Is it possible to think of Justin Timberlake as something other than actress Cameron Diaz’s boyfriend? Or to imagine a recent picture of Beyonce Knowles in which she isn’t draped on the arm of rapper Jay-Z?
Besides keeping legions of star-stalking media in business, the mini-corporations known as Justin and Beyonce also produce music. Both will release their second solo albums soon: Knowles’ “B-Day” (Sony) arrives Tuesday, and Timberlake’s “FutureSex/LoveSounds” (Jive) is due Sept. 12. They are crucial albums for a music industry in dire need of best sellers, and for two singers striving to transcend their youthful accomplishments.
Nothing has been left to chance. The usual “A”-list producers have been recruited. Knowles is working with Sean Garrett, Rich Harrison, Rodney Jerkins, the Neptunes and Swizz Beats, who among them have accrued countless top-10 hits. Timberlake is working primarily with Timbaland, a.k.a. Tim Mosley, whose credits include massive hits for Missy Elliott, Nelly Furtado and Jay-Z, as well as Black Eyed Peas’ Will.I.Am and rock producer Rick Rubin. And they both have crafted albums designed to be heard as albums, with linked songs and a loose narrative structure.
Raised in performance
Both singers were groomed for musical careers and celebrityhood since they were children. Timberlake grew up in Tennessee, and his mother, who remains his co-manager, had him singing country and gospel music as a child before he joined the All New Mickey Mouse Club. At 14, he was recruited for the vocal group ‘N Sync by Florida impresario Lou Pearlman, who had earlier put together the Backstreet Boys. As teen pop exploded in the late ’90s, ‘N Sync swept past even the Backstreet Boys to become the era’s dominant vocal group. By the time he was 21, Timberlake had already sold more than 32 million albums. His 2002 solo bow, “Justified,” surpassed 3 million sales.
Knowles joined forces with Destiny’s Child in Houston when she was only 9. Her father, medical equipment salesman Matthew Knowles, became the group’s manager, and her mother, salon owner Tina Knowles, was their stylist and designer. The teen group landed a record deal in 1997, and went on to sell more than 12 million albums before the singers embarked on solo careers, with Knowles by far the most successful. Her 2003 debut, “Dangerously in Love,” debuted at No. 1 and has topped 3 million sales.
Besides their eye-popping sales numbers, what made the initial solo successes of Knowles and Timberlake notable was that they raised the stakes artistically. “Justified” established Timberlake as not just a teen-pop idol, but a blue-eyed soul contender. “Dangerously in Love” toughened up and broadened Knowles’ sound, adding elements of hip-hop that have only been enhanced by her ongoing relationship with kingpin rapper Jay-Z.
Futuristic to retro
Now, what to do for an encore? Timberlake has already hit the road with a 12-piece band on a tour designed to buff his more mature image. He’s wearing fedoras and vests instead of loose-fitting jeans, and playing his new, more ambitious songs to make sure no one mistakes him for a lightweight.
He has reason to crow. “FutureSex/LoveSounds” is a more accomplished album than its predecessor. It strives to wed old-school soul and rhythm and blues with the sci-fi soundscapes that are Timbaland’s specialty. The album moves from brittle cyber-sex come-on’s to the kind of steamy balladry that characterized ’70s soul greats such as Donny Hathaway and Marvin Gaye. In the early going, Timbaland sets Timberlake’s voice against clipped, chopped and distorted grooves that stutter and slink. The singer’s voice is occasionally filtered through effects and often multitracked to resemble a virtual choir or boy group. More impressively, Timberlake alternates between raplike cadences and creamier falsetto tones. He plays the eager — but not too eager — lover. He keeps his cool even as he’s circling his would-be partner. “I’m bringing sexy back,” he declares. “Them modern boys don’t know how to act.”
There are sonic signifiers aplenty, designed to place Timberlake within a tradition he longs to extend. The breathy vocals, right down to the way his exhales punctuate the chicken-scratch guitar riffs and jittery violin strokes in “Lovestoned,” are straight out of Michael Jackson’s early ’80s repertoire. And the synthesizer squiggles in “Sexy Ladies” could’ve been lifted off a Prince album in 1984.
