Each Music Monday will be formatted as followed: an overview/ my opinion on their said career, followed by the ranking of their top 5 songs. No artist is without flaws, their worst three songs will also be judged and ripped to shreds.

As a reminder, this is not going to be a series where I list no-name songs off an artist’s shitty second album that’ll you’ll hear occasionally in an urban coffee shop. We only grade hits here. I’m not looking for songs that have the best underlying message. I’m not looking for songs that represent the artist’s struggle and triumph over something shitty that happened to them. I don’t care about any of that. We are only ranking the cream of the crop, the pinnacle of an artist’s success. Before you ask, I will not be ranking The Beatle’s songs, as I do not want to tarnish my blog with overrated garbage. If you have a problem with that, or my rankings, and want to make your criticisms known, you can email all of your concerns to VinnieWontCheckThis@gmail.com. Prior versions of this series can be found here.

So with that, let’s get started.

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Justin Randall Timberlake was born on January 31, 1981 in Memphis, Tennessee. His family circle includes a number of musicians; his grandfather introduced him to music from country artists. His talent was known from a very young age. Performing as a child, Timberlake sang country and gospel music and appeared on the television show Star Search when he was 11. Around that time he began listening to rhythm and blues musicians from the 1960s and 70s and began focusing on that style of music. In 1993 and 1994, he was a cast member in The All-New Mickey Mouse Club (As a reminder even though I’ve said this multiple times on this blog, but if you haven’t been paying attention, his cast-mates included future girlfriend and singer Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, future bandmate JC Chasez, Ryan Gosling and Keri Russell). Timberlake then recruited Chasez to be in an all-male singing group, organized by boy band manager Lou Pearlman, that eventually became *NSYNC. (EDITOR’S NOTE: This is not an *NYSNC blog, it is a Justin Timberlake blog, *NSYNC will get their deserved Music Monday post but for now I’ll just cover the basics of Justin’s time in the group). During Timberlake’s time in the group from 1995-2002 they released three albums, two of which went Diamond, had an array of hits including: a number one hit, a number two hit, three top five hits, two top ten hits, and two top twenty hits. *NSYNC performed at the Academy Awards, the Olympics, and the Super Bowl, as well as selling more than 70 million records worldwide, becoming the fifth-best selling boy band in history. It was time for JT to go his own way as he had greener pastures ahead and so he linked up with Pharrell and Timbaland to begin his solo career. Timberlake wasted no time getting his solo career off the ground, releasing his debut album, Justified, in November 2002. The album earned him four Grammy nominations and has sold over 10 million copies worldwide. It spawned a top three (Cry Me a River), top five (Rock Your Body), and top 15 (Like I Love You) hit. He spent 2003 touring and capped the tour off with a performance at the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show where he ripped Janet Jackson’s top off in front of 140 million people. After the Super Bowl incident, Timberlake put his music career on hold to act in several films. He began working on his second album in 2005 and released Future Sex Love Sounds in September 2006. The album was met with critical acclaim, with many critics considering it one of the best albums of the 2000s. It sold 10 million copies and was nominated for five Grammys. It had three songs hit number one on the charts (SexyBack, My Love, What Goes Around Comes Around), it had a top six hit (SummerLove), and two top twenty hits (Until the End of Time, LoveStoned). The subsequent tour to promote the album grossed $130 million. After the tour ended Timberlake went back to focusing on acting, making the occasional feature here and there. He notched another number one hit when he collaborated with Nelly Furtado and Timbaland on the song Give It To Me in 2007, Dead & Gone with TI which hit number two on the charts. He also notched a top 3 hit with Madonna and Timbaland’s hit song, 4 Minutes, and a top five hit with Ayo Technology with 50 Cent. In 2009 he appeared on the top ten Ciara hit, Love Sex & Magic as well collaborating with Timbaland on his top-11 hit Carry Out. We didn’t get any JT music again until March 2013, when Justin released The 20/20 Experience. It spawned songs that went both number 2 and 3 (Mirrors, Suit & Tie). The 20/20 Experience went on to become the best selling album of 2013. In September of that same year, he released part two of the album which wasn’t as successful as part one, but still spawned a top ten hit (Not a Bad Thing). Both these albums led to Justin Timberlake getting nominated for SEVEN Grammys and saw him gross $231 million during the tour. 2014 saw Justin featured on the top five hit with Jay-Z (Holy Grail) and the top ten posthumous collaboration with Michael Jackson (Love Never Felt So Good). He got back into acting once again in 2015 & 2016 , starring in Dreamwork’s Trolls, which he produced the soundtrack for. One of the songs off the soundtrack hit number one, became the biggest song of 2016, and earned Justin another Grammy (Can’t Stop the Feeling). He released his fifth album, Man in the Woods, in February 2018, the day before he was set to perform at the Super Bowl LII Halftime Show. Despite the negative reviews for the album, it had two songs hit number nine on the charts (Filthy, Say Something), and gross $217 million on the tour. Most recently, he has been working on the Trolls 2 Soundtrack which is set to be released this week on April 10, 2020.

