Justified
Justin Timberlake

And so the holy trinity of The Micky Mouse Club is complete- first Britney, then Christina and now JT. People lost their damn minds comparing JT to MJ, due mainly to his singing falsetto and some talent as a dancer. Of course, Timberlake is nowhere close to Jackson’s level - but he has created a decent album, notable for the choice of producers. This is just as much a Neptunes album as it is JT’s and marks the moment hip hop went fully mainstream- the charts were now all hip hop producers and , to remain essential, pop stars now needed a track from Pharrell or Kanye or Just Blaze or Scott Storch or Timbaland - whose own contributions to this album include album highlight Cry Me A River, a twisted, unsettling, stalker track with crazy beat box percussion. Plenty of tracks are forgettable but the likes of Like I Love You are truly memorable and still sound impressive today .

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