Justin Timberlake: bringing sexy back

So, Justin Timberlake takes drugs. This is somehow considered a newsworthy revelation, despite the fact that a) it's hardly uncommon for music stars to get high and b) Timberlake has the tact and discretion to do whatever he does at home, away from the prying eyes of paparazzi and teenaged girls.

What's more fascinating to me is that Timberlake continues to be thought of as a latter-day pop genius. The guy's got some skillz, it's true, and he's responsible for some pretty catchy tunes. But you'd think he walked to the recording studio over a body of water the way the music press raves about him. His stuff strikes me as the musical equivalent of monosodium glutamate in Chinese food: It satisfies at first, but you're hungry an hour later. Maybe that's the point, if you're going back for a second helping. No wonder he sells so many records!

His new single, "SexyBack" (available here), is built around a hypnotic synth riff, and Timberlake announces in his tough-guy-lover croon, "I'm bringing sexy back." Who knew sexy had left? Not the Eagles of Death Metal, who called their latest album "Death By Sexy." Kelefa Sanneh apparently felt the absence of sexy, though. He wrote an interesting essay about that topic, in the context of Timberlake, in The New York Times a few weeks ago.

Comments

[dl004d]

Drugs, eh? That helps explain why he thinks iPods are so confusing:
http://tinyurl.com/ghpvc