Generally, I find that I’ll eat anything put in front of me. But the menu at Justin Timberlake’s private listening party for his new album Man of the Woods put that theory to the test. The food, catered by the restaurant Noma, was of a piece with Timberlake’s rustic album rollout: there were ants, watercress, wild beach plants, sea urchin, kelp and grasshoppers. And also a spherical Danish pancake called aebleskiver. Perhaps enjoying such delicacies requires a certain level of sophistication, of woodsiness. I apparently fall short of that threshold.
The menu and album title, not to mention the makeshift greenery that filled the event space, seemed to indicate what many have suspected: that Man of the Woods signals Timberlake’s mid-career pivot from sex symbol to woodsman, from tequila to IPA, from pop to country. Many of the track titles on Man of the Woods would bolster this assumption: Flannel, Montana, Breeze Off the Pond and Livin’ Off the Land, to name a few. But don’t worry: Man of the Woods is not Justin Timberlake’s Llewyn Davis phase. It’s actually just the Latin translation of his son’s name, Silas.
Timberlake told us as much at last night’s listening session, where cellphones were prohibited and vinyls fashioned to look like tree bark distributed. Part of the proceeds from the ticket sales benefited the National Parks Foundation, and there was a photo-booth featuring a log cabin and a fake gilded taxidermy. The whole thing reminded me of Lady Gaga’s rollout for Joanne – her own supposedly radical rebrand – which was sponsored by Bud Light and featured lots of cowboy hats. This time, though, the sponsor was American Express, and cowboy hats were exchanged for termite-themed hors d’oeuvres.
Timberlake, predictably wearing a jean jacket and camouflage pants, briefly introduced the album and its nominal inspirations before it played at what the singer called “an unspeakable volume”. The music itself sounds diametrically opposed to its own promotion, which has nonetheless inspired some very amusing memes invoking Timberlake’s all-denim outfit at the 2001 American Music Awards. Filthy, the lead single, is tried-and-true dance-pop; Supplies, a video for which was released this morning, is more of the same, with a funky, futuristic beat and a catchy chorus.
The album has echoes of both Chance the Rapper and Bruno Mars, but more than anything it reminded me of Timberlake himself, which makes the aggressively arcadian PR strategy even more confusing. Many songs feature that famously silky falsetto backed up by vaguely trap- and Caribbean-inspired stylings. One song features country artist Chris Stapleton, and while it’s one of the album’s best, it feels a bit perfunctory in the context of Timberlake’s dog whistle to the wild west.
Man of the Woods is a reliably good album from a reliably good artist, similar in nature to both Future Sex/Love Sounds and The 20/20 Experience; what it’s not is some sort of reinvention. Timberlake’s not going to appear at this year’s Super Bowl half-time show on horseback, and I seriously doubt he will even pick up a guitar. But either the singer or his handlers very much want us to think he will and, for one of the biggest and most talented pop stars of the last two decades, the fake-out is rather ill-advised, turning a bona fide superstar into a punchline.
And yet, after seeing the music video for Supplies this morning, it seems like Timberlake’s basically just trying on various trends for size. Two months ago, his Woody Allen-directed film Wonder Wheel was released. Soon after, when the teaser video for Man of the Woods dropped online, people joked that Timberlake had finally realized he’s a white dude. But in Supplies, footage of Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, the #MeToo movement and Black Lives Matter protesters flash across dozens of TV screens. Then Timberlake croons: “I’ll be the wood when you need heat, I’ll be the generator, turn me on when you need electricity.” What social justice movements or sexual abuse have to do with the Timberlake’s affinity for salacious double entendres is not immediately clear. But more than anything he appears conflicted about what contemporary trends to parrot for personal gain. The end result is, sadly, something out of a Portlandia sketch.
