After disappearing from the Billboard 200 for half a decade, Justin Timberlake isn’t quite ready to let go of the limelight yet. Waiting a mere five months since his last release, the Prince of Pop has given his fans an entirely new suite of decadent pop, whose high notes hit the operatic, on the imaginatively named The 20/20 Experience 2 of 2. Yet, this isn’t a collection of B-sides that didn’t “make the cut” or the Amnesiac to JT’s Kid A but rather an album that stands ambitiously on its own. In Part 1, JT showed us a new mature side of him, completed by his other half, Jessica Biel. However, in Part 2, JT wants to remind us that he is still the casanova who brought sexy back in FutureSex/LoveSounds.
If Part 1 welcomed us back to Timberlake’s pop music kingdom, Part 2 has taken us on a neon-lit groovy tour of its nightlife district. Taking cues from Thriller, JT and Timbaland deliver slightly darker beats in an infectious, champagne-popping fashion. The heavy, gothic synths and funk guitar riffs in “True Blood” and “Murder” are ripped right out of “Billie Jean.”
Following suit, JT’s lyrics in songs such as “Cabaret” are much more wild and sensual, and the Hollywood dream girls of Part 1 are now seductive femme fatales, the kind with a price for the night. Both Drake and Jay-Z rock solid guest verses, detailing their hard-to-get temptresses, which are vast improvements from Jay-Z’s sluggish contribution to “Suit & Tie.”
Striving to be legendary, Timberlake refuses to be a Michael-emulating, one-trick pony. Toward the end of the album, he takes more musical risks, though with varying degrees of success. In “Drink You Away,” JT channels the inner Tennessee kid in him that we often forget about. The song is a hard-stomping southern rock anthem fueled by Jack Daniels. However, the album takes an unexpected odd turn on the final track, “Not a Bad Thing,” a boy band-esque love ode that belongs more on a Jesse McCartney comeback album. While The 20/20 Experience 2 of 2 attempts to be JT’s most thematically unified album, it ironically ends as his least cohesive.