Love Stoned

India

Justin Timberlake is always selling. It's probably what he does best. He's slick, stylish, bringing back sexy and he knows how to give the people what they want. He has a gift for packaging � from his well-choreographed dance moves to his well-timed genre hopping, he has a strong sense of what will work and what won�t. His new album, FutureSex/LoveSounds, reflects that.

The album is well crafted with producer Timbaland � who provides Timberlake with the same sexed-up guidance and envelope-pushing dance beats that brought Nelly Furtado back to the top of the charts with Promiscuous.

The dizzying SexyBack is Timberlake at his best, mainstreaming a combination of the wild, edgy dance-pop style of Basement Jaxx with Missy Elliott�s more experimental hip-hop to create a boldly inventive sound that still pleases the masses. It�s a mix he mines for much of FutureSex/LoveSounds, taking an older sound and twisting it to make it sound fresh. He even reprises himself on What Goes Around, which is essentiallyCry Me a River II (The Sequel), from the handclaps and skittering beat to the tempo.

And he clearly has a thing for royalty on this album, whether it�s the numerous stylistic references to Prince (from the elimination of spaces between words in song titles to Sexy Ladies and especially Until the End of Time, which even uses the same palette of synthesiser sounds from Prince�s Purple Rain album) or his love of King of Pop-era Michael Jackson, which livens up the otherwise plodding and plain Summer Love.

All this will undoubtedly sell well. However, FutureSex /LoveSounds is also the first sign that Timberlake may want something more. On Losing My Way, he offers a tale of crack addiction over a spare, poignant beat that blossoms into an all-out gospel choir intervention as he sings, ��There�s gotta be a heaven somewhere/Can you save me from this hell? Can anybody out there feel me �cause I can't seem to feel myself?��

But it�s Another Song/All Over Again, a stripped-down soul ballad that makes you wonder why Timberlake has been holding out on us. It allows Timberlake�s soulful voice to soar without overreaching, showing those American Idol kids how to walk that line between genuine and staged.

Timberlake has clearly been looking for a way to be taken seriously as an artist, the way his former Mouseketeer pal Christina Aguilera is, the way his 20-something peer Alicia Keys is. In All Over Again, he has found it: Stop selling. When songs are this good, you don�t need flashy new dance moves, a clever marketing concept and another round of fresh remixes to make them work. When songs are this good, they sell themselves.

LAT-WP