As someone 100% sure that he would not provide anything better than his last album, FutureSex/LoveSounds, I sat with it for multiple listens before giving a knee jerk reaction and had an open mind.
The 20/20 Experience is a result of artistic restlessness and being unsure of how to move forward. When you can't move forward and paint the next progressive musical picture, the easiest thing to do is pull from the past. Reworking old R&B/Soul records and adding a 2013 mainstream finish is the meat & potatoes of the album. Unfortunately, what worked for and what was so cool about the first single "Suit & Tie" just doesn't work for 10 more tracks of the same structure and format.
I had a conversation with a friend (a big Justin fan) this morning, and she described the album as "time consuming". I think a better description is self indulgent and empty. The production on The 20/20 Experience is a lot better than some of the actual songs and melodies. The slick production gives off the appearance of something extremely grand, but behind Timberlake's glitz & glam, it's really just average. The song lengths are afterthoughts I'm sure. I'd be willing to bet the original form of the tracks, and album in general, was thin & lean. To make up for that, they added transitions to every song & overproduced it through fun (and at times retread) production quirks. I think it was actually a very insecure thing to do, and to some degree it's a little desperate in trying to make every song eventful. There's a lot of polish here, but the polish is see through. When all else fails, beatbox and add in a couple 808's for 2 more minutes I guess.
With all that being said, I think it's a decent effort. The songs that standout are "Don't Hold The Wall' and "Strawberry Bubblegum".
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