Justin Timberlake Futuresex / Lovesounds CD

Riding on the momentum of Timberlake's success comes this deluxe edition CD, with 3 brand new audio tracks, one featuring 50 Cent, duet with Beyonce, and tracks featuring Timbaland, T.I., Three-6 Mafia, Will.i.am, and Missy Elliot. Also included is a DVD with 60 minutes of bonus material, including 4 live performances from European TV programs, none of which have ever been shown in the U.S.!

Personnel: Justin Timberlake (vocals, guitar, piano); Timbaland (rap vocals, various instruments, programming); T.I., Three 6 Mafia, will.i.am (rap vocals).
Music critics and highbrow listeners may look down their nose at Justin Timberlake, doubting that the celebrated former N'Sync leader is good for more than light, frothy dance-pop. Timberlakes's sophomore effort, FUTURESEX/LOVESOUNDS, should make both camps rethink that stance. While the album certainly sets out to entertain, it's also full of ambitious, well-constructed grooves that prove the superstar is serious about getting down and dirty. The album steps up the Michael Jackson-influenced sound of JUSTIFIED by delving deeper into club music, hip-hop, and funk, creating a bumping, writhing soundtrack for a set of songs unabashedly about sex.
Timberlake spared no expense recruiting some of the best producers on the scene. Beatmaker extraordinaire Timbaland is a primary collaborator, and his experimental stutter-funk landscapes make for the album's best moments (the title track, for example, or the spare, driving lead-off single "Sexyback"). Early Prince is a major touchstone for much of the disc, but Timberlake also draws on rolling, Dirty South jams ("Chop Me Up") and smooth, urban-contemporary loverman R&B ("My Love"). Its obsession with the bedroom notwithstanding, FUTURESEX/LOVESOUNDS shows Timberlake moving toward an exciting musical maturity.
Give Justin Timberlake credit for this: he has ambition. He may not have good instincts and may bungle his execution, but he sure has ambition and has ever since he was the leading heartthrob in *NSYNC. He drove the teen pop quintet to the top of the charts, far exceeding their peers the Backstreet Boys, and when the group could achieve no more, he eased into a solo career that earned him great sales and a fair amount of praise, largely centered on how he reworked the dynamic sound of early Michael Jackson at a time when Jacko was so hapless he turned away songs that later became JT hits, as in the Neptunes-propelled "Rock Your Body." That song and "Cry Me a River" turned his 2002 solo debut, Justified, into a blockbuster, which in turn meant that he started to be taken seriously -- not just by teens-turned-adult, but also by some rock critics and Hollywood, who gave him no less than three starring roles in the wake of Justified. Those films all fell victim to endless delays -- Alpha Dog aired at Sundance 2006 but didn't see release that year, nor did Black Snake Moan, which got pushed back until 2007, leaving Edison Force, a roundly panned Shattered Glass-styled thriller that sneaked out onto video, as the first Timberlake film to see the light of day -- but even if silver screen stardom proved elusive, Justin didn't seem phased at all, and his fall 2006 album FutureSex/LoveSounds proves why: he'd been pouring all his energy into his second album to ensure that he didn't have a sophomore slump.
If Michael Jackson was the touchstone for Justified, Prince provides the cornerstone of FutureSex/LoveSounds, at least to a certain extent -- Timbaland, Timberlake's chief collaborator here (a move that invites endless endlessly funny "Timbaland/Timberlake" jokes), does indeed spend plenty of time on FutureSex refurbishing the electro-funk of Prince's early-'80s recordings, just like he did with Nelly Furtado's Loose, and Timberlake's obsession with sex does indeed recall Prince's carnivorous carnality of the early '80s. But execution is everything, particularly with Timberlake, and if the clumsy title of FutureSex/LoveSounds wasn't aRolling Stone (p.86) - 3.5 stars out of 5 -- "[H]is best new tracks are thrilling....Some of the up-tempo stuff flirts with mechanical muscle-flexing..."
Rolling Stone (p.106) - Ranked #26 in Rolling Stone's "The Top 50 Albums Of 2006" -- "[O]ne of the year's most enduringly pleasurable hits."
Entertainment Weekly (p.70) - "Superior tracks like 'LoveStoned' and 'What Comes Around,' suggest a happy middle path, where Timberlake can equally embrace Timbaland's canny beats and his own vocal helium."
Entertainment Weekly (p.128) - Ranked #4 in Entertainment Weekly's "Top 10 Records Of 2006" -- "[T]he two Tims create a boldly forward-thinking soundtrack for nocturnal amusements like club cruising and rump shaking."
Q (p.122) - Ranked #36 in Q Magazine's "100 Greatest Albums of 2006" -- "[A] hyper-confident mix of stripped-down R&B and '80s electro soul."
Vibe (p.142) - "He's still got a lithe, lovely vocal instrument and a falsetto that evokes El DeBarge."
Mojo (Publisher) (p.116) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "[The titles] leave no doubt as to the chief Timberlake brand value, and the louche synth funk and electro-flavoured R&B therein make a pretty seductive back-up argument."