Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 11/09/06
Label: SonyBMG

Glancing at the title, you can't help but think of OutKast's "Speakerboxx / The Love Below", their rough'n'romantic double album, and wonder if Mr JT's second solo long-player is aiming at the same duality. (It is sometimes within the same song: "Lovestoned / I Think She Knows".) And then there's the cover - an artful, style-maggy Terry Richardson portrait of the erstwhile boybander stomping on a disco ball with a pointy shoe (and looking not unlike Mr Burns in the process).

It's a clear message, echoed across the 12 tracks (plus a bonus) herein - the party that started on "Justified", and saw Timberlake eclipse both his ex (Mrs Federline) and childhood co-star Christina Aguilera for hip credentials - after years as the non-threatening, curly-topped cute one in N'Sync - is over. Now comes the lovin'? The first casualties of Justin's libidinous regime are The Neptunes. Their signature production style, which in truth they merely loaned him for his solo debut, is gone, replaced by Timbaland's omnipotent, flatulent and simply filthy bass.

The Quincy-era Michael Jackson touches are largely absent too, aside from the odd cheeky drop-in, replaced by a sinuous Prince-y sound with the occasional Stevie flourish (not least on the well-intentioned but ineffectual anti-crack anthem "Losing My Way": "Hi, my name is Bob and I work at my job / I make forty-something dollars a day..."). It's audibly more mature, more 'manly', but it's arguable whether it's any improvement.

And the there's the small matter of where he's been these past three years. His acting career has 'straight to DVD' written all over it and his musical output in the interim has amounted to little more than quick falsetto cameos on Neptunes and Snoop tracks. He's no mere guest on his own album, however, co-writing every song and co-producing all but three tracks, but he's still only as good as his collaborators - like fellow pop chameleons Kylie and Madonna, he's a fantastic performer with no set sound of his own. So there are tracks that could, in truth, be anyone's - only who else could do them this well?

The singles take a few spins to emerge - the austere bleep of "SexyBack" still seems like an odd choice for anything other than a statement of intent but both the R&B-techno soundclash of "My Love" and Will.I.Am's shuffling, bluesy "Damn Girl" resume normal services - but even the lesser efforts are superior to typical chart fare. Justin's coming-of-age party might be over but the dancefloor isn't empty just yet.

    by Emma Morgan