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Justin Timberlake, The 20/20 Experience – The Complete Experience

2013 | Label: RCA Records Label

By Barry Walters eMusic Contributor

10.02.13 “He’s so talented he can do anything!” That’s the gist of what’s typically said about Justin Timberlake, and for the most part it’s absolutely true. He’s an exceptionally nimble and unfettered singer/dancer, an extraordinary mimic with a drummer’s sense of timing. These gifts have helped him tremendously in comedy as well as drama, and despite the increasing maturity of his music and acting pursuits, he hasn’t let go of his ample boyish charm: This ex-Mouseketeer, ex-’N Sync-er still radiates mischievous yet all-American fun. And unlike so many stars who attain… more »

Justin Timberlake, The 20/20 Experience 2 of 2

2013 | Label: RCA Records Label

By Barry Walters eMusic Contributor

10.02.13 When Justin Timberlake’s last album, The 20/20 Experience, arrived last March, it struck many as both over- and underwhelming. Lengthy, with few songs under six minutes, but shorter on hooks and forward propulsion than much of the singer’s catalog, this languid, elaborate album has, over the last few months, aged rather well. It’s a meticulous record, rich with atmosphere, one that reveals the subtleties of its sensuality with repeated plays.

Now comes The 20/20 Experience 2 of 2, a sequel that combines outtakes with newly-recorded material. That suggests that much of… more »

HAIM, Days Are Gone

2013 | Label: Columbia

By Barry Walters eMusic Contributor

10.01.13 The Los Angeles sister band HAIM — their last name, one that rhymes with “time” — employ rock’s instrumentation, but chop it up so finely it stutters like R&B. They’re not the first to do this, of course, but HAIM’s blend, a mix of bright, brittle percussiveness and soft sisterly harmonies, feels unique, a sound that’s both nervous and resolute. It feels like youth, that knowledge that everything’s already been done before, but that you’ve nevertheless got to make your own mark. Providing most of the instrumentation as well as… more »

Lorde, Pure Heroine

2013 | Label: Lava Music/Republic Records

By Jayson Greene Managing Editor

09.30.13 The New Zealand teenager Ella Yelich-O’Connor has had quite a year. She wrote an uncontrollable phenomenon of a song called “Royals” that bum-rushed her home country’s charts before wandering off in search of new waters — currently, the song is brushing up against monoliths like Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and Robin Thicke on American charts. She reportedly wrote the lyrics to the song in half an hour and now, to place something solid at the center of her whipping storm of hype, she’s produced a 10-song album.

Despite all this… more »