On the day of its release, Justin Timberlake’s diverse album The 20/20 Experience – 2 of 2 climbed to the top of the purchased albums on iTunes.
This album, released Sept. 30, and its counterpart The 20/20 Experience, released last March, are the product of a 20-day music intensive session by Timberlake and his musical team to produce songs spontaneously and with a time constraint.
The album proves to be full of variety, but the individual tracks tend to drone on and lose the listener’s interest due to their repetitive nature.
The album features songs of increasing length, with the final song on the album being a little over 11 minutes.
Artists like Drake and regular Timberlake collaborator Timbaland make rap appearances in the songs “TKO” and “Cabaret”. These collaborations by other artists add different styles to the album, as well as the pop and rap vocals similar to those in other popular tracks.
Timberlake ventured into music paths that were not common in his past musical career. One of the most unique pieces on the album is “Take Back the Night.” It features brass and string instruments which incorporates the big band sound of the 70’s and 80’s. The vocals cycle between smooth and jazzy to a short falsetto verse.
Timberlake made the interesting artistic choice of combining two songs with no transition in between in his last song, “Not a Bad Thing.”
Part one of “Not a Bad Thing” has the slight feel and pace of Timberlake’s past work in the boy band ‘N Sync. It is a love song with the 90’s pop feel that Timberlake started out with.
Out of the 11 songs, more than half of them incorporated explicit content. The album is definitely geared to an older audience, as its lyrics contain vulgar language and sexual implications.
Timberlake’s new sound and song duration would fit better in a club venue than on the radio. The lyrics would be hard to sing along to, but the heavy beats make songs, like True Blood, easy to dance to.
The final song, unfortunately, does not leave the audience with a lasting impression. “Not a Bad Thing”, is an attempt at an acoustic love song, but falls short of engaging. Although not outstanding on the musical front, it does stage the diversity Timberlake incorporated into the album. He experimented with a wide variety of techniques from bluesy vocals to techno beats.
Although the album features lengthy and occasionally monotonous songs, there are a few that are memorable. The 20/20 Experience – 2 of 2 represents Timberlake’s attempt at a young adult audience and unique take on his traditionally pop/R&B sound.
