#the 2020 experience

[nocturnvls]

STRAWBERRY BUBBLEGUM

#Justin Timberlake #JustinTimberlakeEdit #JTimberlakeEdit #Pop Gifs #PopEdit #Strawberry Bubblegum #The 2020 Experience #Post #*

[thisaintascenereviews]

Justin Timberlake - Everything I Thought It Was

Justin Timberlake’s first album in six years, Everything I Thought It Was, comes with some context that frankly needs to be unpacked before we can talk about it. For starters, JT’s public image has been somewhat tarnished over the last couple of years, due to Britney Spears releasing her memoir and saying a lot of unflattering things about him and their relationship. People have also been began reexamining certain pop culture events in retrospect, especially the 2004 Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction of Janet Jackson (which she was penalized for but JT wasn’t). He should be rightfully held accountable for things that he’s said and done, and he has since apologized, but JT’s biggest crime is relying on his white male privilege in the pop industry during the 90s and 00s, especially when misogyny was running rampant. The other important piece of context that’s needed is that his last album, 2018’s Man Of The Woods, wasn’t critically acclaimed like his last few albums. It was successful, but a lot of critics were not kind to it. Man Of The Woods tried to reframe his sound as “back to his roots” album, taking on influences of country, Americana, traditional R&B, and some futuristic funk, but it was kind of a mess. Personally, I like that mess, and think that album isn’t as bad as most critics made it out to be.

A couple of months ago, JT released the first single from this album, “Selfish,” and it served as both somewhat of a return to form and a red herring. That song is very reminiscent of something he would have put out The 20/20 Experience, especially “Mirrors,” but with a sense of wisdom as someone who is a decade older. It turned out to be a red herring, because Everything I Thought It Was is a very energetic, groovy, and fun album. It has a few ballads, and some introspective moments, but this album is very much a return to form. This album reminds me a lot of his first few albums, whether it’s the straightforward pop and R&B of Justified, forward thinking pop and R&B of FutureSex / LoveSounds, or the disco, funk, and retro-inspired sounds of The 20/20 Experience. You can listen to the album and pick out sounds from other albums, or even specific callbacks to other albums, but the songs stand up on their own, so as much as this album leans into nostalgia, and it definitely does, it’s not the only trick it has up its sleeve.

At this point in his career, where JT is a husband, father, and older in general, he doesn’t have anything to prove. I don’t understand why people act as though a lot of well-established artists, especially those that have been around for decades, need to keep pumping out mindblowing or unique material that rivals their best stuff. That is ideal, as we want our favorite artists to keep making great music, but JT is a guy with nothing to prove and nothing to lose. If he wants to make an album that’s basically him doing what he does best, I’ll take it. A lot of other reviews I’ve seen for this album have made the argument that this record is safe, and I’d say that, too, but why is that a bad thing? Songs like “Fuckin’ Up The Disco,” “Play,” “Technicolor,” “No Angels,” “Liar,” “Selfish,” and “Sanctified,” among others, have fantastic grooves, silky smooth vocals, and wonderful production from a myriad of producers and writers. All of these songs have something I really enjoy, and weirdly enough, its 77-minute length doesn’t bother me. There’s something to like on every song, but I will say that the last four songs slow down the album a bit, because they’re slower ballads. “Selfish” is the one that kicks off the last few tracks, and that song is the best out of them, but there’s “Alone,” “Paradise,” and “Conditions.” “Paradise” is interesting, because it features *NSYNC, and not in a small role, but this an *NSYNC song, through and through.

If there is one issue I have with this album, and I say that lightly, it’s that the lyrics aren’t anything we haven’t heard from him. JT made the album out to be that this would be very self-reflective and introspective, and the opening track, “Memphis,” sort of promises that. The song is JT looking back at his younger self and being told that he’s going to be a star but at the expense of not being able to express sadness and pain, along with feeling alone and isolated. The song is sort of clever by being this drab and downtrodden trap / R&B song and JT’s vocals sound defeated and saddened. If that’s the point, that’s extremely clever, but if not, it’s just a coincidence the song sounds like that. The closing track, “Conditions,” is a song that has him admitting that he isn’t perfect and he’s working on being better. The album is bookended by some introspective songs, but the issue is, the rest of the album is stuff we’ve heard from him for the past 20 years. If anything, the reflection comes into the sound of the album, not necessarily what he’s saying.

