This isn’t really a sequel. It’s more like the second half to a set of songs that were supposed to stand on their own. The first Experience wasn’t originally presented as an incomplete project, in other words, so this part 2, released just a few months later, comes across as a tacked-on bonus of sorts. What Justin Timberlake should’ve done was limit the Experience to one album of the best, or most fitting, songs from the two. It’s not as if most, dare I say any, of the 21 are too damn good not to have been released.

Timbaland does a commendable job of providing a sleek soundscape; listen in high-end headphones for small but pleasant surprises in the mix; but Timberlake’s vocals, essentially the songs themselves, are consistently lackluster. The soul dance vibes of Take Back The Night does channel Michael Jackson’s Off The Wall, as noted by many listeners since its first single release, but it would’ve been one of that album’s worst songs and I don’t even consider Off The Wall one of Michael Jackson’s best albums.

If the original 20-20 Experience album was, in fact, supposed to be the only one, that would explain why most of these songs sound like rejects from a slightly better album. Even the song sequencing, which puts a ten-minute vampire ode at track two, seems somewhat random. The fact that every track has to do with girls and romance isn’t so much of a problem, because the first Experience was the same way, but there should be some kind of conceptual clue in the set title. The 20-20 Love Experience perhaps?

my rating : 3 of 5

2013