Justin Timberlake - "SexyBack"

[Deleted]

Love this! Actually had this playing on shuffle today while riding the bus, no lie!

[LBTrocks]

My only complaint is that it's too repetitive. Otherwise, I love it.

[surfy]

I didn't mind the repetitiveness of the song! It's so hot and it's my favorite Justin Timberlake single! (

[Glove Slap]

Dec 29, 2008 21:58:51 GMT -5 Glove Slap said:

I hated this the first time I heard it, but then it started to grow on me and then I loved it.

This is a true classic of the new millennium imo. Everyone (and I mean EVERYONE) was talking about it when school kicked off that fall.

Jan 11, 2009 20:08:48 GMT -5 Glove Slap said:

Just listening this JAM right now and I have to say it again.

CLASSIC!

Dec 28, 2011 22:20:22 GMT -5 Glove Slap said:

Bumping this classic once again!

Looking back, it was one of the first huge hits in a while to use the 4/4 progression with a club flavoring that is so commonplace nowadays. Rihanna had SOS earlier that same year, but that was nowhere near as colossal as this.

Needless to say, it was quite a moment for me when he closed his concert with this in December when I saw him.

[Agent Yoncé]

It wasn't he was irrelevant from his debut to this sophomore effort, but I find this to be one of the greatest comeback tunes ever. This was huuuge back in the day & it has aged beautifully.

[brady47]

Amazing song - I feel like 2006/2007 was filled with sexy songs - Sexyback, Promiscuous, Fergalicious

I think this song put him on a whole other level, the instrumental, vocals, and video are so HOT >>>

[matteeeb]

Released in 2006, the track won Best Dance Recording at the 2007 Grammy Awards. 9 years later, I still turn up the radio, it still gets a fair amount of airplay

[brady47]

Wow, he came back hard, but this song was amazing! The video was sexy, and the verses are smooth as hell, and the chorus was catchy. Really hot song!

[Live Your Life]

This was definitely a game changer and a risk that paid off quite well. There are male artists still trying to recreate this sound.

[Live Your Life]

Entertainment Weekly published an article detailing the creation of this song for its 10 year anniversary next week. It's pretty cool:

Justin Timberlake explains how David Bowie influenced 'SexyBack'

In November 2005 Justin Timberlake entered Timbaland’s Virginia Beach studio to begin work on his second solo album, FutureSex/LoveSounds. It was the follow-up to 2002’s Justified, the multimillion-selling smash that proved the former *NSYNC member had solo-artist swagger like that other onetime boy-bander Michael Jackson. If Justified was Timberlake’s Off the Wall, it was FutureSex/LoveSounds that would be his Thriller. Released on Sept. 12, 2006, the record sold 9.2 million copies worldwide and became Timberlake’s first No. 1 solo album. Perhaps its biggest legacy: his Grammy-winning single “SexyBack,” a genre-busting dance-club banger that hit the top of the charts for seven weeks—and helped usher EDM sounds to Top 40 radio. Now, 10 years after the track was released on July 6, 2006, the key players reveal how they created a modern-day classic. Below, an excerpt of EW’s oral history on the track, which will be available online next week.

JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE: When Timbaland and I first sat down to create the record, we really did want to make a statement. That was the only MO. With me and Tim, the biggest rule in the studio is: How does the music make us feel? Does it excite you in that way? When people heard the rest of the album, even though “SexyBack” sounds so different, all of it would make sense.

JIMMY DOUGLASS, “SexyBack” Mixer: Danja and Timbaland would be side by side, and they’d feed Justin different stuff that they’d collaborate on. On this particular [song], Danja had a basic root idea: four-on-the-floor kick drum, which no one was doing those days. Back when they did disco [in the ’70s], the drummers, with their floor drums, would hit a beat on every beat in the bar—and they called it a four on the floor. Danja just happened to have that little feeling.

TIMBERLAKE: I was listening to a lot of [David] Bowie at that time—Ziggy Stardust and Diamond Dogs—and I played “Rebel Rebel” over and over again, like, 15 times the day before I wrote anything for “SexyBack.” We were interested in taking those new-wave synth sounds that were made popular by bands like Tears for Fears and the Human League and seeing how much R&B we could add to that sound. We wanted to take those synth sounds and make them arpeggiated, almost like what’s very common with EDM now.

DOUGLASS: Justin was like, “Maybe I’ll bring something back! Maybe I’ll bring sexy back!” That’s literally how it went down. We went about writing little ideas about club vibes.

TIMBALAND, Co-writer and Producer: Since Justin and me are such musically inclined people, I feel like he was trying something different and we didn’t know it would open up new doors. We were just changing rhythms and finding melodies that [felt] timeless when we played them.

DOUGLASS: If you listen to the hook of the song, it goes, “VIP/Go ‘head be gone with it.” When we were recording the vocal sound, Justin said, “Put some sort of effect on me,” and I grabbed the first thing I could find and I put some interesting distortion. Then Tim came back in and he just added his little extra “VIP” thing, “Take it to the bridge,” which makes the song totally humorous and meta. Justin, being the genius he is, said, “Let’s call it ‘SexyBack.’” If you listen to the song, you’ll realize “SexyBack” happens [three] times in the song. If you called the song “Go ‘Head Be Gone With It,” people would have missed the whole point.

DANJA, Co-writer and Producer: Justin was singing in a way we never heard him sing. We were awestruck. It made sense the title would be “SexyBack” and the phrase would only be heard a few times in the song. I remember that opening line. From conception it stuck.

TIMBERLAKE: To [paraphrase] Miles [Davis], jazz isn’t the notes, it’s the space between them. One of the most important things about “SexyBack” is the silence between [the notes]. I think really good dance music that I hear now captures that as well.

DOUGLASS: Once we cut “SexyBack,” everyone [in the studio] got really excited, and they would go to a local club at night to release some of the energy and celebrate the goodness of what we were making. When they came back from the club—and they were a little clubbed out, I’ll put it that way—they kept making me play “SexyBack” over and over again. They were just dancing around like crazy people, Justin and Timbaland and the entourage.

DANJA: I remember Cristal champagne. I had my glass, like, “Buddy up!” Tim had a chef there [in the studio]. I remember this lasagna he made and these frozen mojitos. It was almost like cotton candy. It was so sweet and good.

TIMBERLAKE: That’s the reason I had to go to the gym in the mornings. I wasn’t able to resist Tim’s chef’s food!

[kcdawg13]

Such a classic, it’s so awful but so catchy at the same time

[HEADOFTHEPACK]

It's absolute fire to this day. I remember ABUSING this + Loose.

[#LisaRinna]

Sexy never left

[Fire]

incredibly overrated. i don't like this at all

[Deleted]

Jun 10, 2021 19:58:46 GMT -5 Fire said:

incredibly overrated. i don't like this at all

Totally agree, he has ambition, but very little talent and if there was any SEXIness at all it was way way BACK in the days.

[disman00911]

Was overplayed back in its day but it is one of Justin's better songs.

[thirddegree50123]

One of his worst songs. Aside from it just being by JT, I have no clue why this was so huge and why it's still so highly regarded. I just don't get it at all