Justin Timberlake in 2013

"When we were making the record I said, 'If Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin can do 10-minute songs and Queen can do 10-minute songs then why can't we?' We'll figure out the radio edits later.''

also, while rev otm that who cares what artists say, this is relevant because it bolsters the argument that JT wants to do 10-minute songs because he thinks that's what you do to be a credible canonical artist, not because the songs demand it. or as katherine put it so concisely and correctly in her review - "It’s runtime solely as conspicuous consumption — and as rockist cred"

operative word is SOLELY - his intentions wouldn't matter if the songs benefited from this decision but they.just.don't.at.all.

I don't see Tunnel Vision or Let The Groove Get In or Don't Hold The Wall being any more devotional or comfortable than Lovestoned or Summer Love or whatever.

Plus, FS/LV has 4 songs w love in the title vs 20's 1. Settled.

well an album can be full of love songs without requiring critics to then make the leap to saying 'oh they must be about his marriage!!' but critics did

and rihanna can make an album full of songs about dangerous doomed love featuring chris brown without requiring people to assume "oh they must be about her relationship" i guess, idk biographical criticism is dodgy ground but the sotosian line of considering it irrelevant at all times is equally dubious imo

what was the biographical subtext of FS/LS? was there one. did JT get a time machine

about having sex in the future

I just don't hear anything in these lyrics that wasn't already there before. Same vague platitudes you'd get on lots of pop albums.
What leads you to imagine an autobiographical slant?

for sure! i think it's a useful angle to take at times, but at other times criticism from that angle feels for a lack of effervescence, as it does here. i don't subscribe to the strong position of the intentional fallacy btw. i do think that it's a deceptively comfortable position to take w/r/t tons of art, where youre like, well i dont quite know how to verbalize my reaction to the art itself... so let me talk about the artist and her life for 500 words!! i can wikipedia that. and people can relate, it'll be a human interest story.

yes, the "Access Hollywood" approach to art, which is reductive and almost always goes with calling the artist by first name

Wait, how is a song with the word 'groove' in the title intentional too long in some elaborate attempt at rockist canonization rather than being just, you know, wanting to jam for as long as they wanted because who's going to stop them?

hell if I could I'd call Prince "Nelson."

the thing is most (good) reviews of both rihanna and JT albums talked about the bio stuff for a bit and ALSO talked about the general positioning and ALSO crucially talked about the music quite a lot (as katherine did), so acting like everyone's just lazily landing on the gossip angle for clicks is just...did you even read it

ha – I said katherine's article was one of my favorites for precisely that reason

yes, and I pointed out what I didn't agree with! what are you angry about, lex

yes, the "Access Hollywood" approach to art, which is reductive and almost always goes with calling the artist by first name

it's just as reductive to pretend you can divorce the music and personal lives of most big pop artists, especially now, when their private lives are as much a part of their brand as the clothes they wear or the music they make,

i'm not angry, i'm vaguely irritated at your perennial habit of twisting the stuff you criticise into something that it's not so your own case is stronger (which you just did again by calling me angry)

holy shit I realized I am the only person to do have ever done that on ILX

Bowie's not a Big Pop Artist anymore but this review is exactly the kind of let's say formalist take that works and doesn't even mention biography.

you are definitely not the only person to do that

xp

alfred would you seriously review, say, "nobody's business" by rihanna ft. chris brown without once mentioning biography. like really? it's totally irrelevant? you gotta be formalist at all times? the artists' lives have no bearing on how that song was released and received by fans?

it might be irrelevant to YOU and that's fine & dandy but that's just an ivory tower position

You're stacking the deck in that case, but, yes, I'd allude to their, er, fraught relationship – in the same way that I'd mention George Jones and Tammy Wynette's or Tim McGraw and Faith Hill's. I object, though, to dismissing Brown because he's an asshole. He's an asshole who makes dull or worse music. If I liked the material, then we're in Lou Reed territory.

You could argue the Rih track is begging for that kinda reading though, no?

I just don't see anything lyrically that references how ppl view JT and JB on his record.

formalist, new criticism angles are just another tool in the critic's toolbox! like authorial intent. choose the one that makes the record jump and twitch for you. no need to be a martinet about these things.

I think formalism can be overly dry, but I also could have done without the decade of Depeche Mode reviews that were only about Dave Gahan's herion addiction.

Part of me also suspects that a bunch of this is a reaction to this is a pop album and bio is tabloid and marriage rather than say... Ian Curtis died, should I mention that in this review of.. hey what's their new band called?

Bowie's not a Big Pop Artist anymore but this review is exactly the kind of let's say formalist take that works and doesn't even mention biography.

