Tuesday September 12, 2006 arts.michigandaily.cam artspage@micbigandaily.com lbe ibigrn 3? ugl ART S Art is life is art is life FINE ARTS COLUMN Justin Timberlake, in typical form. BRINGING OP BACK TIMBERLAKE'S BITE (ALMOST) AS BAD AS HIS BARK By Kimberly Chou Associate Arts Editor MUSIC R EVI EW ri Right now, Justin Timberlake is absolutely bulletproof. Marketing aesthetic for his sopho- more record? Throw together natty suits, Justin ubiquitous facial hair Timberlake and disemboweled disco balls. Bam - buckets Futuresex/ of hype. Music video for Lovesounds his lead-off single? The Jive combo of Timbaland and espionage equals - boom - a hit video for "Sexyback." And admitting to reporters his experimentation with drugs and alcohol? Only makes him more popular. With all of the advance press Timberlake has garnered for Futuresex/Lovesounds, it'd be fair to expect the album to blow his surpris- ingly solid debut, Justified, out of the water. Futuresex has certainly been built up in coquettish PR fashion: dropping an early leadoff single here, playing a surprise show with all new cuts there. "Sexyback" gar- nered contrived spacebar jokes and posi- tive reviews for the singer's digitized boasts ("I'm bringing sexy back ... don't make me make up for the things you lack") and casual profanity ("them motherfuckers don't know how to act") spun over Tesla coil shocks of rhythm. Second single "My Love" rides its A-list guest stars: a teasing, pulsing key- board pushes JT's vocals over classic Timba- land chirps and clicks from Aaliyah's "Are You That Somebody?" T.I 's guest rap adds 40 seconds of icing, his easy drawl slip-slid- ing toward a coda. Not just bitter over the Britney breakup (re: "Cry Me a River" and its uncomfortably voyeuristic, yet titillating, music video), Timberlake lets loose with that sweet, gushy stuff, flirting with matrimony in his lyrics. He's 25, dating an older woman, toying with facial hair and funk carioca beats - this is good for him. Admittedly, the impact of Timberlake's 2002 debut will be hard to top. The setup for Justified was as near-scripted as it gets in melodramatic pop-music land. Timberlake broke up with both his superstar boy band and his superstar girlfriend, subsequently creating - aided primarily by Timbaland and Pharrell Williams - the best vehicle for a newly solo pop artist in recent memo- ry. The few ballads arrived flat, but "Like I Love You" became the season's guilty plea- sure and the album spawned a host of other hits, including one originally written for Timberlake's idol, Michael Jackson ("Rock Your Body"). Timberlake's efforts elicited comparisons to Jackson for his debut, and there's been Prince talk surrounding Futuresex, especially with the confident, bedroom vibe of his lyrics and the silky, deliberate beat of "Until the End of Time" (a Donny Hathaway-inspired ballad fea- turing the Benjamin Wright Orchestra). But if imitation is truly the sincerest form of flattery, Timberlake is showing an awful lot of love for his different influences. On the playful "Damn Girl," the clean '70s horns and flirtatious, soaring chorus juxtapose with his modern tongue and style ("You don't need Maybelline / 'Cause you're a beauty queen ... I guess I gotta put it down tonight"). Sexy Al Green yelps brighten the song. He draws from Hathaway and Green on the orchestral ballads and subtle slow jams, looks to Stevie Wonder for ripples of sunshine-bright pop and soul, not to mention any other black pop artist (name preferably followed by "legend") who seems fit to be name-dropped in reference. Part of Timberlake's success is how unabashedly he borrows from the singers and songwriters he See JUSTIN, page 8 t's easy to preach art's qualify- ing nature: that we (as a town, a university, a nation) need, on any level, an appreciation for expression. And in the context of a fine arts column, it would be even easier to condense such a sentiment by shouting: "There's a museum." "There's a gallery." "There's avant- garde theater."