Not Getting Sexyback

The first time I heard this track, I had no clue who was singing. There’s something familiar, I thought, but damned if I know what that is. Halfway through the second time I heard it, something clicked. That… that’s not Justin Timberlake, is it? Since when has he sounded like a girl?

I like the song. It gets under your skin, drags you out of your chair and has you shimmying and dancing on the spot. Here’s the question, though: why is it that Paris Hilton’s first album is universally condemned as being over-produced, when her braying gets modulated down to singing – while here, Timberlake’s admittedly higher register gets bumped into a whole different sex, and no one says anything?

Ben Rayner on Paris Hilton in the Toronto Star, Aug 27th 2006: "Of course Paris sounds decent. The girl has more money than all of our gods combined and about equal "pull," at least in those rarefied celebrity circles where "pull" is considered next to godliness.

If the first 15 runs at the thing had turned out something that gave listeners brain aneurysms and wiped out migratory bird flocks, the cash would have kept flowing until the evil was sufficiently contained for mass distribution at Wal-Mart. The music industry needs customers; it's not gonna kill them outright."

Timberlake, on the other hand, made the cover of Rolling Stone in September.

Huh? I'm so confused.

PS - The fact that I’m - in a sense - defending Paris Hilton actually makes me dislike the song more than I would've under normal circumstances.