Everything I Thought It Was is an album that feels like a mix between a course correction after Man Of The Woods (which isn’t even that bad, honestly) and an album that takes advantage of the nostalgia wave that we’re in. He doesn’t have anything to prove with this, and from what I’ve seen, most casual listeners care more about the hits than they do new material. That’s the case for most artists, unfortunately, but this is an album for diehard fans and people that are looking for a solid pop and R&B record. This has some of the best pop and R&B tracks I’ve heard in a while, and given some time, a handful of these songs may end up being some of his best. As a diehard fan of JT for the past 12 years, this is everything I’ve wanted, especially after Man Of The Woods. It’s just JT doing what he does best, and while there’s only one song that’s over seven minutes (“Technicolor”) that brings to mind The 20/20 Experience, this is a fun, energetic, and groovy album that I’m having a blast with.

#justin timberlake #everything i thought it was #selfish #no angels #pop #r&b #soul #funky #funk #rock #FutureSex LoveSounds #the 2020 experience #suit and tie #pusher love girl #mirrors #justified #man of the woods

[musictyme]

Justin Timberlake- Spaceship Coupe

#Justin Timberlake- Spaceship Coupe #music #pop #2013 #the 2020 experience

[imabiscuitinthousandworlds]

happy pride specifically to everyone who went "yes i'm very interested in the queer community and trying to learn more and yes some things are very relatable BUT i'm totally not part of it myself" and then needed some time before going "oh"

#a biscuit's rambles #happy pride! #pride month #that was me looking at ace memes in 2020....... and i know other people with similar experiences #it seems to be a common theme every now and then

[of-fear-and-love]

Nope (2022)

#nope 2022 #2022 #jordan peele #daniel kaluuya #2020s film #2020s movies #star lasso experience #nope

[dovewingkinnie]

sometimes i want to fully animate biggering in the hopes that it'll bring back the onceler fandom becuase it would be really funny

#i know its still there #just not as big as it used to be #i wasn't there during the prime #i was there during 2020 #but thats all i needed to experience to know that its worth bringing it bac #LMAO

[psicochurroz]

#serial experiments lain #lain iwakura #monkey #one of the few drawings that i did in 2020 that i still like

[artemis-pendragon]

Okay but all jokes aside how fucking buckwild insane was Nov 5th 2020. Literally indescribable. Unparalleled. Whatever brain chemicals we invented that night should be studied under a microscope forever

#just truly thee experience of all time #nov 5th #nov 5th 2020 #destiel #spn #supernatural

[skitskatdacat63]

Oscar Piastri feeding Logan Sargeant [x]

#watching prema vids is certainly an experience #ignore me gifing smth from 2020 #i just wanted to go watch older oscar vids and this made me 🫣 #i was like 'oh yeah oscar was in prema! lemme go watch his old vids' #*2 hrs later* *suddenly has gifs of mclaren driver oscar piastri hand feeding williams driver logan sargeant* #oscar piastri #logan sargeant #f1 #formula 1 #we do a little bit of f1 #op81 #ls2 #loscar #is that their ship name? #watching their vids from 2020 made me totally understand this shi lol! especially these #why do i feel hesitant about posting smth from a 3 yr old vid when i regularly post stuff from more than a decade or more ago #ig bcs its more recent so people have prob seen it before but i cant resist especially since i compulsively screen recorded #id tag this as f3 bcs thats when this is from but im not tryna interfer with the current season

[boanerges20]

Red Bull KTM Factory Racing // 2020

#motorcycle #red bull ktm factory racing #2020 #brad binder #jack miller #sport bike #racing #motorsports #ride hard or go home #experience speed #built for speed #please reblog #moto love #lifestyle

[atissi]

okay all of the reviews for "severance" by ling ma said it was a hilariously deadpan satire on the post-apocalypse — and maybe that was true in 2018 — but now that i've read it i can say i probably laughed Once and felt a bone-deep nihilistic dread Constantly. the bit about the protagonist's company gifting her a self-care kit of 2 N95 masks, a nutrient bar, and an expanded insurance plan in response to a worldwide pandemic isn't really funny post-2020, it's just realism.

