Justin Timberlake Isn't Cool Anymore and That Is Okay
Why Timberlake feels like an afterthought in 2023
This past week, the perpetually dissatisfied internet had another tedious debate, this time about Justin Timberlake hopping on the remix of Coco Jones’ “ICU”. Was Jones’ selling out for easy white validation with an increasingly contentious public figure? Or is Timberlake looking for some much needed street cred in the R&B world? What place does Justin Timberlake hold in our pop culture in 2023 and is he needed?
As we get further and further from the early 2000s, Timberlake has had to come to terms with a critical re-evaluation of his career.
While he was always the biggest male pop star of the 2000s, Timberlake has struggled for the past decade with commercial success, relevance, music quality and the public’s opinion. Timberlake has never had a solid narrative around his celebrity status. After a turn as the lead singer and face of juggernaut 90s boy band NSYNC, Timberlake entered 2002 primed for a solo career, assisted by innovative production from The Neptunes and Timbaland, Justified and then 2006’s FutureSex/LoveSounds made him one of the leading artists of R&B and pop. As good as the music was, Timberlake never had a solid persona to him. Much of the promotion around Justified was centered on his very public and infamous breakup with Britney Spears. While she got misogynistic backlash in the press, Timberlake didn’t seem to get any blowback at all. Combined with the infamous Superbowl moment that changed Janet Jackson’s career forever but left Justin Timberlake relatively unaffected, no wonder Timberlake felt invincible.
He’s a white man after all.
As forward sounding as his music was, even at its best, his music was always a bit thematically shallow. He could croon about women and sex like most male singers, but it isn’t necessarily interesting enough to attract a die hard fanbase when the tunes stop hitting.
Much of Timberlake’s current woes have been attributed to his 4th studio album, the critically hated and commercially underperforming, Man of the Woods. A confusing mish mash of country, folk and urban sounds, many felt like it was an attempt by Timberlake to dismiss the black culture that made him famous in the first place. Since Man of the Woods, other than a few infrequent and slightly desperate sounding features, Timberlake hasn’t made much noise since. I don’t mean to put too much emphasis on the charts, everyone hits their commercial peak eventually, but Timberlake lost more than just some record sales in the past years, he lost his… coolness.
The ability of “cool” is hard to define but we can all recognize it. And whatever is cool right now, Justin Timberlake is the exact opposite of it. Quiet as it’s kept, he lost it years before Man of the Woods with a little event. You know what we're talking about.
Trollz.
When Timberlake made “Can’t Stop The Feeling” in 2016, a tie-in song for the animated Trollz movie soundtrack, I don’t think anyone expected it to be as big as it was. What was probably just an easy check for him quickly became the highest selling song of the year. It’s a saccharine, cloyingly sweet and on the nose kid friendly pop song that felt like it was forced on all of us for the next two years. Suddenly Timberlake wasn’t the sexy and energetic popstar of the 2000s nor the more mature, groovy and funky star of the early 2010s. Now he was the corny, washed dad and husband who made children’s music.
“Can’t Stop the Feeling” isn’t bad, it isn’t really anything at all. It’s a cardboard cut out pretending to be a song. It’s the air left inside a fifth grader’s deflated birthday party balloon. It’s the leftover sugar in the cotton candy machine after a long day at the carnival. It’s the faint taste of fruit left behind on your tongue after you drink a LaCroix. It’s the most anonymous fluff in Timberlake’s whole discography. He lost his cool and Man of the Woods did not help him get it back.
As he puts off a releasing a 5th album, you can’t help but feel like his collaborations with Justine Skye, Calvin Harris, SZA, etc are an attempt to capture younger fans who will never see him as the hip new music to put on.
Justin Timberlake is a good performer but he was never as great of a showman as Usher or most of his female peers. He’s an asshole but not in a funny way like Justin Bieber. He’s a misogynist but not in the dark and mysterious way The Weeknd has managed to pull off (we’ll unpack him at a later date). He lacks the charisma of Bruno Mars, the relatability of Ed Sheeran, the visuals of Harry Styles and the authenticity of any black entertainer he models himself after.
So what are we left with?
Music that is better made than almost all the men I mentioned, but as we all know, that’s never enough to sustain pop stardom.
There’s nothing wrong with losing your cool, most female stars lose it much faster than their male counterparts. Kelly Clarkson and P!nk have been distinctly for the soccer moms for almost a decade now and embraced adult contemporary radio with grace.
I can’t help but think about Justin Timberlake’s early career and how closely it has paralleled Beyonce’s, his peer who distinctly has not lost her cool yet (though she’s come close to it a couple of times).
While she may not be breaking streaming records as some of the younger musicians, a Beyonce feature still means something, what she wears still matters, how she moves and what music she makes is still in the zeitgeist. Beyonce has stopped trying to maintain commercial success for years now, yet ironically Beyonce’s rejection of current music trends makes her seem fresh with every release.
You can’t help but think that Timberlake should be in the same space, his skills a music producer far surpass most people around him and his albums have always sounded from the future. Even Man of the Woods is something I have always commended for at least trying to sound different.
Usher is also someone similar who I think has had a rocky road with maintaining his relevance, (I’m still trying to figure out why he has a song with the City Girls) but when he started to embrace his legacy he started to gain that coolness back. Is a new Usher song going to blow up the charts anytime soon? No, probably not, but with smart features like his song with Summer Walker, a Vegas Residency, a viral NPR Tiny Desk performance and more, I think Usher is finally realizing he doesn’t need to try to be hip to stay on people’s tongues. I mean, he’s Usher baby!
I can’t tell Timberlake what music he should or shouldn’t make, all I can suggest is to move with a sense of authenticity and not with the fear of commercial failure.
Justin Timberlake said during his press tour of Man of the Woods that he’s not ready to do a Vegas residency, saying it feels “like you’re planning your retirement.” Maybe he needs to think more about that position, his greatest strength is his sheer musical talent, it’s time to remind people what he’s capable of. Or risk being an afterthought to future generations.
Very excellent
To most males he was never great just pushed by the music industry and 13 year old girls