Justin Timberlake online.
I’m delayed in talking about Justin Timberlake because 1) I was out on vacation throughout most of March and 2) I never felt compelled to form a thought to think about thinking about a new Justin Timberlake album. This doesn’t mean I hate the guy or his music. Timberlake reminds me of my younger days when I was the target audience for pop music, and I still weirdly think fondly of *NSYNC’s better-than-drinking-warm-eggs-out-of-Max-Martin’s-flip-flop Christmas album. Mindful of my lazy inclination to “Remember when?” the past decades of popular music in order to dismiss any modern music I don’t like (I’m in my 30s, obviously), I’m nostalgic for a time when pop stars could get away with being vaguer in their music and lyrics and their jobs were to present fun and the “idea” of fun for the sake of just being fun and not trying to fit themselves into some larger grand narrative. This is why the whole flailing indie sleaze movement makes me roll my eyes. Everyone wants sleazy music but no one wants to be or will accept actual sleaziness; self-righteousness is the one thing that unites modern rock, indie, and pop fans in the United States. As Popcast rightfully points out, Usher was Timberlake’s musical twin, and, though both performers are still big enough to headline a Super Bowl halftime show, User was able to navigate celebrity much more smoothly. The MCU-ification of pop continues to slog along and poor Justin (and even Usher) only knows how to perform the music that first made him famous. Maybe only one of the two has embraced being washed. Growing up is hard. Still, “No Angels” is underwhelming. After all these words, I have nothing interesting to say about the music itself except that the bass sounds better than average. At least it doesn’t try to act deep.
-Brady Gerber
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