#AlbumPick – The 20/20 experience

Justin Timberlake is such a natural entertainer – such a charismatic and effortlessly appealing singer, dancer and showman – that it’s easy to ignore how weirdly, how willfully, he’s gone about his career. He graduated from the Mickey Mouse Club to ‘NSync to solo superstardom – a natural enough progression – but then, at the height of his success, he spit the bit, jettisoning music to dabble in movies, SNL viral videos and, um, golf. Timberlake released his superb second album, FutureSex/LoveSounds, years ago, an eternity in pop music. When that album’s lead single, “SexyBack,” first hit the charts in the summer of 2006, no one had ever heard of Lady Gaga or Justin Bieber.

Now, suddenly, Timberlake is back – and he’s sounding woollier than ever. The 20/20 Experience is the biggest pop event of 2013 so far, but it’s not quite a pop album. Its sense of musical space-time is more elastic and sprawling than anything on the radio: The 10 tracks average seven minutes; songs unfurl into vamps, abruptly change keys, pile on unexpected beats and harmonies. The music is catchy, but the emphasis is on rhythm and flow. In one showpiece, JT chants over brass, percussion and strings; the music takes a world’s worth of sounds: Afrobeat, soca, bhangra, “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’.” The song is called “Let the Groove Get In.” It would have been an apt album title.

You might call The 20/20 Experience Timberlake’s neo-soul record. (It has more in common with D’Angelo and Maxwell than Usher or Bieber.) “Pusher Love Girl,” an ode to the intoxicating effects of love and sex, borrows Curtis Mayfield’s falsetto and Stevie Wonder’s chord changes; the swinging groove of “Suit & Tie” is pure “What’s Going On”-era Marvin Gaye. There are other period touches: When guitarist Elliott Ives steps forward for a rippling solo in “Spaceship Coupe,” it sounds as if Eddie Hazel, the great Parliament-Funkadelic axman, has piloted his mother­ship into Timberlake’s orbit.

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