Daily Times

When singer-songwriter Justin Timberlake decided to strike out on his own in 2002, it was a move that had fans and music critics alike wondering exactly what the 22-year-old singer was thinking.

NSync was on top of the world, just coming off their Celebrity Tour, the second tour to promote their third album of the same name. Their greatest rivals, The Backstreet Boys, had fallen into what would be a lengthy hiatus of their own. And it had truly been quite some time since any boy band had been able to produced a performer worthy of going solo and launching a career like Michael Jackson had done 20 years earlier.

To put it mildly, Timberlake was taking a risk. And then along came ‘Justified’.

For his first output without his bandmates, who were telling fans at the time they were simply on a hiatus, Timberlake followed the path to total autonomy over his artistic expression that began on NSync’s Celebrity album, which he and JC Chasez wrote and produced several tracks on. For six weeks, Timberlake hunkered down with hip-hop stars Timbaland and The Neptunes, as well as singer Brian McKnight, to create an album that, if not purposely anti-NSYNC, at least announced to that group’s fans that its star vocalist had done some growing up. And knew a thing or two about music history, to boot.

“I wasn’t consciously trying to make a non-NSYNC record,” he told Billboard just days ahead of the album’s November 5, 2002 release. “I was trying to make a multi-dimensional record; a record that captured the vibe of my favourite time in music, the ‘60s. For the six weeks that we worked on these songs, I got to live in my own musical dream world and play a little hip-hop, a little old-school R&B, a little classic rock. It was so much fun-and I learned a lot about making music in a totally different way than I was used to.”

Success was not guaranteed. First, there were the comparisons to Jackson, the last male pop star of any real consequence to attempt anything like this, to overcome. Then there were the expectations of NSync fans to subvert. Would this album nakedly ape Jackson’s type? Or simply be an extension of the boy band’s sound?

Lead single “Like I love you” wouldn’t help on the former front, with its vocal licks that felt quite reminiscent of the “Thriller” singer, but right off the bat it was clear that, despite his protestations otherwise, the group that brought him success-and the limitations that came along with being a member-was firmly in Timberlake’s rear-view mirror.

“We drove around in the car listening to old Earth, Wind & Fire albums, and he was totally with it,” Chad Hugo, one half of The Neptunes, told MTV at the time. “The background of those songs is the feeling we wanted to incorporate into the music. He was like, ‘Nobody’s ever heard anything like that before…a white boy singing this kind of music.’ He didn’t care what people would say.”

“We listened to Off the Wall and Thriller a bunch of times to really get the feel of them and create something that’s not a sample, but similar to those songs without recycling them,” the producer added. “We just wanted to re-create that sense of those timeless, classic songs, without any of the ‘bling, bling, hit me on my two-way’ style of the new R&B. It has elements of the old and the new.”

“I was raised on Donny Hathaway, Stevie Wonder, and Al Green; they’re the artists who have shaped the way I approach music,” Timberlake explained to Billboard. “When I sing, I don’t close my eyes and try to channel Michael Jackson, who has had an undeniable influence on me as a stage performer. I think about Donny Hathaway. I think about how 100% present he was in his songs. He seemed to be living each word, each syllable as he sang it. That’s the energy I’m reaching for when I sing.” It’s that alchemy of old and new that Hugo spoke about 15 years ago that was so striking when the album was finally released. Justified was unlike anything on the radio at that time, whether it was “Senorita” with its Latin-influenced vibe and unforgettable call-and-response section, Timbaland’s sputtering production on “(Oh No) What You Got” and “Cry Me a River,” or the Wonder-esque “Nothin’ Else.” The album was confluence of influences, references and interpretations. And it was one that said, “You thought you knew Justin Timberlake? You had no idea.”

Published in Daily Times, November 9^th 2017.