Pirouetting Waif-Boy

In a year that has been one of the worst for pop in living memory, the last thing anyone had any right to expect was for it to be belatedly made less grim by Timbaland, of all people. That is, someone who hadn't made a memorable record since 2001 and had apparently spent the interim bodybuilding. But perhaps this choice of pastime is apt, since what his recent peaks- Justin Timberlake's 'SexyBack' and 'My Love', Nelly bloody Furtado's 'Maneater'- evoke more than anything else are the mechanical piston shifts and slurges of synth noise of Electronic Body Music. SexyBack in particular (from the man who gave us the number 1 with no bassline, here's the number 1 with no tune!) is Front 242 all over, tensed and tensile, gleaming and malevolent, with its preposterous lyrical claims backed up by futurist machismo. If only Justin had the visual charisma to match this persona. Evoking as it does Viz's Incredible Dr Sex, what it really needs is an Einstein hairdo, a leotard and a cape...