Justin Timberlake struggles with his own past: we’ve already heard “Everything I Thought It Was” and expected more

Since his solo debut with the album “Justified”, in 2002, the year in which NSYNC, the boy band with which he introduced himself to the world, they decided to pack up their boots, the American Justin Timberlake has been on a journey of ups and downs. The success achieved with the first album, anchored in singles such as ‘Cry Me a River’ or ‘Rock Your Body’, only intensified with “FutureSex/LoveSounds”, released four years later. The songs ‘SexyBack’, ‘My Love’ and ‘What Goes Around… Comes Around’, which featured a memorable video co-starring Scarlett Johansson, took the creative partnership with producer Timbaland to another level, propelling it to the top of tables a little everywhere. From then on, although ‘Suit & Tie’ (with rapper Jay-Z) and ‘Mirrors’, included in “The 20/20 Experience”, were on the lips of the world, the only major success the musician achieved was with ‘Can’t Stop the Feeling!’, the main song from the children’s animated film “Trolls”, in 2016. “Man of the Woods”, the predecessor of this new “Everything I Thought It Was”, came out a long six years ago and didn’t leave much of a mark, as also happened with collaborations with SZA (‘The Other Side’), Calvin Harris, Pharrell and Halsey (‘Stay with Me’) or Timbaland and Nelly Furtado – last year’s ‘Keep Going Up’ , tried to revive the three-part success of ‘Give It to Me’, from 2007, without success.