Album Review: Justin Timberlake, Everything I Thought It Was

A couple of years before Taylor Swift reinvented herself with the rootsy duo of Folklore and Evermore, Justin Timberlake attempted something similar with 2018’s Man Of The Woods. It’s fair to say the singer’s incorporation of Americana influences met with a more mixed reception than Swift, so on his latest album Everything I Thought It Was, Timberlake has opted to remain on more familiar funk-pop terrain.

Of course, it’s territory he has previously explored to wild success. Hopes may not have been high for Timberlake’s solo career when he departed the boyband NSYNC, but in 2002. it was his good fortune to hook up with superstar production duo The Neptunes – comprised of Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo – who were then in the midst of an all-time creative hot-streak. Utilising a bunch of demos that had previously been rejected by Michael Jackson – one of the more spectacular own goals in pop history – The Neptunes oversaw Timberlake’s hit 2003 debut Justified.

The record reached an apex with ‘Rock Your Body’, a sublime dance-pop workout that would have slotted comfortably on Jacko’s landmark early classic Off The Wall. Like all great pop stars, Timberlake continued to choose his collaborators wisely, and thus his 2006 opus FutureSex/LoveSounds yielded another era-defining mega-hit in the claustrophobic club thumper ‘SexyBack’ , this time produced by pop genius Timbaland.

The good news is Timbaland is back on the saddle for Everything I Thought It Was, with Timberlake adding another heavyweight in Calvin Harris – the production equivalent of having Kevin De Bruyne and Luka Modric playing midfield. To be honest, with such stellar talent steering the ship, it’s hard to go wrong. The Timbaland/Harris axis duly works it magic on futuristic dance-pop workouts ‘Fuckin’ Up The Disco’ and ‘No Angels’.

The peak is reached on the sublime psych-pop number ‘Play’, a giddy Timberlake relaying that “The train has left the station / I need a fuckin’ vacation” (he must have been monitoring the RTE Oireachtas hearings). Lyrically, Timberlake has never exactly been Leonard Cohen, and so Everything I Thought It Was is peppered with couplets unlikely to trouble the Pulitzer committee, such as “You got that something new / That sexy attitude” and “You know how you get when the music drops and your body pops”.

Additionally, the album comes in at an overly-generous 18 tracks. Still, at his best, Timberlake retains a stylistic flair matched by few of his peers. 8/10

Listen to Everything I Thought It Was below: