Justified

This album made me feel like I was being groomed

Respectfully, solo JT is just not for me. I'm good

The four singles are solid, iconic and nostalgic and have successfully worked their way back into my rotation. I am a big sucker for the production on Cry My A River, I just love it so much, those weird vocal layers in the background - so good. Everything outside these is filler bloat so they could actually release an "album". They all sound the same and cover the most banal and uninspired topics. Truly vapid stuff. It was honestly difficult to pick my least favourite. The production is decent across the board, some actual depth and character, but lyrically and vocally just absolute drivel. To be fair, this includes the four singles too, but they're actually more interesting and have stronger hooks and themes. The rest feels... remedial. Most: Cry Me A River Least: Take It From Here, Last Night, Still On My Brain - basically everything not a single Rating: 1, even with four Certified Banger singles that are a lovely blast from the past to listen to, the rest in between is unlistenable.

Dread is what I felt when this showed up. I might be carrying a bit of prejudice against 2000's pop music so this will be a challenging listen. I am praying I at least can get through this, as this is at least from a period in time where JT was considered cool. Unlike today where a generational drop off has seen him completely fall off the map, relevancy wise. I fear the length of this thing. Going into this with low expectations and hoping I'll find something to enjoy here. Señorita Off to a bad start. Hate the intro. The triangle is extremely annoying. Cringe lyrics. His voice is very good. A varied and well paced performance. Some sections sound very busy. Drags. Hate the outro. His personality on this track is really cheesy and performative. Strongly dislike. 1.5/5 Like I Love You Uuuuuuuuuugh hate the whispery soft spoken intro. The drums sound like tin cans. Generic cringeworthy lyrics. Genuinely difficult to get through. Free me from falsetto hell. Dated beyond belief. Awful. 1/5 (Oh No) What You Got Annoying. Torturous flute. The synth is kinda cool. Almost decent chorus. At least it's mostly just boring, doesn't actually make me die inside. Even though some of the effects on the vocals sound terrible. Dislike. 2/5 Take It From Here Holy hell that's the corniest lyrics I've ever heard, makes me wanna shut this song off immediately. The whispering is not sexy, it's just weird, dude. Kinda getting into the vibe of the vocal melody on the chorus. Has it's moments, but the bad far outweighs the good. Way too long. Dislike. 2/5 Cry Me A River The production here is just waaaay too much. It sounds ridiculous. The chorus is admitably catchy. The bridge does break up the monotony a bit, but it also does suck, just sounds lifeless and flat. Overproduced and annoying, but mostly inoffensive. Dislike. 2/5 Rock Your Body Sterile disco inspired instrumental, lacks any real soul or smoothness. Don't mind the chorus, though it's a bit overproduced. The duet aspect of the song strangly works pretty well. "Nekkid" is a word that should never be said by anyone ever. The outro kills any energy or dancability the song has. Makes it peter out in an unsatisfying way. Average. 2.5/5 Nothin' Else 2 minutes went by before I noticed it was even playing. Slow, monotonous, boring. Awful synths. Annoying vocal ad-libs. There are sections in there where you can find some pretty harmonies I suppose. I guess the bass is kinda memorable. Dislike. 2/5 Last Night Busy. Don't really get what the instrumental is trying to do, just sounds messy. Irritating chorus. Also commits the great sin of being bland as hell. Generic track that way overstays it welcome. Strongly dislike. 1.5/5 Still On My Brain So incredibly inauthentic. Hate the wind chimes. Mostly inoffensive, but bland as hell. Would rather listen to elevator music. Strongly dislike. 1.5/5 (And She Said) Take Me Now Doing my best not to zone out completely. Really don't like the drums. Cringeworthy, vapid lyrics again. The additional vocals just makes the song sound busy. Hate the grunting. Who in their right mind thought this song needed to be 5 minutes and 30 seconds long. The outro section adds exactly zero value. Awful. 1/5 Right For Me Help me. This is purgatory. The rap verse is a real downer, sounds completely phoned in. Otherwise generic and bland. Strongly dislike. 1.5/5 Let's Take A Ride What in hell was that intro. What the hell was that first verse. This concept just doesn't work. The looping instrumental gets really repetitive. Nothing chorus. I truly don't know if this track is particularly bad or if I'm just fed up with this album, but I felt such a relief when it was over. Awful. 1/5 Never Again ... will I listen to this album! Who cares. Boring as balls. The extremely basic, generic lyrics don't help. Sounds like they're made with a generator. Approaching parody. The performance feels manifactured. Strongly dislike. 1.5/5 It's times like these where I appreciate the current era of music accesibility. I can go online and find pretty much anything, from experimental german noise rock, to today's trendiest pop-star's freshest album. Music streaming has been available for around two decades now and never in that time have I wanted to listen to Justin Timberlake. And why is that? Because his music is bland as hell. It's an absolute masterclass in pandering to the lowest common denominator to the point where it approaches self parody. There's so little interesting material on here that I'd genuinely find more enjoyment out of listening to TV-static, as I could at least see it having some meditative qualities. Here you're presented with an artist who absolutely CAN sing and a producer who definitely is capable of producing, but their combined effort feels so calculated, cold and manufactured that you're left with an inauthentic, soulless experience. Each track has about a minute of dead space, that just wastes your time on unecessary additions or tasteless repetition. This bloats the album to such an extent that it drags until I'm so bored I completely zone out. And I admit that the hits on this thing have moments where they're really catchy and memorable, but even they are marred with the same blandness, or even in some cases overproduction which makes the remaining sections od those tracks nigh unlistenable. Justin Timberlake is a talented guy, and apparently puts on a pretty good live show, but this album is just not it. Judging by his future work he at least gets somewhat better before falling off a cliff again. 1/5

I can’t get thru it yuck

Nee. Gewoon nee.

Ugh.

Good God, please no.

This is a lot, and it's not good. It's big and ambitious and pandering for all the wrong reasons. It feels like JT wants to be Michael Jackson on this. It doesn't hit the mark, and feels super dated and corny.

Super uninterteresting standard electric modern r n b.

Everything that's wrong with modern music in a nutshell. In no way does it deserves its position on this list. It is shit, from start to finish.

I was on the verge of throwing up, thanks for reminding me this creature exists.

No thanks. 1/10

This sounds like the dreams of that guy in my calculus class when he’s the cool main character 😎 I haate the 2000s pop sounds even if this was produced by legends i just reaally dislike it. And Justin was cringe in eveery song maan

Thought he was over-rated in 2003. Just confirmed in 2025.

Just not my shit. Refused to listen.

Nope. Unjustified!

Nope! Unjustified!

Cringe

Another terrible disc (and another "can't I give zero stars?"). Has someone hijacked this list in order to drive music lovers insane?

Hahahahaha fuck off. This list has become a joke. Maybe one good album a week and the rest are utter dross. Life’s too short. Ol’ JT is the straw that’s broken this music loving camels back. Peace, out ✌🏻.

So he wants to be MJ. There's a cringey "singalong" in the first song. He didn't need to do it. The song was boring already, if I wasn't falling asleep i would have laughed. Now he's doing his "sexy" impersonation. Very wrong when you consider his prime audience was early teen girls. Now he's putting on his jacket and somehow that's sexy. This is tremendously awful shit.

One more reason to hate CDs: they hold more garbage.

incredibly awful absolutely garbage I loved it

Mid

Not in my edition of the book! 2002. 1 star. Bland, soulless, white "R&B" that desperately wants to be Michael Jackson but without the tunes. Who the fuck decided this was essential listening?

Hated it, baby girl.

Artiste connu de nom uniquement. Aucun intérêt musical, très répétitif et inintéressant. Et beaucoup trop long, je ne suis pas allé au bout. =>1/5

Not for me. Some interesting notes of cultural influence but it is all used in vain to create generic 2000s pop. Cry me a river is an iconic banger tho.

Merry day after Christmas. Here’s some crappy music by a crappy person.

When I used to work retail, Cry Me a River would play on the PA. It was one of the few songs I could tolerate and I still think of it fondly. I enjoyed listening to it this time too. I almost gave this album a 2 just for that song, but I disliked the other HOUR of music enough that that one good song couldn’t save it.

I have no idea how this is on the list. Yes it’s better than kid rock but that’s not difficult. This has no musical or cultural significance

Nah this sucks

Was awful in 2002. Every bit more I learn about the history of popular music makes it seem worse. I gave Michael Jackson 1 star. I wish there was a lower rating for derivative Michael Jackson. A cultural moment to be aware of for sure. music: hated. (⌐■_■)

Truly a horrible time in pop music, and in hindsight, maybe a tipping point. The last little bit of human spirit squeezed out, pure grey goop. When there are hit songs that are 100% AI Generated they’ll have the hits of the early 2000s to thank. This was a primer. Remember the follow up to this album, which people insisted was Groundbreaking? More grey goop, please! Yum yum yum!

Cry me a river is a good song. Too bad it destroyed another woman's career.

no thanks justin. why is it so long

This has aged maybe the most poorly of anything we’ve had so far

At least 70% of what makes this album good is that the songs were mostly written for Michael Jackson, and a lot of the final 30% is The Neptunes and Timbaland, because absolutely none of it is Justin Timberlake deciding to do a call-and-response or beatbox in the middle of a single track. "Cry Me A River" is probably a favorite, but in retrospect this is now a song where he continued to shade Britney Spears after, at minimum, neglecting to care about her image for and treatment by the press and this all came shortly before he left Janet Jackson to bear the brunt of their Superbowl halftime show. Sonically I could imagine giving it a 2 because so much of the music/beat work is good, but I'm tired and annoyed and it's getting a one.

Señorita was actually kind of a bop in all fairness I mean the rest of it was one hour of pure cock and ball torture but that first song was alright at least

The Neptunes and Timbaland put in the work, this didn't stand a chance without them. Justin could easily be replaced on this. His voice is weaker than I remembered on these singles. Why is this an hour long!?

1. zenorita - 1 2. like - 1 3. got - 1.5 4. here - 1 5. river - 1.5 6. body - 1 7. elze - 1 8. night - 1 9. brain - 0 10. nouu - 0 11. right - 0 12. ride - 0 13. never - 0

This was not for me. I did not enjoy listening to this at all.

What an utter waste of time

This is 63 minutes of excruciating pap.

meh.

JT is a gross person and his music is mediocre.

I don't even want to listen to him

No. This is so 2002 in the most Target/Abercrombie/suburban strip mall way possible, all punctuated with a million "producers" zzzzz. Say something positive.... ok... I appreciate the organic drum sounds on many of these songs, which only occasionally add the smallest bit of humanity to this soulless product that all blends together into a boring, often-embarrassing, forgettable, and too damn long by about 12 songs album. 2/10 1 star.

Yuck!

Eugh, this reminds me of that 2002-04 period, where this sort of rubbish was playing constantly and I was an awkward early teenager. Unusual in that it's the singles that piss me off here. And it's an HOUR long, WHY?!

nope

I was bored of this by track 3 of 13. The delivery of "Baby" at the end of "Last Night" made my skin crawl. Rock Your Body is catchy but the rest of this is pap.

Aged like a cosby show reference. Not even timbaland saved this.

0. That is my rating. What a horrible mess of second rate songs sung by a second rate singer. Seems over hyped for what it is worth. Not justified being on this list.

Datado

This album is done no favors coming up shortly after Thriller. So many MJisms without the substance. Glossy sheen with a dearth of hooks. A few moments of inspiration on the funkier (not actually funky) tracks but the ballads - audio terrorism. This is the first album I genuinely don't understand why it's on the list. Pablum.

This album met all of my expectations. Enough said. Oh…and my imagination was wandering around (perhaps trying to escape?!) whilst sort of listening to JT (he asked me to call him that somewhere in there) and I thought: Art. Really. Hopefully there’s a reason why we make this sort of music. Maybe we’ll one day see the ships filling the skies over our cities and our nukes will be useless and we’ll face annihilation from our alien overlords. Failing force, we attempt to soothe them with our humanity, in efforts to have them spare us at least that. Beethoven. Makes their ears bleed. Picasso. Screaming for hours after. Fellini. Anger after befuddlement (even them). Shakespeare. Intrigued, but let down after discovering he ghost wrote. Then, jogs by a 40 something New Yorker who doesn’t give a fuck that the aliens have come for us, she needs to get her run in, as she has for everyday since 2002. Intrigued, one of the ships beams her up to probe just what’s up with her, self-betterment in the face of certain death and all. And what’s on her Walkman but her favorite album, JTs “Justified”. They are soothed. The album perfectly syncs with their harmonic centres, releasing waves of endocannibinoids and dopamine, easing them into a state a bliss they’ve never before known. All thoughts of domination and war evaporate in this “Timberlake state”. Prime directives rewired, they now heed only one thought: find this Tim-ber-lake. Once they figure out Facebook, it’s not a problem and soon they’re whisking JT away beyond the edge of the known universe. Who knew that inside every alien is a latent teenage girl, silently screaming for constant hits of misogynist-lite boy band confection. In the end, we all win.

No.

Obnoxious garbage. Turned it off half way through.

I'm the late 90s, a record label genius thought, "damn! We'd sell a lot more of these Usher CDs if he was a white guy!" So they found a handsome shape to stand in front of some literal Michael Jackson offcuts and 20+ years later we still have to listen to this guy. What a world. It's not bad, it just sucks. The production is great, but that's like saying Toyotas are well made or cinnamon toast crunch is nice and sweet. It certainly is a perfect example of what 2002 sounded like - teen pop remade with hip hop production to create the hegemonic radio sound for the next two decades. 3 huge singles and 60 minutes of filler made you 100s of millions of dollars, but does it make an album? Dire stuff, perfectly smooth predigested and inescapable.

Some fun pop songs, JT is cool but doesn't do it for me. Might as well just listen to Michael Jackson instead

i do think big bad pop zeitgeisty albums deserve to be on this list; after all, it's just "albums you must hear before you die," not "the best albums of all time." influence and significance and reach have to carry a lot of weight too that being said, this album is wholly unremarkable, there are others that would fill this niche/time period better, and I'm surprised this one ever made the list and equally unsurprised that it was removed from future editions. two thumbs way down JT

Really really not my thing but also not that good.

Okay that was utter dogshit. I've never liked Justin Timberlake but I thought I'd give this a good listen and try to appreciate it but it was full of so much crap. Yeah Cry me a river and the other hits are okay but they aren't good.

Nah

No. Just no.

Just no

Not sure why this is in the top 1001 albums. Imagine it will be forgotten pretty soon

I hate Justin's voice. I might be kinder to this album if it was sung by someone who could actually put some power but with Justin it just sounds like pathetic yelping

There is precisely one track here that holds up to the present day - 'Rock Your Body'. Even that sexy little funkster sounds pretty thin. Speaking of which, Timberlake has an absolute powder puff of a voice. It is almost funny when he reaches for his falsetto. Production is peak 2002, with some utterly grim synth strings and irritatingly trebly acoustic guitars. There are children's toys available today with better sound profiles. Lightweight, plastic and utterly disposable. There is no way on God's green earth that this ranks amongst the top 1,001 albums you need to listen to before carking it. No way.

Disco solo de "boy band" arrastado e aborrecido.

Oh my god this album has aged horrifically. Literal fuckboy music.

No es Justin Timberlake (nació el mismo día que yo... 6 años después) un artista que tenga ahora gran reconocimiento pero en su momento gozaba del beneplácito de público y crítica. Este es su debut, fuera de NSYNC (70 millones discos vendidos...) y se trata de un buen álbum de R&B-Soul-Pop-Hip Hop, producido por nada menos que The Neptunes y Timbaland. Claramente influenciado por Michael Jackson y el Funk de los años 70, además de los estilos Dance de finales de los 90-00. Colabora incluso Janet Jackson en (And She Said) Take Me Now. Señorita fue coescrita por un tal Pharell Williams. Otros grandes temas del álbum son Like I Love You, Cry Me a River y sobre todo el hitazo Rock Your Body. No es su disco más vendido ni el más reconocido ( The 20/20 Experience y FutureSex/LoveSounds) pero sí que se disfruta desde inicio a fin sin ninguna duda (ni rubor). Tal vez dentro de unos años sea citado como un disco de enorme calidad e influencia por alguna banda que todavía no ha despuntado, pero mientras esto sucede o no, simplemente puedes escucharlo. Otros discos de 2002, creo que todos ellos mejores que este de JT: Beck - Sea Change, Sigur Rós - ( ), Neko Case - Blacklisted, The Streets - Original Pirate Material, Boards of Canada - Geogaddi, Spoon - Kill The Moonlight, The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Interpol - Turn on the Bright Lights, Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, David Bowie – Heathen, múm – Finally we are no one, Tom Waits: Alice / Blood Money, Queens Of The Stone Age: Songs For The Deaf, Norah Jones- Come Away with Me, También: Low: Trust, The Delgados: Hate, The Coral- The Coral, Beth Gibbons & Rustin Man: Out Of Season, Solomon Burke: Don’t Give Up On Me, Lambchop: Is A Woman,, Coldplay- A rush of blood to the head, Doves- Last Broadcast, Faultline: Your Love Means Everything, Death In Vegas: Scorpio Rising, Roddy Frame: Surf, Pet Shop Boys- Release, red Hot Chili Peppers- By the way, Neil Young- Are You Passionate?,

