14. Justin Timberlake - The 20/20 Experience (The Complete Experience)
Genre: Neo-soul, Funk, Electro-Pop, Experimental, R&B, Art Pop
Sounds Like: Michael Jackson, Prince, modern R&B
In a curious turn of events that not even Nostradamus could have seen coming, Justin Timberlake went full prog n' B this year with his 20/20 Experience duology of albums, complete with many songs coming close to the 10 minute mark and enough ideas between three songs to fill complete LPs of many an artiste on his level of exposure. But instead of slipping on the big banana of commercial ruin-via-alienating-core-audience, the former N'Sync crooner danced his way right up to enough $$$ and #1 chart topping to make his career all over again and then some. For those of you who didn't experience either Part 1 nor Part 2 this year though, I suppose the big question is: what's the big deal?
Well, that's the funny thing: as the year went on and on, I began to realize that Justin's affluent & indulgent creative relationship with producer Timbaland and their seemingly ill-thought tendency to give the majority of the songs a lot of running time has ended up rubbing off on me with repeat listens: like the progressive rock I call my musical foundation, deeper cuts like 'Don't Hold The Wall', 'True Blood' and 'Spaceship Coupe' weren't really built to capture your attention in any sort of immediate fashion: they're classic highly polished longplayers, tailored for a different audience than Yes or Genesis but accomplishing the goal of bleeding into you over time like runny paints on a vast canvas. But as the big singles like 'Suit & Tie' and 'Take Back The Night' illustrate, Timberlake is still a master fisherman who knows just where to drop the lure.
As I've mentioned offhand before, 2013 is going to be remembered as the year where R&B peaked at a creative zenith we haven't seen since the early 80's...and albums like the 20/20 Experience are a big part of why it happened.