justin timberlake broke me down

his song "my love" made me surrender.

i'd been holding a grudge against justin timberlake ever since he used his left hand to expose janet jackson's right breast on national tv, and thereafter i refused to listen to any of his music. i was thoroughly upset with him for abandoning one of the architects of the last 25 years of great pop music--the very music of which he's been a direct beneficiary. before that, i was ok with justin. i liked his song "cry me a river" from his first album justified, a lot.

but then he left janet jackson holding the dookie bag.

i'm not going to rehash the fallout that followed, but i will rehash how justin helped lead a lot of us to abandon the woman i feel is the queen of modern pop music. her album "damita jo" and career tanked while his only gained more steam. janet has yet to regain her pre-2004 super bowl popularity.

so, i'd been doing a pretty good job of holding a two-and-a-half-year boycott against justin. one that even lasted through the hit "sexyback" from his futuresex/lovesounds album. but "my love"--a trance of a song with stuttering synth sounds that has a sprinkling of prince's "eye wanna melt with u" throughout it--was my kryptonite. the combination of justin's seamless falsetto and rapper t.i.'s southern monotone contribution to that song gives me the option to either move my body or use the rhythm as the soundtrack to some sort of meditation. i enjoy the video very much and watch it everytime it comes on when i'm in front of the tv.

yeah, you got me justin. now, if we could just do something about your wack dancing. (hey, i had to get in one last jab!)