Had enough of electropop dance music? As its hold on the pop charts seems to loosen a little more with every passing month, a variety of musical styles have so far slipped into the vacuum: currently Top 40 slots are occupied by the reliable crossover country of Taylor Swift, the Americana-inflected folk pop of The Lumineers and Of Monsters and Men, and even actual rock music here and there, represented by Imagine Dragons and unlikely rock hero Pink.
Still, in the same way it took major artists like Rihanna and Britney Spears committing albums to the electronic dance pop sound for it to take such hold in the first place, it might take an artist of significant stature to toll the bell signaling its demise.
Like maybe Justin Timberlake.
If his new single “Suit & Tie” is any indication, Timberlake will be pushing the pendulum back in the direction of actual R&B-flavored dance music with his new album, expected later this year. In a perfect synergy of style and lyric, the song suggests a restoration of dignity and class to a genre that’s been caught up in stut-tut-tuttering vocal samples, warp speed drum sample fills and stabs of synthetic keys for a few years now.
Timberlake is squarely in R. Kelly territory, which means music in the tradition of the Al Greens, Barry Whites and Marvin Gayes of decades past. But where Kelly’s very good Write Me Back album of 2012 charted high but didn’t effect an overall stylistic change, Justin Timberlake’s gravitas as an artist could be enough to push the needle back toward a more organic sound.
If so, it would be a welcome return indeed.
(Note: be sure to listen beyond the 40-second intro)
“Suit & Tie”
Every Moment Has A Song 