Justin Timberlake on line 4, phoning it in for "Filthy"

Justin Timberlake is that guy you love to hate and reluctantly like. It's the damn music. As much as an idiot as you find him to be, he drops a song, drops an album and you can't help but dig it. It's a real testament to the quality of his music and he's definitely an example of how you can like an artist's music without actually liking the artist.

I tend not to get excited or go out of my way to care a great deal whenever Justin releases an album, but always end up checking his shit out, because I know he'll deliver. But when I heard that Timbaland and Danja would be working together again for Justin's 2018 album Man of the woods, my usually non-caring ass got excited.

Some of Timbaland's best work following his post 2004 slump was on Nelly Furtado's Loose and Justin Timberlake's FutureSex/LoveSounds, two albums which he co-produced with Danja; the then unknown up and coming producer responsible for giving Timbaland's sound a jump start.

Some of Danja's best work came not long after he stepped out on his own, most notably on Britney Spears' Blackout. Neither Tim nor Danja have delivered much heat over the past couple of years, so the prospect of them working together again had me anticipating, as I figured it'd reignite their sparks. Then I heard this "Filthy" shit.

"Filthy" feels like "SexyBack". Straight off the bat. It swirls and squelches in similar ways, features a short and repetitious song structure, has a set of dumb lyrics and stinks of Prince's Paisley park weave. It takes a good listen or two for it to really stick. But I can't imagine it sticking for very long.

One would assume that Timbaland was involved with this song, purely because it's Justin Timberlake. But going on sonics alone this doesn't sound like a Timbaland production at all. It sounds like straight Danja. And even then...

"Filthy" is one of Justin's most interesting videos to date, which isn't saying much given that his videography for the most part is all rubbish and far from iconic. Justin is oft compared to Michael Jackson, Prince and David Bowie, but he lacks the visual flair of all three. The only video of Justin's that I like is "Rock your body". I feel as though all of Justin's music videos post Justified have been an overly thought, conscious effort to not give us what he knows he should. So we don't get elaborately choreographed routines and in most instances we barely get Justin. This would be fine, if the end results were really compelling videos. But ever since that 007 ass mess for "SexyBack", Justin has been on a spree of delivering turns for music videos.

It's weird watching some i, Robot thing do what Justin should be doing. But it is what it is. Justin has been downplaying delivering dance routines for a while now. When the dancing spirit left Britney, it left his bald-headed ass too.