Justin Timberlake's Super Bowl halftime show reminds world of why it fell in love with him
It’s never not been good to be Justin Timberlake but the road leading to his Super Bowl performance has been uncharacteristically bumpy. Call it karma for living a charmed life but of late Timberlake seems unable to put a foot right.
There were the three unloved singles chosen to launch what would turn out to be the tepidly-received Man Of The Woods. There was Timberlake’s reluctance to comment on working with Woody Allen. And there was the Super Bowl performance itself, perceived by incensed internet commentators as an unapologetic return to the scene of the crime.
Fourteen years earlier, Timberlake single-handedly gave birth to the world of Twitter outrage by exposing Janet Jackson’s nipple and not, in the eyes of the online judiciary committee, displaying sufficient penitence. Timberlake’s subsequent career was seen to have soared while Jackson was judged to have been made to unfairly wear the scarlet letter of shame.
The rumour that Timberlake was planning to commemorate performing in the Minneapolis U.S Bank Stadium by duetting with a Prince hologram whipped up even more internet ill-feeling that the former Mouseketeer was returning to the Super Bowl to desecrate another black icon.
As it turned out, Justin Timberlake’s 12 minute performance at the Half Time show bore the influence of another star.
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Last year, Lady Gaga played the Super Bowl. Like Timberlake, she was struggling to whip up popular or critical interest in her then-current album. She made the pragmatic choice to more or less ignore her underwhelming fresh material and tear through a smartly choreographed medley of her greatest hits designed to remind the vast audience why they liked her in the first place.
Gaga’s Super Bowl show was regarded as a triumph (though it didn’t cause anyone to reevaluate Joanne as an overlooked masterpiece).
Timberlake took a similar tack. While he inflicted a few bars of the recent, turgid Filthy on an intimate backstage audience, he speedily segued into a seamless playlist of the most appealing songs from his bulging back catalogue.
Rock Your Body led into snatches of Sexy Back, My Love and Cry Me A River. It was hard to watch that segment and hear those hits and not conclude that Timberlake’s ascendancy from boy band component to autonomous success story is something that every nascent pop hopeful should be forced to study and and attempt to emulate.
Using every inch of the playing field, he fell into step with a marching band for Suit And Tie and then made his way to the piano. Keeping the attention of a stadium of heavily partisan American football fans during a ballad section is no easy feat.
Timberlake played a little of his own Until The End Of Time before a white sheet unveiled to show images of Prince and he transitioned into I would Die 4 You from Purple Rain. It felt like an appropriate and heartfelt homage and the relief that no holograms were involved was palpable.
The set ended with Mirrors, the best of Timberlake’s latter-day work, and the soundtrack hit Can’t Stop This Feeling!, which might end up as his last Greatest Hit.
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Whether you went into this halftime show a committed supporter, yearning for Timberlake to remind the world not to dismiss him over those three dud singles from Man Of The Woods, or whether you identified as an internet naysayer rooting for him to stumble, this was a display of consummate professionalism by a guy who doesn’t always want to be a pop star. But when he does, we all win.
