounds, the follow up to his seven million selling solo debut Justified. That sound you hear is an unsettling combination of female screams and cracking knuckles.
Timberlake started working on the album in LA with will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas and career resuscitator of choice Rick Rubin, but it wasn’t until he hooked up with hip hop’s main man Timbaland at the Hit Factory in Miami that the creative juices really began to flow, with the dynamic duo hell bent on covering new ground for pop music.
“I realise that I have a platform to push the sound of pop music. That’s the only responsibility that I put on myself in recording the album,” Timberlake recently told a news conference during his promotional tour. “If I’m not going to push it, then who’s going to?”
Hmm, how long have you got?
They say:
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We say:
FutureSex/ LoveSounds is far from being the revolutionary pop release Timberlake professes it to be, but that’s not to say it’s ultimately garbage.
On the contrary, it’s a welcome departure from the ultra sleek, painfully insipid Justified, embracing diversity and transcending the singer’s previous limitations – thanks to Timbaland, of course.
The title track is a fine example of this, a dirty funktastic ditty that sample’s Queen’s ‘Another One Bites the Dust’ in between flaunting elements of mid ‘80s Prince slow burn funk mixed with ‘90s Michael Hutchence lust. It’s destined to be a huge hit.
As is ‘My Love’, a stylish Salsa tinged R&B ballad, complete with stuttering synth and human beatbox percussion, not forgetting a dash of soulful wailing over the chorus. In other words, it’s the sonic sibling of ‘Cry Me a River’. But unlike that 2003 break up hit, ‘My Love’ is altogether soothing rather than vindictive.
Instead, Timberlake saves the malice for ‘What Goes Around/Comes Around’, another impressive R&B ballad, in which the protagonist gets dumped by a girl but manages to have the last laugh.
Naturally, the album is not without the odd stinker, none more so than the flaccid ‘SexyBack’ – Timberlake’s first ever UK number one single – which grows more tiresome with each listen and proves there’s no accounting for public taste.
Still, moments such as this are few and far between. And while it’s hardly life affirming stuff, FutureSex/ LoveSounds is a great deal better than your average pop/R&B album – and that includes Beyonce’s latest. God, I’ll probably hate myself in the morning…
Like this? Try these:
Michael Jackson – Bad
Prince – Ultimate
Nelly Furtado – Loose
RELEASED
11th Sept '06
LABEL
RCA
POSTED...
Wed 6 Sep 2006 at 9:12am
