What Do Critics Have to Say About Justin Timberlake Performance at Tonight Super Bpwl
Justin Timberlake Plays It Prophylactic, Seeking Super Bowl Redemption
At the 2004 Super Bowl halftime bear witness, Janet Jackson performed her hits "All for You lot" and "Rhythm Nation," a sensual lodge ballad and a militaristic funk stomp. She opened the performance and was there at its close, when Justin Timberlake, and then a pop-superstar arriviste, emerged to perform his striking "Stone Your Body."
If Ms. Jackson was glowing during her songs, she was shellshocked during his, afterward Mr. Timberlake's mitt tore her top and exposed her chest.
Though the public punishment largely — and unjustly — accrued to Ms. Jackson, derailing her career, the affected song belonged to Mr. Timberlake. The sensible selection, 14 years later, when offered the opportunity for a clean slate, might take been to leave that vocal alone. Give information technology the night off. Don't wink. Nothing cute.
Prototype
But Mr. Timberlake's need for redemption is far greater than his chapters for restraint. So in the 2d minute of his halftime-evidence performance at Super Bowl LII, just later on he'd pump-faked with his recent single, "Filthy," he emerged on the U.S. Bank Stadium field in Minneapolis and began singing (sort of) and dancing to "Rock Your Body."
If what happened in 2004 was a wardrobe malfunction, this was a sense of taste malfunction, a seamy need to repossess the vocal that, ever and then briefly, put him uncomfortably nether the klieg lights and restore information technology to being just another beneficial entry in his pop-soul catalog.
Its utilize underscored the ways Ms. Jackson has been systematically erased from celebratory narratives around the Super Bowl, and also the manner Mr. Timberlake's music is flattered nearly by soft light. At this point, his all-time songs are fit for aerobics, or SoulCycle, or factories run by robots. Much of the urgency of his biggest hits comes from savvy production choices. He has a lissome vocalism, but all its victories come via seduction, not power.
Regardless, he didn't much employ it here, during a 13-infinitesimal functioning that was heavy on trip the light fantastic spectacle, light on song authorization. Often, it sounded every bit if Mr. Timberlake were merely providing accent riffs to his own songs. He leaned heavily, and rightly, on his get-go 2 albums, plowing through digital funk smashes similar "Cry Me a River," "SexyBack" and "My Love" (and also the not-smash "Suit & Tie," from "The twenty/20 Feel").
Only on the carol "Until the End of Fourth dimension," during which he sat at a white piano, did he lean into his singing, allowing its natural tenderness to serve equally a pyrotechnic.
Mr. Timberlake got his kickoff in a boy band, 'N Sync, and he has a natural gift for grand-scale presentation. (This was actually his third halftime performance, including 2004 and also 'N Sync's appearance in 2001.) The trip the light fantastic toe routines, including an exuberant tuxedo-clad contumely section and a phalanx of bodies belongings aloft mirrors that refracted calorie-free throughout the stadium (during "Mirrors"), were constructive without beingness ostentatious. Shows of this size are light work for Mr. Timberlake, even if he was working at about three-fourths the intensity of his backing troupe.
That Mr. Timberlake, who has had a smattering of hits in recent years — including the "Trolls" soundtrack canticle "Can't End the Feeling!," which he performed near the stop of his set — was offered this halftime-testify slot is a reminder of the wide-calibration cultural cachet he one time corralled. Though he released a new solo album — "Man of the Woods," his 5th — on Friday, Mr. Timberlake is, in effect, a heritage act. (The heritage of the early on-to-mid-2000s, but still.)
His booking as well displays the differing means forgiveness is deployed in public life. That Mr. Timberlake was deemed fit for this rehabilitation has less to do with contrition on his role than the presumption that whiteness is resilient armor, and as well the convenience of having a nonwhite scapegoat. In a year in which the Northward.F.50.'due south bumbling human relationship to race has been at its most visible, this whitewashing has a particularly acid smell. On Sunday, in anticipation of Mr. Timberlake's performance, Twitter and Instagram were flooded with photos and videos of Ms. Jackson, often posted with the hashtag #JanetJacksonAppreciationDay.
In the days before the Super Bowl, at that place was also a small-scale conflagration at a report that Mr. Timberlake would exist joined onstage by Prince, in hologram form, causing law-breaking to Prince fans (who knew he rejected such spectacles); to those who recollect Prince'south 2007 halftime functioning — one of the greats, total of range, mental attitude and carnal verve; and to those loath to encounter some other black body handed over to a performer who had so famously mishandled i in the past.
As information technology happened, there was no hologram, just a projection of Prince onto a gargantuan scrim as the lights turned purple, and a quick, inoffensive duet of "I Would Die 4 U" that served more equally an exaltation than a musical performance. In that moment, Mr. Timberlake was small-scale, of secondary importance: 14 years later, he'due south learned when information technology's all-time to be hands off.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/04/arts/music/justin-timberlake-super-bowl-halftime-review.html
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