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Justin Timberlake is a Swiss Army knife. On top of being the greatest male singer of the 2000s, he is a world rejoin dancer, an incredible performer, actor, and writer. Put simply one of the best to ever do it. Full disclosure ahead of this ranking, like I said above, this is NOT an *NSYNC Music Monday, this is a Justin Timberlake Music Monday, so I will grade his songs and his songs only. (EDITOR’S NOTE: As I am getting ready to publish this I decided to do a rapid ranking of Justin’s best features. Enjoy).

5. Carry Out (with Timbaland)

4. Ayo Technology (with 50 Cent)

3. Dead & Gone (with T.I.)

2. Holy Grail (with Jay-Z)

1. Give It To Me (with Timbaland and Nelly Furtado)

This ranking might make people angry, but you have to understand the amount of hits I’m working with here.

Toughest Omission: Señorita: I was absolutely shocked that this song didn’t hit the top 20. This song doesn’t nearly get the respect it deserves.

5. My Love (ft. T.I.): Anytime JT and Timbaland get together on a song it’s magic. The intro before the actual song is one of the best beat switches of all time. This TI verse is so good too, it often gets lost in shuffle of things.

4. Lovestoned/ I Think That She Knows SummerLove: this is the most Justin Timberlake song of all time. It has all the makings of a JT song- the two titles, the smooth melody, beatboxing, the breakdown in the middle of the entire song, and solid instrumental work. The only things missing are the ramen noodles haircut and an all denim outfit. I just decided to change this upon one last re-listen. SummerLove is the superior song. Sorry if this offends.

3. SexyBack (ft. Timbaland): Gotta give props to my man Timbaland once again for this track. I wish more songs had Timbaland saying “take em to the chorus!” and “Take it to the Bridge.” because there are so many songs where those choruses sneak up on me. He didn’t have to be as helpful as he was walking us through the song. Who knows where SexyBack would have gone without it.

2. Rock Your Body: Music reaches a lot of different people across the world. Everyone has their own interpretation of music and their lyrics. For example, telling a girl you want to Rock Her Body means something completely different in Pakistan. But that’s just one country with different cultures. I guarantee you when JT told Janet Jackson at that Super Bowl that he wanted to Rock Her Body. Nobody on earth would have thought it meant pulling her shirt off and exposing her breast to 140 million people.

1. Cry Me a River: I almost took this song off the list entirely because while doing my homework on Justin Timberlake, I learned that he doesn’t sing the “Cry Mee” at the end of this song and now I feel like my entire life is a lie. *Cue that Stephen A Clip*

Regardless, I can’t let that take away from the fact that I love Toxic records like this. This is JT’s signature song, and through all the hits he has accumulated during his 25 years in the business, this one stands taller than the rest.

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IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER I present you Justin as various bodies of water

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If Justin Timberlake can bring Sexy Back, he can bring denim back too.

Need him to rock this again.

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Your Turn

If you had a blog and were to rank every Justin Timberlake song that hit top 20 on the charts, what are your top 5?

Title	Year	Peak chart positions	Album
Like I Love You	2002	11	Justified
Cry Me a River	2002	3	Justified
Rock Your Body	2003	5	Justified
SexyBack (ft. Timbaland)	2006	1	FutureSex/LoveSounds
My Love (ft. T.I.)	2006	1	FutureSex/LoveSounds
What Goes Around… Comes Around	2006	1	FutureSex/LoveSounds
LoveStoned	2007	17	FutureSex/LoveSounds
Until the End of Time (ft. Beyonce)	2007	17	FutureSex/LoveSounds
SummerLove	2007	6	FutureSex/LoveSounds
Suit & Tie (with Jay-Z)	2013	3	The 20/20 Experience
Mirrors	2013	2	The 20/20 Experience
Not a Bad Thing	2014	8	The 20/20 Experience – 2 of 2
Can’t Stop the Feeling!	2016	1	Trolls
Filthy	2018	9	Man of the Woods
Say Something (with Chris Stapleton)	2018	9	Man of the Woods