Album Review: Justin Timberlake - The 20/20 Experience Part 2

Sometimes, we all have to do things that we don’t really want to do.

Going to work. Family gatherings. Mowing the lawn. Paying bills.

I mean, those are all pretty lightweight, middle class problems. But in the curious case of Justin Timberlake, when he has to do something he doesn’t want to do—it’s make a record in 20 days, and then go on a gigantic tour in support of it, because he was paid $20 million by Live Nation a long time ago, and they were like, “hey, are you gonna do all that shit we asked you to do and gave you money to do?”

In the wake of Timberlake’s return to music earlier this year, and his maddeningly self-indulgent The 20/20 Experience, it was revealed in a lengthy article that the entire album and somewhat half-assed promotional roll out behind it was all part of a contractual obligation.

So after shitting out the first part of the 20/20 Experience, and selling over two million copies as of this month—moving 968,000 albums the first week alone, JT is back with an unfortunate collection of tracks that didn’t make the cut the first time around, as well as additional material pulled together from more recent recording sessions—74 minutes of what passes for music, aptly titled The 20/20 Experience 2 of 2.

The main fatal flaw in Part 1 of this odyssey of pop music was that nearly every song was well over six or seven minutes long. And in nearly every case, that didn’t need to happen. Structurally, you could hear each song wind down to a natural conclusion, but then things kept happening, and the piece would be stretched out for double the length. “Mirrors” is a prime example of this—a brilliant, powerful pop song—probably one of the best mainstream songs of 2013; it comes to a logical close about five minutes in. But wait? What’s this? Oh you’re going to keep that going for another four minutes?

Are you sure you want to—ok. I see. Yeah. Yeah JT. The tape is still rolling.

Timberlake plays it safe with a five-minute opening track—“Gimme What I Don’t Know (I Want.)” Regardless of the runtime, this is bad. Really, really bad. The whole song feels sluggish right from the start, and for fuck’s sake—the jungle/animal metaphor is incredibly cringe-worthy. The second verse beings with the lyric “Show me your teeth and now spread your wings.” This is the first of many, many rapey lyrics throughout the course of this Experience.

Why is a “spooky” sounding song about sexy vampires, creatively titled “True Blood,” nearly ten minutes long?  No. This isn’t a rhetorical question. Like, I legitimately want to understand the thinking behind this.

Hey here’s an example of a lyric from “Caberet”—“Now can we discuss how fast you just got undressed? Girl if sex is a contest then you're coming first…” Who else needs to shower after hearing something like that? Hm? Show of hands. Anyone else? Jesus Christ you have to be kidding me.

And then, wow—it gets better in the chorus—“…You giving me everything you got.

All I really want now is more…” With lyrics like that, I’m amazed that the issue of “rape culture” is still something people don’t see in our stupid society.

Timberlake already drew some criticism earlier in the summer with the lead single from this debacle—a song called “Take Back The Night.” Somehow, he wasn’t aware of the organization standing against things like domestic violence and sexual assault—the organization of the VERY SAME NAME that has been around for OVER 35 YEARS. And an organization like this sure as shit was not happy to have their name stolen and used in this song.

As derivative as it is of Off The Wall-era Michael Jackson, and as awful of a move as it is to play dumb when naming a song the very same thing as an organization that stands for PRETTY MUCH everything being promoted on this record— coming at the halfway point of 20/20 Part 2, “Take Back The Night” is one of the few songs that actually has a little energy behind it.

Whether this is one of the “newly recorded” songs or if it just happens to be a better-than-average outtake from the first record, you can tell that some thought (at least production-wise) went into “Take Back The Night.” You unfortunately cannot say the same thing about the songs leading up to it.

Timberlake manages to keep the energy going for a little bit, and things get bigger after the halfway point—“Murder” features bombastic beats and horn arrangements, and then Jay Z shows up for another cameo, sounding slightly more awake than he did on his verse from “Suit and Tie”—this is followed by the stompy, faux-Southern soul of “Drink You Away.”