#good novel i felt actually insane reading how many parts of the 2020 pandemic ling ma accidentally predicted #and then felt insane experiencing Everything Else #idk i just love works about corporate gothic and alienation and shame and isolation. and severance hit like every beat #also i think the way the protagonist's immigrant experience tied in with her behaviours and the plot was just really clever #that she is essentially saved by and doomed by her lack of home. her severance from society if you will. ba dum tss #i figured out i can check out books from my library through a phone app. and then stole all my friends' library card information. im balling #beepbeep.txt #literature

[thisaintascenereviews]

Justin Timberlake - Man Of The Woods

Justin Timberlake has had an interesting few years, whether he’s been involved with the Trolls movies, or just touring nonstop, but after six years, he’s putting out a new record. The album’s called Everything I Thought It Was, and he released the single “Selfish,” which is a nice little “throwback” to his early 00s sound, but not quite as “experimental” as FutureSex / LoveSounds. It’s a smooth R&B / pop song, but it sounds like he’s in a good place. It seems like a lot of people love the song, and it debuted in the top 20 of the Hot 100, so that’s a good sign. With that said, I wanted to revisit JT’s last album, 2018’s Man Of The Woods, ultimately wanting to see if the album has aged well, because I remember it being successful when it came out, yet its critical consensus was more so mixed. The album did well on the charts, and he sold a lot of copies of it, but no one’s really talked about this album since its release. Let’s change that, shall we? Justin Timberlake is one of my all time favorite artists, especially I listened to FutureSex / LoveSounds back in 2012 for the first time, and it was one of the first pop albums I listened to that I fell in love with (which made me realize that pop music has a lot of merit behind it). I also really loved his 2013 comeback album, The 20/20 Experience (which I like more, but that’s a discussion for another day), so Man Of The Woods had a lot to prove.

I’ve been looking at my old posts about the album, because it came out around this time in 2018, and even looking at my first review of it, this album was one of those that took some time to grow on me. Man Of The Woods is a record that takes more simplistic forms of music, such as soul, funk, R&B, pop, and Americana / folk to make for an amalgamation of Timberlake’s sound. He wanted to have a sound that best represents his native Tennessee, as a lot of other styles of music exist other than country exist in the south. This album is definitely his most “simplistic,” because its songwriting isn’t very expensive, experimental, or as interesting in comparison to his last couple of albums, but I would make the argument that this album has aged relatively well, especially in an era when genres are being blurred. This album is a lot of sounds at once, and in a few cases, the album combines some of these sounds together, such as a few songs having an R&B meets folk sound, but it works. This album isn’t perfect, mind you, but it has its moments that I really like. Chris Stapleton pops up for the big single “Say Something,” and that song still sounds great all of these years later, and songs like “Sauce,” “Midnight Summer Jam,” “Wave,” and a few other tracks, are a ton of fun. The album slows down a bit, too, especially on tracks like “Flannel,” “The Hard Stuff,” and “Young Man,” and those are a few of my favorite tracks. They’re more of the emotional epicenter of the album, as this record’s main theme is family, whether it was to celebrate his son or his wife.

Where this album works is in the music itself, and the instrumentation, but the album falters a bit with two things — the lyrics and the length. The lyrics aren’t horrible, or anything close to that, but JT was never known as being a lyricist. Both FutureSex / LoveSounds and The 20/20 Experience aren’t well-regarded for their lyrical prowess, but they have their moments, as this album does, too, but a lot of the lyrics just aren’t interesting, or they’re downright forgettable. That wouldn’t be too much of an issue it the album was shorter, because there isn’t a lot that he’s saying, let alone even doing, so this album didn’t need to be an hour and six minutes. It’s as long as his other albums, but this should have been around 40 minutes, give or take, as that would have trimmed a lot of the fat. This album isn’t bad, or offensive, in any way, and that might be another issue with it: it’s too sanitized and simplistic. On one hand, I like that, because it’s a very pleasant and accessible album, but it doesn’t push any boundaries, or do anything unique, so it’s almost like, “What’s the point?”