That's because a) even people who like Bowie don't care about his personal life in 2013 and b) he's so established that there's no point in raking over old ground. Writing about Bowie in the 70s without mentioning any biographical detail strikes me as faintly ridiculous though.

I agree that Justin's marriage is not particularly interesting though. Did we bang on endlessly about Cameron Diaz when FutureSex/LoveSounds came out? I can't remember.

but no one is actually banging on about his marriage apart from the people yelling about how we shouldn't imagine it

it's been mentioned tangentially in a few reviews, and in fact, perhaps surprisingly, was not part of the marketing blurb

ok.

let's go back to talking about the long songs then. ;)

Did we bang on endlessly about Cameron Diaz when FutureSex/LoveSounds came out? I can't remember.

I remember thinking "oh he wants to marry her" when I heard "My Love" and then they broke up

Big sales.

alfred is your position actually that biography = irrelevant? i personally think biographical readings tend to be boring and lazy; katherine's isn't bc it identifies it as a narrative through which the album fails

Again, I said yesterday that katherine's review is my favorite of the pans.

My position is that I hesitate before alluding to biography.

oh yeah i was just trying to clarify your position and then also figure out my own

I don't really see the point in focusing on the bio of the artist, especially in the case of a pop star like JT where it's not like he's got a particularly interesting life or part in History with capital "H"...
and anyway, in any form of art, I don't care about the author's life, personality, etc (the old debate about the artist/the art, especially in cases like Celine, etc).
for me, only the art matters.
most of the times I don't know anything about the personal life of the artists.
and if for some reason I get particularly interested in the artist I can dig up to know more about him/her but that's something else.
anyway, back to 20/20, I can totally enjoy it without knowing/caring whatsoever about the context of its creation...
it's only popmusic (and I like it) !

This thread is bringing back fond memories of all the times I've argued with Alfred about the relevance of biography.

normally I don't like focusing on the bio of an artist (or writer, filmmaker, whatever), and it results in a lot of bullshit generally and distraction from what artists are really doing, but with celebrities (which Justin is) you almost have to -- to a certain extent -- because they do.

I'm reading one on Isherwood now!

xpost

Four or five spins later: i can't get with Suit and Tie or Spaceship Coupe or Mirrors or Blue Ocean Floor but the rest of the album is loads of fun, fuck tha haters

you named like half the album

i don't really see how this album can be viewed through any lens but marriage, but that's just me. the fact that it's to a famous actress is irrelevant tho, there's nothing interesting about their relationship.

The arrangements (esp the vocals) are amazing and gorgeous. I think that's where "Mirrors" (too stiff and bombastic) and "Blue Ocean Floor" (too bare) fall down by comparison to the rest of the record.

i named like 40% of the album; the six other tracks are quite good and some of them are excellent
so a more reasonable title might be 20/260 Vision

But I love how the bombasticness of Mirror collapses in the quite lovely outro. I really think that song is made better by it's length.

the more I listen to the album, the more I like it.
I know (almost) everybody finds it awful but I think "blue ocean" might be the most moving song he's done yet !
simple and beautiful.
obviously this album can't be compared to the previous ones as far as "hits" are concerned but as an album I think it's my favorite, now.
it's very smooth.

A friend sent this link to me: http://howupsetting.tumblr.com/post/45998580240/when-the-now-infamous-janet-jackson-incident

as bad as i feel for janet for the bs surrounding the super bowl incident but the cw that's arisen that it's responsible for killing her career is somewhat off imo - her career needed a defibrillator at that point already, the incident just made a true comeback that much more difficult (madonna might've been able to spin it, but someone like janet was never gonna be able to as the following months proved). i'm not sure how much damita jo (which came out a couple of months later anyway) would've been a hit under the best of circumstances. she was nearly 40 and this wasn't the 80s when the radio had plenty of time for middle aged folk. i remember at the time wondering if timberlake's reaction (which was pretty understandable - survival's the first instinct - and if he didn't 'defend' her or whatever he didn't exactly throw her under the bus entirely) would have any serious negative impact for him, it might've helped him that it came in a down point in the cycle for him post-justified and pre-fs/ls. have just been assuming he's a likely super bowl performer (though it being in new jersey next year probably = bon jovi right?), i guess it's possible his attachment to that incident would cause the league to block him though considering they didn't blink at the outrage over beyonce's performance this year i think they've moved on as well.

One can argue that Jackson was in the beginning of a career decline that no wardrobe malfunction would have decelerated and still think he cut his losses pretty ruthlessly.

it ain't show friends

but how quickly one dismisses T-Lake depends on how much you think he sucks already (I don't).

I really really don't think JT was clearly paying attention to channel orange, though. nothing here is even remotely like channel orange. (not even Blue Ocean Floor!)