Justin Timberlake - The 20-20 Experience: The Complete Experience (2013) [Official Digital Download]

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Justin Timberlake - The 20-20 Experience: The Complete Experience (2013) [Official Digital Download]

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Justin Timberlake - The 20-20 Experience: The Complete Experience (2013)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time - 154:05 minutes | 1,72 GB
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Artwork: Front cover(s)

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Justin Timberlake - The 20-20 Experience: The Complete Experience (2013) [Official Digital Download]

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Justin Timberlake - The 20/20 Experience (2013) [Deluxe Edition]
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time - 79:32 minutes | 901 MB
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Artwork: Front cover

Once Justin Timberlake finished touring in support of FutureSex/LoveSounds, music making slid to the side as acting, endorsing, investing, and talent grooming took precedence. The few appearances from 2007 through 2012 – through collaborations with Madonna, Duran Duran, 50 Cent, Ciara, and new jack ballad mode Lonely Island, often in partnership with Timbaland – confirmed that the cutting edge was not his concern. Aligning with the Neptunes in 2002 and with Timbaland in 2006 were not bold creative risks either, but working with Timbaland once more makes it plain that Timberlake wanted to remain within his comfort zone. Along with co-producer Jerome "J-Roc" Harmon and fellow songwriter James Fauntleroy, the Tims have made a refined and distended follow-up to FutureSex/LoveSounds. Seventy minutes in duration, it's only four minutes longer but contains two fewer songs and maybe half as many ideas. Opener "Pusher Love Girl" sets the tone for the program; the first three of its eight minutes would make for an elegant sweet-soul introduction, but Timberlake's extended drug-metaphor testimonial over a flat, faintly shifting beat dulls the mind rather than hypnotizes it. "Strawberry Bubblegum" recalls a time when groups like the S.O.S. Band and 52nd Street released extended mixes of club ballads, though the bottom isn't as thick, and it comes with three bonus minutes of Sly Stone-style rhythm box puttering that facilitates more metaphorical macking. Around its 5:20 mark, "Mirrors" switches from an ideally shaped heartfelt ballad of devotion into a slog. By the seventh drifting minute, it prompts questions like "Is this where the stage hands will change sets?" and "Is this actually about himself?" Few songs are dynamic enough to justify their length. "Let the Groove Get In," something like a modernized hybrid of Michael Jackson's "Wanna Be Starting Something" and Lionel Richie's "All Night Long," is undeniably festive. The relatively raw soul throwback "That Girl" adds a slight Southern touch and does not wander. "Suit & Tie," a lighthearted and goofily dashing throwback, serves the same flirty dancefloor purpose as "Rock Your Body," drawing from early- to mid-'70s soul instead of late-'70s disco-funk. Timberlake referred to the song, the lead single, as "just the wink." It's far from the only one here – a pleasant and grown but tedious release from a charismatic entertainer and exceptional vocal arranger who is not a great recording artist.

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Justin Timberlake - The 20-20 Experience: The Complete Experience (2013) [Official Digital Download]

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The 20/20 Experience - 2 of 2 (2013)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time - 74:33 minutes | 915 MB
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Artwork: Front cover

Just before the release of The 20/20 Experience, the Roots' ?uestlove, who opened as a DJ for Justin Timberlake's SXSW festival appearance, announced that there would be a sequel. A little more than six months later, it was released, consisting of more recordings from Timberlake's May-June 2012 sessions with friend Timbaland, Jerome Harmon, and James Fauntleroy. The construction is similar to that of the first volume. At 74 minutes and 11 (or 12) songs, it's a little longer, and much of it has that feel-over-concision, part-improv – just spit ballin'! – makeup. It starts more energetically, with a frivolous and robust jam for singles night at a zoo or Rainforest Café. The funkier and more frantic "True Blood" increases the energy and humor, swaps out nature effects for fantasy howls. Its ideas are exhausted after three and a half minutes, but it continues for another six. Relatively concise, "Cabaret," a standout featuring Drake, revamps Timbaland's trademark stuttering drums and has some of Timberlake's more clever/nauseating lines: "If sex is a contest, then you're coming first"; "'Cause I got you saying Jesus so much, it's like we're laying in a manger." Serving the same purpose of "Suit & Tie," "Take Back the Night" is another throwback to sophisticated disco-funk, but it resembles a cover of a deep soundtrack cut rather than a fresh spin on a classic. The second half is a laborious crawl, a variety of glorified and slow bonus tracks. It consists of slumping quasi blues, passable falsetto-soul balladry, a jilted post-breakup number with an extended coda, a blaring kiss-off that shifts into air-horn-enhanced dub (why not?), and a squeaky-clean adult pop love song. That's five songs in 37 minutes, though it's really six songs counting the hidden bit – a solo acoustic ballad containing the line "If I could, I'd fly you away on a big ol' pair of wings." The album was sold separately and bundled with part one, not as The Complete 20/20 Experience, but as The 20/20 Experience: The Complete Experience. Taken in one shot, the complete version plays out like an excessively expanded edition of the album.