After a six year hiatus from music, the teen-pop star turned R&B singer Justin Timberlake has made a classy return to music with his new album, The 20/20 Experience.
The album is a mix of old school R&B and modern pop.
Timberlake incorporates orchestral strings and Hip-Hop beats into several of the songs, while keeping a hint of vintage R&B/Soul on every track. Timberlake’s vocals on the album are organic and impressive, and his famous falsettos are clear as ever on every track.
Timberlake’s influences can be easily seen on The 20/20 Experience. “Strawberry Bubblegum” is an electro-jam, and slides into an organ-heavy vamp, similar to Stevie Wonder’s “You Are the Sunshine of My Life”. “Let the Groove Get In” resembles a more Latin based “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’” by Michael Jackson, wheras “That Girl” sounds like a slow Hip-Hop remix to an Al Greene song.
Although he channels these music legends, Timberlake’s songs are unique in their own right. Timberlake’s new album is more musically complex than an average pop album, but perhaps too complex for the album to become a major commercial success.
Out of the 10 songs on the album, seven are over seven minutes long, which is an eternity for most Top 40 radio oriented listeners.
While his fans have raved about his return, many others feel that his style is deviating too far from the pop music he used to produce.
The lead single off the album, “Suit & Tie,” received mixed reviews at first. Many people thought that “Suit & Tie” sounded dated, and that Jay-Z’s rap verse was a desperate attempt to keep the song cool.
Nevertheless, the song peaked at #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and has worked its way onto Top 40 radio’s power playlists all around the country. “Suit & Tie” is the only song off of The 20/20 Experience that somewhat resembles the format of today’s popular music. But the fact that it still disappointed many makes it unlikely that the rest of the album will see major commercial success.
A few of the songs on the album sound very similar, and because of their length, became really repetitive. “Tunnel Vision” and “Spaceship Coupe” have very similar sounding beats, and run consecutively on the album. This makes the two songs blend together into one long and repetitive ballad.
The only song on the album, apart from “Suit and Tie,” that has hit potential is “Mirrors. ” Although it is over eight minutes long, the song has a catchy pop melody, and differs from the rest of the album’s “old school with a twist” sound by using modern guitar and synthesizers to create a very radio-friendly melodic sound.
Overall, Justin Timberlake’s The 20/20 Experience is a unique and sophisticated sounding album. If you are into modern R&B, or songs that sound similar to Frank Ocean’s work, you will probably like what Timberlake has to offer. For fans, the six year wait may have been disappointing, but the album will certainly make up for it.