I don’t know, I’m a sucker for his stuff, so it doesn’t bug me as much, and JT has a great voice, so I really enjoy this album. I’d say revisit this album if you haven’t listened to it in awhile, because it’s held up rather well, especially if you’re a fan of his. It’s nothing revolutionary, and the album does have some filler, but it’s a lot of fun, and JT does sound great throughout. I’d say this is his most underrated album. It has some merit to it, even though a lot of people have thrown it under the bus or just forgot about it. I’m really excited for his new album, Everything I Thought It Was, especially if it has the same sound as the new single. I love its smooth R&B sound, and it seems to be more on brand for him than his last album. Man Of The Woods was both an experiment and his most accessible album to date, and that could be why the album didn’t perform as well as it should have. I was sort of conflicted on it when I first listened to it again for the first time in years, but you know what? I love this album, warts and all. I’ll take any JT, and aside from the second part of The 20/20 Experience that I honestly forget about, saying that this is his weakest album still isn’t bad, because it has its moments that I really enjoy.

#justin timberlake #man of the woods #timbaland #the 2020 experience #suit and tie #mirrors #say something #selfish #everything I thought it was

[mirrorama]

OuO

#these are from 2020 #serial experiments lain #lain iwakura #my art

[kingjasnah]

Hi kingjasnah, can I ask why you don't post cosmere stuff very often anymore?

ummm ok sure. tbh the big nebulous reason is that it's not always easy to be a person of color in this space. i don't take a lot of what people say online seriously and I never have (which is probably why ive been on this blog so long), like im secure enough in my offline life to tbh not worry about it and my experience of these books is solely personal. which i recommend to everyone. but sure the last few years have been a little grating like i think there's a reason most of the mutuals of color i had in 2020 (and before) have um moved tf on as they say. im not going to expand on this LOL if you were here you know what i mean

the slightly chiller reason is just very simply that none of the releases since ROW have captured my interest as much? the ssps were cute but whatever. im personally not an era 2 person but i love a lore dump so lost metal was fun for that reason. when the next stormlight preview season starts I plan to be fully back on my bullshit I will be posting I will be keeping up with things I will be theorizing but I'm not here to do that 24/7 in the off season anymore

#dont get me wrong tho i curate my own experience sp thoroughly that not much bothers me #i just. it was half why are you talking to me like that im a person on the Internet and half dont make me ur racism attack dog if ur white #also. minor reason but this blog got too big in 2020 the more i think about it the more im like #that was weird it was weird that i cultivated several conflicting reputations online. yeah. #idk. was it weird? whatever lol #asks

[pileofglass]

Quick lil comic-strip styled collage I threw together back in 2020.

#mine #digital collage #collage #collage art #hatsune miku #tomie #junji ito #cyberpunk #cybercore #cyber y2k #black and white #b&w #2020 #lain #lain iwakura #serial experiments lain #webcore

[mumblesplash]

mcu and mcu-adjacent writers who acknowledge sleipnir’s backstory but try to spin it so the original myth was ‘a misunderstanding’ or change it into something more palatable are fucking cowards. loki is that horse’s biological mother and if you can’t face that you don’t have what it takes

#this post brought to you by Past Topsy and the golden age of the mcu fandom circa 2014 or something #would that i could have posted this to thousands of online strangers back when it was relevant to both my interests and fandom in general #i didn’t have a platform at the time only pet peeves and correct opinions about the cowardice of authors #and i include the actual movie writers in this idc #god the mcu really used to be possibly going to be so cool do you guys remember #early mcu was one of the only things i read fanfiction for prior to 2020 #not a ton but like there was a year or so there when i was still riding the high of one of my main childhood interests becoming an #entire cinematic extravanganza when i was just the right age to fully Experience The Spectacle but still hadn’t developed critical thought #and even then i apparently already had SOME standards bc i developed this extremely niche pet peeve somehow #mumbling