This album review takes a look back at Justin Timberlake’s FutureSex/LoveSounds, the record where a boy band survivor became a genre-blurring pop architect, and it turns 20 years old this month.
Genre: Pop, R&B, Electrofunk
Label: Jive Records
Release Date: September 8, 2006
Vibe: 🕺✨
👉 Click the GIF to stream the album on your favorite platform:
Picture this: It’s my prom night, senior year of high school, and the DJ drops “SexyBack” into a set built around the big movers and shakers of Top 40 radio from the summer of 2008. I’m talking Rihanna, Kanye West (back when that was still his name), Katy Perry, Chris Brown (ugh), Lil Wayne, and Metro Station (IYKYK). A mixed bag but one I have mostly fond memories of. Even though “SexyBack” had been out for nearly two years, none of us could get enough of that beat. A bunch of sweaty teenagers, dressed to the nines, swept up in this inescapably jubilent energy, our limbs bending and stuttering to that funky, electro-adjacent groove. It wasn’t quite EDM (that crossover explosion was a few months away), it wasn’t quite the clean-cut R&B of Timberlake’s previous record, Justified, and it wasn’t as hip-hop-forward as maybe it thought it was. Instead, it felt like this completely new thing, and that thing was such a sonic turn-on for my brain.
I have a soft spot for Justin Timberlake’s discography, partly because he’s been in my life since the very beginning of my music nerddom. I was the exact right age for NSYNC’s turn-of-the-century pop radio coup, where every kid on my street could bust out the dance moves from the “Bye Bye Bye” at a moment’s notice. I was in my brooding, “angry young man” phase when “Like I Love You,” “Rock Your Body,” and “Senorita” were popping off. In my twenties, I got way too dressed up and went on dates with women I was way too intimidated by to see several of his big-screen star vehicles like Friends With Benefits (which has its moments), In Time (which I recall being loud and dumb), and Runner Runner (louder and dumber). Then, a couple of years before Covid, my now-wife and I saw Timberlake in concert on his tour supporting Man of the Woods. It was a lot of fun! They even sat around a fake campfire at one point and sang a Jackson 5 song. Adorable.
Of all those pop culture artifacts, FutureSex/LoveSounds is probably his musical apex. The pop&B smash hit dominated the charts and airwaves for the better part of 2 years and sold roughly 10 million copies worldwide (4 million of those in the United States alone). Those numbers eventually got the record ranked among Billboard’s greatest albums of all time and added to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s archive. It’s also kind of nuts how many producers and songwriters working in pop, R&B, hip-hop, EDM, and a host of other genres still crib from parts of this tracklist. The cold-fusion electrofunk largely architected by Timothy “Timbaland” Mosley and Nate “Danja” Hills blazed a trail for so many spinoffs and imitators that it’s difficult to estimate how many more millions in sales they should indirectly get some credit for, but that number isn’t small. In total, six singles from FutureSex/LoveSounds made it onto the Hot 100, staying power that, when I was entering prom season anyway, wasn’t common at all.
This album came after a three-year hiatus for Timberlake, which is odd considering how successful Justified was in 2002-03. Despite his clear signal that he wanted to pull away from the boy band image that had initially made him famous, it was all most people wanted to talk to him about. Clearly, he wasn’t interested in a reunion or, zooming out, returning to that same musical well again. If we’ve learned nothing from JT’s career, it’s that he refuses to stay in a single lane long enough to be pigeonholed there (double-edged sword and all that, but still true). So, instead, he decamped to Timbaland’s then-newly built Thomas Crown Studios in Virginia Beach, where Danja later joined them. According to multiple sources, no one really walked in there with a plan. There wasn’t a ton of material pre-written for the sessions, nor did any member of that main trio have an inkling of what the vibe would be, except that they wanted it to be different.
Consider the creative process that yielded “What Goes Around…Comes Around,” a sweeping cinematic pop kiss-off that netted Timberlake two Grammy nominations (he won for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance but lost to Amy Winehouse’s “Rehab” for Record of the Year). As Danja recounted to MTV, this massive-sounding song came out of being open to happy accidents. “I think that was the beauty of the whole project,” he said. “Nobody had a thought about anything. None of us was aiming for anything.” Out of nowhere, he played a guitar riff that caught JT’s ear, which got the singer humming the eponymous hook. Everything started fitting together quickly, and, within an hour, Timberlake was in the booth, recording his vocals, all without any lyrics written down on paper. I believe the common parlance for that phenomenon is “locked in.”
Ultimately, it’s a concoction that Danja likened to scoring a film, albeit with the signature Timbaland Southern thump underpinning the quivering strings and falsetto. The arrangement ebbs and flows effortlessly with Timberlake’s performance, never threatening to overtake his starring role, but also refusing to reduce itself to background schmaltz. “Justin’s telling a story, and where the story gets interesting, that’s where the music has to change and take you to the next scene,” Danja explained. “It just takes you to the end, dies out, breaks down, and then it gets even more dramatic with the interlude. The song is like you’re crying, and you’re feeling all the heartbreak. But the interlude, that’s anger, and it’s vengeful.” The full listening experience (not just the single version) has aged like a fine wine against the backdrop of Timberlake’s maturation as a pop music mainstay. I’m trying to think of a track that tops it in his discography, but nothing’s coming to mind. A hedge, but it’s out of love.
The entire album came together in similar fashion. In an interview with Zane Lowe, Timberlake explained that the earworm of a hook that opens “SexyBack” was a real-time riff over Timbaland’s beat. Rinse and repeat with “My Love,” “Sexy Ladies,” “Until the End of Time,” and several others. “Every day brought out a different feeling,” the producer later said of the recording process. JT and the rest of his team were listening to a lot more rock and old-school R&B (specifically, David Bowie and Prince) while making this record, and you can hear it in nearly every note. There’s an edge to his polished delivery that, back in 2006, I hadn’t heard from him before. That sweet, supple charisma was seasoned with a pinch of paranoia and desperation in certain moments, which I found fascinating. Underneath all the horny posturing, you get the sense that there’s a side of him who would’ve left a Favreau answering machine message or two if given the chance.
As I’m sure some albums do for you, FutureSex/LoveSounds instantly transports me back to the end of my high school years, a period of my life that I look back on with bittersweet affection. I didn’t enjoy actually being in or going to high school (for the most part, I couldn’t wait to leave), but, with the benefit of hindsight, I see how hard I was on myself and, sadly, how unwilling I was to let myself relax and live in the moment, despite ample opportunity to do so. On the occasions that I did, mostly in the last two years before I graduated, this album was a big part of the soundtrack. “Summer Love” was the track that spilled out of rolled-down car windows during aimless drives and parking lot seances, where my friends and I talked breathlessly about nothing at all. Part of me wishes I’d done more of that, whatever “that” was, but another part of me wouldn’t change a thing. That’s the beauty of growing up. You take everything, warts and all, and end up cracking a smile remembering it in crystal-clear flashes.
Anyone else a Justin Timberlake fan? Shout out any favorite tracks of his in the comments.
Justin fan here too 👋🏻 He’s so underrated. Thanks for this great throw-back.