Justin Timberlake – Take Back the Night

Reckon the Wanted will let you have it cheap.

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[4.88]Alfred Soto: Of course it’s zippier than anything on The 20/20 Experience: look at the track length. But Timberlake’s celebrity cave is closer to island exile from the rest of a civilized America where “take back the night” has resonance and poignancy beyond a breathy come-on. His ignorance makes an innocuous bauble like “Ain’t no time like tonight” more offensive. How’s the music? Nice synth pads, as usual. I’d recommend another Jackson album for Timberlake’s collection but that might mean he’ll cobble together his own “Dirty Diana” and call it “ACT-UP.”
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Katherine St Asaph: Shoulda gone with Slutwalk. The music might sound less tired.
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Anthony Easton: I kind of hate how much I love this, because the arrogance of Timberlake as the new Sinatra is kind of exhausting, and the opening line is laughable as hell, but I love it. Erase his vocals, put something more interesting in there, and the song might even be a 10. It’s all in the horns, the energetic, full boogie tilt of the horns, all horsepower and brassy ambition. The problem is that JT doesn’t earn their skill or power.
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Patrick St. Michel: Poorly thought out title aside, this does everything I loved about “Suit And Tie,” except now without a boring Jay Z verse. It’s a song that does a really good job mirroring the DNA of Off The Wall, and even if it’s a minute too long, it’s tough to complain too much when the music is so peppy. Just in time for freshman orientation parties.
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Brad Shoup: Some critics argue that since Justin Timberlake is, by all accounts, part of that vast majority of males who have not ever committed sexual assault, his appropriation of this slogan could actually provide much-needed legitimacy and publicity to feminists.[citation needed] Others have posited that his endless vamping from a set of Michael Jackson impressions actually shows Timberlake to be an auteur and the true heir of R&B, in the lineage of Eric Burdon, Steve Winwood, Bobby Caldwell, David Bowie, George Michael, Daryl Hall, and Jay Kay.[citation neeeded]
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Scott Mildenhall: A pastiche, but a more than competent one, and as Bruno Mars, Robin Thicke and Daft Punk have all found out recently, that can pay dividends. The problem is it has no awareness of the potential of succinctness as a virtue. Maybe it would get away with it if it was as eventful as the wedding reception it has in mind, but it’s not. At the actual wedding reception it’d no doubt come on as the buffet is opened, passed over for a paper plate of vol au vents, chicken legs and cheesecake, ‘Lake and ‘Land’s invisible horns playing out to an invisible dancefloor. It’ll probably still be either the opener or the encore at his 2043 Vegas residency though, so that’s something for him to look forward to.
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Jonathan Bogart: Better a limp Michael tribute than a fizzled succès de scandale, I guess; but he was churning out Michael tributes when he was as young and hungry as Michael himself, once upon a time. Now that alien energy, or anything approximating it, has left him, and he sounds like a chintzy third-rate imitation in 1979. Quincy Jones never arranged strings so gloopy.
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Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: While Timberlake may sing about being used up “until there’s nothing left,” he doesn’t sound close to easing out of his comfort zone. This damages “Take Back” slightly, with his Off the Wall-indebted comfort zone not amounting to the comfort food feeling you would expect. Perhaps Timbaland and protege J-Roc overthink the groove, making it longwinded instead of feather-light. There’s always the possibility that the song will fit neatly into the winding diversions of the upcoming (and awkwardly-titled) 20/20 Experience: Part 2 of 2, but for the moment it will have to do.
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