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There is a lot to learn from a title like Everything I thought I was, especially from an artist like Justin Timberlake, who returns today with his fifth album in a 22-year solo career. He typically waits at least five years to release an album, which makes every Timberlake release a big deal. But the weight he carries in 2024 is very different from each of those previous records, and Everything I thought I was – based solely on the title – marked a more introspective and mature return.
His past-tense phrasing suggested that Timberlake was truly living in the present, looking back on 30 years in show business and coming to terms with his public identity, his relationships, his successes and mistakes, and perhaps, his pain. After all this time away, would this be JT’s course-correcting album that could get us back on his side?
From the first song of Everything I thought I was, “Memphis,” which refers to his hometown, it seems like that’s the album he was looking to make. “Who cares if you’re lonely while you’re famous?” Timberlake asks rhetorically, and then sings, “Who cares if there’s too much on your plate?/Don’t make mistakes and hide your pain.” He sounds a little watered down, his passionate tenor muted for the sake of fun, hip-hop-adjacent storytelling.
The song overall is a little flat, but the ideas behind it (Timberlake being sold an unattainable ideal when he began this journey) are definitely intriguing. For a former boy band star who has been (appropriately) criticized for her complicity in the early 2000s misogyny that took its toll on Britney Spears and Janet Jackson, there’s a lot to unpack. Timberlake became famous very, very young, and it is undeniable that he received toxic messages that altered the psyche of the men in his life, from executives, from dance and singing coaches, from producers, from his own colleagues, from the culture in general. . .
Based on the album’s title and first song, you’d think Timberlake would hold up his end of the deal and reveal a little more of himself. He does not. The rest of the album is as straightforward as they come, to the point that it makes 2018’s Americana/folk-pop/country/soul rebrand. forest man I feel, in some ways, more ambitious. The only ambitious thing about Everything I thought I was is its tracklist, whose 18 songs last a laborious 77 minutes.
There are some slightly insightful lyrical concepts about loneliness (“Alone”), aging (“Paradise”), and generally feeling hopeless (“Drown”). But for the most part, every song on Everything I thought I was it’s about having good sex, fucking in the club, being in love or feeling wronged by an ex, in the same vein as two really good Justin Timberlake songs, “Cry Me a River” and “What Comes Around (Goes Around). ).”
The letters (there are many) tell us very little about him, especially the caramel ones. As we saw on the album’s lackluster lead single, “Selfish,” it’s all romantic filler: “Your lips were made for mine,” he sings. On “My Favorite Drug,” he sings, “Your hips are hypnotizing me / How your vibe fits into mine,” and if you think that’s wildly unimaginative, wait until you hear “Infinity Sex.”
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It’s only on the last three tracks of the album that Timberlake digs deeper beneath the surface of the club again. “Paradise,” which features *NSYNC, is actually a little sweet, with JC Chasez reassuring Timberlake as he sings, “All this time I’ve always wondered if I’d feel the same / as when we were young and not afraid.” .”
Unlike much of forest maneverything in the album sounds good. The album’s various producers (Timbaland, Danja, Cirkut, Calvin Harris, and Post Malone whisperer Louis Bell) are competent, employing an avalanche of clean, pleasing beats, occasional shifts in vibes in the back half, and all the details necessary to an 18-track pop album in 2024. But there is no life behind it. There are no moments of disorder or instrumental power, nor arrangements that rival the majesty of “Pusher Love Girl” or “Lovestoned.” Timberlake mentions sex so often that the funky underpinning of these songs deserves a little smut in the mix a la Pharrell. But instead, they give us a nightclub for the devotees, a sanitized excuse for Studio 54.
There are some nice moments, like the warm harmonies and vocoders that Timberlake often employs. In some ways, the dancehall beat of “Liar (feat. Fireboy DML)” is quite slick, and “Sanctified” featuring Tobe Nwigwe has a full gospel-rock chorus where you can practically see the fire cannons exploding alongside Timberlake. The seven-minute “Technicolor” is as musically complex as the album, and recalls the cinematic ambition of FutureSex/LoveSounds.
In the end, however, Everything I thought I was It feels less like a terrible Justin Timberlake album and more like wasted potential. forest man It was terrible, but at least he took a risk. This one is good, frictionless and overwhelmingly secure.
Justin Timberlake has been writing love songs since day one. He’s been writing about sex (having sex, wanting sex, being sexy) for almost as long. He has never had to sing about anything else, because for a long time his charisma made up for the lack of variety. Those first two solo albums had depth anyway, in their layered arrangements, ambitious sequences, in the atmosphere and vibe that Timberlake and his producers curated together. It seemed as if forest mangrown man Justin Timberlake, husband and father, realized he didn’t have to write about sex anymore and it ended up being his least successful album.
Now, here he is, trying to return to the era when he was full of appeal, treading those same soft, crooning waters, as if nothing had changed between now and 2007, except for the occasional trap beat. It would have been much riskier for Timberlake to make the album he promises in “Memphis.” But at this point, I’d prefer that to this lukewarm, heavy, Target-core album by Justin Timberlake. should have been yours Lemonade; instead, it’s just a lemon.
Ed. Note: You may not have liked this album (we certainly didn’t), but it sounds like it would be fun to see it live. Get tickets to Justin Timberlake’s 2024 tour here.