The production choices become steadily more conservative as the album proceeds. The stabbing organ riffs and syncopated drumming in “Damn Girl” evoke a late-night demo session at Motown with Smokey Robinson on lead vocals, before the production sheen was added. The Rubin-produced ballad “(Another Song) All Over Again” finds Timberlake pleading over sparse piano chords, a smattering of guitar and a dollop of strings. If the album starts in the cutting-edge present, it ends somewhere in the ’60s.
Through it all, Timberlake doesn’t have much to say other than he’s a fool for love (though failing that, he’ll settle for a cheap fling). He’s least persuasive when he tries to broaden the view, muddying up the already lugubrious “Until the End of Time” by fretting about “so much darkness in the whole world” without really saying much of anything. And the stilted “Losing My Way” is told from the perspective of a crack addict: “Hi, my name is Bob and I work at my job, I make 40-some dollars a day.” Hey, that’s believable coming from a former Mouseketeer, right?
But at the album’s best, Timberlake and his producers update classic soul-craft for the hip-hop era. It sounds great, though there’s not a great deal of substance beneath the kaleidoscopic grooves and textures, and frequently dazzling vocal arrangements. The exceptions are “Lovestoned/I Think She Knows Interlude” and “What Goes Around/Comes Around Interlude,” which move from suspicion to heartbreak to vindication over sandpaper percussion, dramatic strings and a gospel-fired call-and-response vocal arrangement. It’s a hint of where Timberlake might go in the future — and he’ll need to, if he wants to remain as relevant at 36 as he is at 26.
Strong tunes, weak narrator
Knowles says “B-Day” was written and recorded after she finished making “Dreamgirls,” the Hollywood adaptation of the Broadway play that will open in December. In the movie, she plays the singer Deena, who is manipulated and bullied by her manager (Jamie Foxx).
In response to the role, “I wrote songs that were saying all the things I wish [Deena] would’ve said in the film,” Knowles says in audio comments tagged onto the end of the album. Her assertiveness extended to her recording and paying for the album without the knowledge of her father or her record label. But the story she tells is a cliche of female compliance and victimhood.
“B-Day” traces the arc of a relationship in which the female narrator starts out madly in love with a rogue, only to realize she’s little more than a doormat in his wandering eyes.
Her craving for Mr. Wrong borders on the hysterical: ” . . . I’d do anything to keep you home,” she sings on “Suga Mama.” Even when she catches him cheating, she still doesn’t snap out of it. Instead, she dons a seductive “Freakum Dress” to win him back.
The female narrator’s love is defined as much by sex as money. “I can do for you what Martin did for the people,” she sings on “Upgrade U,” equating the civil rights struggle with sharper clothes and a more expensive self-image. “That rock on your finger is like a tumor,” marvels Jay-Z, who phones in a couple of typically self-aggrandizing guest raps on the album.
When Beyonce frets in “Ring the Alarm” that a female rival is “gonna take everything I own if I let you go,” it’s uncertain if she’s talking about her man or that rock he gave her.
Even when she cuts him loose, she’s a basket case. “I used to be so strong/Now you took my soul/Can’t stop cryin,'” she sobs on the closing “Resentment.”
It’s startling to hear such sentiments from a woman known for writing self-empowerment anthems such as “Independent Women Part 1” and “Survivor” when she was in Destiny’s Child. On “B-Day,” she sounds like a helpless piece of arm candy, a victim who only takes control of her destiny after she has been run over.
It’s too bad, because “B-Day” brims with strong tunes. The bounce of “Get Me Bodied,” the raunchy funk of “Suga Mama” and the outraged “Ring the Alarm,” complete with megaphone vocals, make for irresistibly physical R&B. And “Irreplaceable” may be the best song Beyonce has ever done, an introspective ballad with a gorgeous melody in which she finally sounds in control.
There’s enough star power and money behind “B-Day” to ensure it’ll be another hit in a career already full of them. And it’s likely that for most of the fall, “B-Day” will be battling it out with “FutureSex/LoveSound” for pop supremacy atop the charts. But the stakes have been raised. Beyonce and Timberlake are now trying to wed substance with their already considerable style. And it’s not as easy as they’ve always made everything else look.
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gregkot@aol.com