Album 407 of 1001 Justin Timberlake - Justified Rating : 1 / 5 I just didn't care for this, at all. Nothing for me here.

Adult version of Sesame Street music.

This was never for me. I'm not sure how the rest of the album compares to 2002, but the singles feel extremely dated. Forgettable.

If all the 90s American boy bands were to have a baby with a 50 year old Micheal Jackson, it would not only defy reality, it would spawn something akin to this. A sound that kills the soul and drags you into a very specific hell, an endless, waiting, souless, meaningless Hell.

How do you separate the art from the artist? No need. They both suck.

1/5

Inga hits ens... de hä va int bra

Thoughts before listening: I've seen Justin Timberlake live. It was pretty good although it was so overproduced it felt more like watching a Broadway musical than a concert. Anyway, I respect him as a singer, and I'm sure I'll recognize some songs on here, but pop music in general just isn't my thing. Review: This sounds very dated to the early 2000s which is a time I was VERY into music and VERY much opposed to stuff like Justin Timberlake. I am having flashbacks and an immediate negative reaction to this. "Cry Me a River" is the best song here, but I really don't like the rest of it. Sounds like Michael Jackson with less vocal talent. It all just sounds so bland...and the lyrics are embarrassing. 1-star

Noh... Eihän tämä ihan hirveetä ole.. mutta jooh..

🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮. This was abysmal. Point the first: Every song sounds the same, there is no originality or variety across this album, it's just Justin singing about girls THE WHOLE TIME. Point the second: This album gives the impression that this fool is just a total womanizer. Point the third: "Cry Me a River" is just not a very good song. It simply isn't. Lyrically it is the exact same as all the other crap on this album but it has the added bonus of terrible beatboxing in the background to try and make him seem like he's all that cause he got beatboxing on an album. Point the fourth: His voice is not that great. It sounds dumb and plastic. Point the fifth: WHY ARE ALL OF THE SONGS OVER 4:30 MINUTES LONG. I don't want to listen to any pop song that long, let alone this drivel. Absolute bunsssssssss.

Теперь я чувствую себя так себе за то, что влепил Долли Партон и компании единицу буквально пару часов назад. Настолько ли это плохая музыка? Нет. Музыка в этом альбоме норм. Но... Этот альбом инкапсулирует все то о музыке начала двухтысячных, от чего я так счастлив человечество сбежало. Кроме того... Час с чем-то? К тому моменту, когда мы дошли до ультрахита, я ощущал вес полноценного поп-альбома начала двухтысячных на моих плечах - а ведь это только середина... Хит, как бы я не хейтил его в детстве-юности, тем не менее отличная песня. Лучшая песня - Cry Me A River.

Soundtrack to a wardrobe malfunction? I like a lot of the JT you hear in the radio and his SNL and Tonight show skits are great, so had high hopes. Unfortunately, they were not met. The strangest thing happened to me with this album. Twice I put it on, was digging the opening sounds of Señorita, and then later on noticed that I had completely ignored the album like as if it wasn't on. It completely deflects my attention every time I try to to listen. I wanted to like this more but when I could force myself to pay attention it was pretty terrible. Whoever wrote the lyrics to the last song, Never Again, should heed its title.

I thought this would be a lot better. I mean, I thought I probably wouldn't like it but I had no idea it would be this bad.

