Seven years is an eternity in the world of pop music, even when you're a star of Justin Timberlake's stature. Many were expecting big things from the follow-up to 2006's excellent FutureSex/LoveSounds, and more than a few were disappointed with The 20/20 Experience this year. I wasn't disappointed by the music itself, but I think this is the good album with the worst decisions on it this year.
There are some minor bad decisions here, like slowing down for Jay-Z's verse on "Suit & Tie" (a mistake for a song that gets into such a good groove) and whatever that weird voice thing is in "Let the Groove Get In." But there's one mistake that really stands out and affects nearly every song on this album, and that's the length of the songs.
The shortest song on The 2020 Experience is 4:45, and most are between 7 and 8 minutes. The thing is, most of those long songs aren't actually that long. For whatever reason, Timberlake and producer Timbaland decided to drag out the songs with long, pointless codas instead of ending them naturally, and this really drags things down.
Timberlake's at a level where he can pretty much do whatever he wants without label interference. Normally this is a good thing for creativity, but this album could really use someone to tell him no. Or to inform him that people really don't want to listen to 8-minute pop songs.
FutureSex/LoveSounds included a few 7- or 8-minute songs that really worked in "What Goes Around Comes Around" and "LoveStoned," and that's probably where the idea behind these came from. Clearly Timberlake decided to make long songs his "thing," and that's OK, but only if the songs are actually that long. What you don't want to do is artificially drag the songs out to that length; that does nothing but hurt the album. It's a shame, because this album includes some very good songs. If only they ended where they should.
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