As things speed towards the end, my patience started to wear a little thin. “You Got it On” is a relatively schmaltzy ballad, “Amnesia” relies on heavy synths and neat vocal effects, but at seven minutes, it wears out its welcome. “Only When I Walk Away” features crunchy electric guitars and compressed to hell vocals; then later, dubstep air horns, and some weird dialog spoken by producer Timbaland. All of these songs are easily written off as filler—which is an issue with pop records in general; you need some content to get you from one guaranteed smash single to the next.

Justin Timberlake- "Not A Bad Thing"

In an interesting twist, as the final moments of 20/20 Part 2 arrive, Timberlake actually saves the best for last—“Not A Bad Thing” is everything a pop love song should be—strummy acoustic guitars, a catchy refrain, and an added bonus of some shimmery, dream poppy, “Mirrors”-y electric guitar work. It’s the kind of song that is literally begging to played over the ending credits of a romantic comedy.

While “Mirrors” was designed to be an emotionally manipulative pop song—the same way as “Wrecking Ball” by Miley Cyrus, “Not A Bad Thing” is just straight up fun. Like cruising around in a convertible, and really enjoying life for once kind of fun.

It’s also a moment on the album when you can breathe a sigh of relief—the track length listed is thankfully misleading—as perfect as “Not A Bad Thing” is, is there a need for it to be 11 minutes long?

Well it’s not. There’s a HIDDEN TRACK you guys!

In the era of mp3s and iPods, who even does a hidden track? I guess Justin Timberlake does. A saccharine acoustic ballad—JT’s gonna “fly you away on a big ol’ pair of wings.” Yeah, that’s the name of the song. “Pair of Wings.”

In the era of mp3s and iPods, everybody does “iTunes exclusive” bonus tracks—there are two additional songs on the “deluxe” edition of 20/20 Part 2. This, paired with an obvious “closing” track, and a hidden track, makes no sense at all, and it makes one wonder why even bother with cohesion and album structure when you’re just going to go and fuck it up like this.

The first of these bonus tracks, “Blindess,” is actually pretty good—it’s exponentially better than many of the songs of the legit album. It’s a smoove R&B jam, like a poor man’s D’Angelo—like I’m not saying that in a bad way. It’s just the first thing that comes to mind. The second bonus track, “Electric Lady,” is more of the same Timbaland produced, middle of the road pop music—yet another throwaway track on a collection of what is probably mostly throwaway tracks.

I don’t really know what the take away from The 20/20 Experience Part 2 is. Part 1 was seen as some kind of revelation because it ended Timberlake’s six plus year musical silence. Part 1 was excessive and self-indulgent, with only a few real saving graces. Part 2 is more of the same—“Not a Bad Thing” is simply incredible, but it’s not incredible enough to make up for the ten other songs that arrive before it.

When the first part of the 20/20 Experience arrived, prior to the information about this all being a force-hand contractual obligation, it seemed that Timberlake was desperately trying to taken seriously as an artist with his extended track lengths.  Now it’s easy to look at that as him taking a piss on Live Nation—“Sure, I’ll record some albums. But man, these songs are gonna be SO LONG. That’ll show ‘em.” The lines between art and commerce have been smudged, and that’s the unfortunate black cloud hanging over this project.

Not all that long ago, Timberlake famously said in an interview that music wasn’t where he was at, so when his return was announced at the start of this year, it was quite the surprise. Once the tour behind both of these records is over, and presumably once Live Nation has a little less of a grip on Timberlake, it will be really interesting to see how long he stays away from music this time around.

The “complete” 20/20 Experience isn’t exactly a hot mess, but it’s astoundingly unfocused. Between the two albums, bonus and hidden tracks included, it runs a total of 26 songs. Rarely amazing as a whole, 20/20 Part 2 specifically feels terribly phoned in and strained for creativity. The project overall, in the end, sounds like a pop star who grew to be almost “too good” for music, but was strong armed into a past he was hoping everyone forgot about.

This joke is nearly too easy, but, if hindsight is 20/20, as they say, Timberlake should have maybe never taken that Live Nation deal.

The 20/20 Experience 2 of 2 is available now in a plethora of formats. And if you missed Part 1 the first time around, why not buy them both in a special commemorative package?