Nope

Started out ok I guess but started to feel super cringe after a few songs. Justin Timberlake was younger than I am now when he released this (which is not necessarily reason to dislike it but for some reason makes it feel unauthentic to me. Idk why cause I don’t feel that way about some other albums released by young artists.) Also the super shiny production of his voice is weird and annoying. Not a fan at all. 2/10 Side note, I’m finally caught up on albums post spring break!

This album was bad and I didn’t like it. The lyrics were cringe, the beats were bad, and it was boring 2/10

Justin Timberlake is one of my least favorite artists of all time. He’s one of like 2 people on Spotify that I have the “don’t play this artist” turned on for. Why he has an album on this list is fucking beyond me; yeah he’s famous, but there are so many better r&b/pop albums from the 2000s to today. Honestly, I’d rather listen to just about any album than this. Plus, it was like an hour long. Also, what's going on on the album cover? Where is he? The moon? 1.5/10

I hated every second of this album. Don't get the appeal at all.

not bad, however JT told me I’d be naked by the end of the song on Rock Your Body with 2 minutes left - I didn’t like that.

Not even going to try to listen to this. Garbage

A little soulful in parts but overall bland, wouldn't listen to again

I know that Justin did much better in the following years. This one is just the most generic pop from the 2000s. Easy 1-star

First of all, what’s with the album name? It’s stupid and clever at the same time. And what about the songs? Well… I listened to this album after making a terrible mistake of giving ‘Purple Rain’ a two star rating, (Website-wise it’s a day later, but in real life, I listened to Purple Rain first, so…) and this didn’t help me lift my mood. A generic album, with generic songs… did not enjoy.

Turd

Cry me a River is not enough to save this

Yuck.

The fresh faced JT on the album cover has doubled in age since this album was released. The record has aged with far less style and grace than its creator. The inherent risk of going for a cutting edge sound is that your record ages horribly, as has happened here over the last 21 years. Rating: 1.5/5 Playlist track: Rock Your Body Date listened: 08/01/24

I tried. I listened to all of it. But no. I don’t like it. At all.

Bad Pop.

Out of my comfort zone this smooth music, but that is why 1001 albums is nice, discovering new music. .. Well not this one, sweeter than 10 kilogram of honey, utterly annoying. One of those for which 1 star is more than enough.

Utter dross. Spectacularly dreadful.

Waarom is dit hier hahaha Senorita is heel cringe Like I love you is saai Take it from here is wel smooth, wel veel te lang

Shit, didn't realise I was that far behind. Caught up now. What can I say about this? Typical modern pop. Uninspiring nonsense. Not unpleasant, but equally not really worth the effort of listening to it. 1

Horrible.

Meh

crap

Actually liked this a lot less than I thought I would. The whole vibe of the album is creepy and off to me. It does not have the charm of the Britney Spears album I listened to and very little interesting music stuff to go on. And his voice is dull. Standout Track: Senorita

I personally thought this was awful. This just isn't my style of music, but even objectively it's hard to find the merits in this record. The songwriting is generic and bland, and it feels overproduced and tacky.

Yeah this was like pulling teeth. I don’t get it.

Just not my type of music plus I don’t like his voice.

Noooo

No, just no. Over-produced, cynical stuff. Nostalgia for my old clubbing days almost made me give it a 2 but no....

FREE BRITNEY

Kuuntelin kaks biisiä. Voi vittu

ei mitään sanottavaa

Truly awful.

Æji þetta er voða þreytt

R&b tovet i genèric, que per alguna raó va encumbrar el seu autor, passa per ser un dels discos clau de la primera meitat dels 00's i troba el seu lloc a la llista dels discos que se suposa hem d'escoltar abans de morir. Misteris de la vida

This is horrible, rock your body was good for The first 10 seconds as it reminded me of partying with my friends.

hard to get past my dislike for JT in general

I couldn't do it. I got through 2.5 songs and had to stop. I'm not sure how this "artist" sold that many albums?

this record all sounds the same i didn’t even realize it’d looped back over to the beginning. the early 2000’s are not my cultural space.

Dull. Dull. Dull.

I went into this with very low expectations and came out of it with expectations confirmed, but also frustrated, because behind Timberlake's rather irritating delivery there was some pretty good music here and there, especially when things got funky.

I ALREADY RATED THIS YOU IDIOTS

Not a fan.