Justin Timberlake in 2013

bite your tongue

― Stephen Thomas Duttywine (some dude),

point your toes

A+

Wonder if Trevor Horn has heard it yet.

Checked and the Buggles song is "Elstree."

kinda diggin' this Justin Timberlake is the personal representative of Dr. Yakub on Earth interp tbh

I do feel obligated to say that Damita Jo is kinda underrated and had some jams tho

Oh god I've just noticed the squishy mouth noises on Strawberry Bubblegum. Like at least Beyonce had the good grace to let Kanye shit all over what was already the worst track on 4, but Strawberry Bubblegum is sonically gorgeous and just ruined by so many 'eww god no' moments.

looking more and more like JT's New Jersey.

Tbf strawberry bounce. >>>>>>> strawberry bubblegum

Just to add to what I said last night, if "Mirrors" was 5:30 and ended after that awesome coda, I think it's classic songwriting (verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus) and it IS anchored by that sixteen-line, fifty second chorus.

Also like the repeating second half of the verse, how it's contrasting like it's a section unto itself and is a refrain of its own (especially the way it starts with that "pocket full of soap" line), as though the chorus didn't already provide enough repeating hooks.

"mirrors" is #1 in the UK

music television is caning the brit awards performance, a maximalist one of strain & effort & punchiness besides which the og sounds like ambient chillout

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXtEnURrlBY

lol tf with that pedestrian beat on mirrors

yeah, mirrors strikes me as the most generic and boring cut on the album, like he needed to put in one bruno mars-ish track to stay down with the kids and this was it

midtempo power ballads are really the new threat to everything

I want to agree that Bruno Mars proved that middling New Wave "homages" are a threat. Be afraid of Trey Songz trying his own "New World Man."

that=but

Live performance just emphasizes how over the top that thing is imo.

Not sure what the trend I'm describing has to do with new wave. If anything, "Locked Out of Heaven" is the one big Bruno Mars hit that circumvents that issue. And MMTS has already fell victim to the power ballad trend. This is has been on the radio here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foZLo_sSnkk

It just feels like this is replacing EDM-pop as the standard default-to.

ha I was just making a crack. Thin-voiced crooners doing New Wave would force me to swim out to sea in the hopes of being attacked by sharks.

after about ten listens, i've boiled this down to Pusher Love Girl/Tunnel Vision/Let the Groove Get In
and 2 minutes apiece of Don't Hold the Wall/That Girl + the coda on Strawberry Bubblegum
that's a solid 30 minute EP and enough for me to rep for this IMO

i think the songs i like all are based around casiotone presets!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfKwtsx9RYo

Thin-voiced crooners

Like Smokey Robinson or Al Green?

yes exactly like Smokey and Al Green.

i don't know why anyone would attribute "Mirrors" to the influence/competition of Bruno Mars when it sounds EXACTLY like hits from Justin's previous albums

idk it fits very neatly into this post-adele karaoke reality tv moment whereby the mid-tempo power ballad is the perfect form for belting it out while packing in sentimentality, all retro'd up

it's not really a power ballad? shipz otm i don't feel like it has anything to do with "this moment" at all

yeah i mean i listen to Bruno's "When I Was Your Man" and Rihanna's "Stay" and i think the label DEFINITELY had visions of "Someone Like You" when they released them as singles. i don't think "Mirrors" or much of anything on this album couldn't have been written 5 years ago.

that's kind of my theory about long-gestating albums -- usually when someone takes 5+ years to follow-up a record, the result isn't really any more of an aesthetic leap from the previous record than if they'd just cranked it out in 2 years

mirrors doesn't remind me of old JT in any way but i may just have mentally skipped over anything that sounded like that at the time? got a comparison track there?

The way the chorus starts - that's classic power ballad sound.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCTJmXrgsFg

mirrors sounds absolutely nothing like any of Justin's old hits and I am actually confused as to how anyone even hears that

it doesn't resemble "What Goes Around" or "Cry Me A River" to you guys at all?

I think you are being sarcastic maybe? It does not sound even a little like either of those songs to me.

not being sarcastic at all!

Huh. Ok then, we are hearing it different then.

"then"

i'm with ship

all three move like they're on rails, inexorably towards a conclusion

"Mirrors" is on a cattle car burdened with cow manure though.

the production to me is very 00's boy band stylee, while the song itself is p blah and not as well written or dynamic as that kind of stuff usually was

The vocal arrangements and melodic progression also scream "boy band".

Still a boring, unadventurous vanilla cookie as the NY Times pegged him last Sunday

i also always think of the og "cry" where ethan says the song is too much like "are you that somebody" which i don't really agree with but it does bring to mind how often timbo is just rearranging the same rhythmic and melodic elements in slightly different forms over and over: justin - cry me a river

I could argue he's doing what Jam-Lewis were up to in 90 or '91 but Jam-Lewis were aesthetically in better shape.

your mom was in better shape

when my dick lifted her.

what the

lololol