This summer I got myself in a dance music frenzy crafting many a mixtape hellbent on getting me [and possibly a few others when played outside the confines of my own home] to shake that ass. I took two steps forward, but often I had to take a few steps back, way back, back into time and find some jams that should not be forgotten and could always make a comeback when the time is right. On paper it seems that one mix, Oh My God! That Is My Jam! had a set of guidelines, with the number one rule being no song on this mix can be produced after 1990. Indeep, Diana Ross, Ready For The World, Tom Tom Club, Parliament. Yeah I could have gave you some Junior Boys, some Basement Jaxx, maybe a little LCD, but naw I went to the roots, I kicked it old school, and I have no regrets about it all.
Don't get me wrong, I love me some Basement Jaxx, Junior Boys, and LCD Soundsystem, but you can't refute the classics. And they know that too. That's why you can hear a little bit of Prince in Basement or a little bit of Glam in LCD. And that's why you can hear a little bit of that old school magic in Justin Timberlake's latest outing, the magnificent Futuresex/Lovesounds. If Justified was a declaration of a soft boy band member let loose sans curfew, then FS/LS represents a few years after the fact, when the nights stay longer, purple haze keep taking you higher, and the party don't stop til the break of dawn.
Justin himself has said that he wanted to craft an album that took you back to a time when dancing and having a good time was the norm and not just an option for the night. And things get started off right with the jaunty futuristic bounce of Futuresex/Lovesounds, a four minute jam that blends into the David Byrne/David Bowiesque simplicity of Sexyback, which then melds into his first foray into MJ territory [it was bound to happen] Sexy Ladies/Let Me Talk To You a guitar heavy jam that lays the funk on thick.
It's an wild ride that almost seems never ending, and Timbaland [along with Will.i.am and Rick Rubin]look to live instrumentation, licks, blips, and beats of the past to keep the engine running, but if anything Futuresex/Lovesounds reminds one of an album released post 1990, by Justin's [god]mentor Michael Jackson: Dangerous. On that album Teddy Riley played Timbaland to Michael Jackson's Justin, and for the first six songs, the energy and grit is non-stop, as songs blend into each other effortlessly. The same can be said here. After Sexy Ladies/Let Me Talk To You comes My Love, and A+ affair featuring T.I. that's all falsetto, impeccable percussion, and vocal theatrics we all have come to know and love since Aaliyah's Are You That Somebody? This is followed by the 7 1/2 groove of Lovestoned/I Think that she knows [my personal favorite]that borrows a little bit of Usher's sneer and all of Michael Jackson's attitude [in a good way].
Like Dangerous the album slows down as it comes to a close. It even contains a Will you be there/Keep the Faith track [Losing my way, in which Justin puts himself in the shoes of a meth addict complete with an orchestra and a back up choir], but unlike MJ's outing, JT's slow jams are less schmaltzy and stay true to what is promised from the title. Until the end of time carries itself as if it were an outtake from Prince's 2 disc opus Sign of the times, while the Rick Rubin produced (Another Song)All Over Again nods towards Brian Mcknight, losing the theatrics and production present in every other track on the disc, leaving us alone with Justin's emotional yearning for another chance and a few taps from a piano. It's a cool down relax jam, a come down from the high. You are now free to call it a night, even if the sun is slowly rising.
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