- Such are the expres- sions of a select few in few select places - some convenient, some not so much. It's so easy to pin up a few institutions and orga-- nizations as the be-all and end-all of "arts appreciation." But this process is ANDREW too self-contained, too K obvious. It errs on the side of simplicity - narrowing the list of cultural/artistic motherships does not make them more acces- sible. It cultivates an "either I go to the museum and 'culture' myself or I don't" mentality. Our beloved Museum of Art is undergoing reconstruction - a massive project that will only bet- ter the museum as a whole. But we must wait. And the original pur- pose of this column was to remind you, gentle freshman and aged sixth year, that there are still many places to "experience art." But the nature of that premise is problem- atic: You experience art here, but not there. That building has a high aesthetic value. Look at it. A lot. The fact is that art can be "expe- rienced" anywhere. It isn't so pared down. It can't be. Unfortunately, "arts apprecia- tion" denotes looking at paintings. Looking at sculptures. Going to a foreign movie. Quick answers that transform "arts appreciation" into a misnomer. We should be appreciating cul- ture, the arts being one part of a great whole. Which brings us to Ann Arbor. It's where you are - you have to make the most of it. Ann Arbor, for all her rich his- tory of hippies and hash and poli- tics, is glossed over by repetition of the mundane. Dry commercial and yuppie chains are acces- sible anywhere. Dorm rooms are small and cramped, which feels like that Angell Hall classroom which feels like that Dennison classroom and hey, Scorekeepers is like Rick's is like Ashley's is like Leopold Brothers. The broad Diag paths don't feel so roomy around noon on a Tuesday. Fast forward 14 hours and you have a barren landscape. Seasonal depression is a reality. When you're deprived of sunlight for too long, your brain, imagina- tion and energy suffer. Is it such a leap to claim that additional stimu- E li - that which makes us think, to any capacity - is necessary? That a day-to-day, semester-to-semes- ter, graduation-to-graduation rou- tine demands an "appreciation of culture" in order to maintain equi- librium? No. Ann Arbor has been around long enough to develop deep nuances and quirks. Expression ranging from the individual to the collective, the aes- thetic to the political, is ripe for the experi- encing. Some exam- pies are easy: the Law Quadrangle, the Fleet- wood Diner, Work (the SARGUS student art exhibit on State Street), Nickels Arcade. But even these gems run the risk of falling into the humdrum mesh of college life. How can we as students of any status rise above the superficial? We must adapt. Adapting to your environment is one of the most important skills you can learn in your life. It's how horrible jobs become bearable, how dull cities become hotbeds of inspi- ration. How can we adapt to Ann Arbor? By finding and appreciating nuance: the graffiti-thick alley off of Liberty Street (kitty-corner from the Fleetwood), the brick streets in Kerrytown, the Union's wind-rip- pled ivy and the fact that folks smile at you and hold the door open. But here I go, listing random things that make my Ann Arbor experience as individual as I can manage. Every once in a while I stop and watch our beloved Michael Jackson impersonator near Liberty Street and State Street. If he's not there, I go into that acoustically perfect alley and walk through its maze of murals and tags. We owe this ourselves: keeping our heads up, noting the excep- tional and the everyday and how the two combine to give us our appreciation of culture. It's an awareness of your surrounding, not just specific actions (going to and "appreciating" an art exhibit, for example), that complements our personal development. Ann Arbor may not be the best place for you to spend the next years of your life, but you owe it to yourself to make the most of what you can. When you can. But when 10, 20, 50 years go by and retrospection sets in, what will Ann Arbor mean to you? Classes and beer? Or a time when you developed your mind not just through your classes but with every step in between? Time will tell. - Klein's scruff is, like, really deep performance art. E-mail him at andresar@umich.edu. COMPck M M BlcM gves U a cance torecord By Bernie Nguyen Managing Arts Editor If you've failed your Ameri- can Idol audition, take heart. Your chance to make it big might finally be here. In search of what they hope will be "the most original musical piece and performance by a Univer- sity of Michigan student or group," Block M Records, the University's recording company and studio, opened a school-wide competition called "New Music on the Block" on Sept. 5. Mary Simoni, associate dean for the School of Music, Theater and Dance and one of the competition's chief organizers, said that "New Music on the Block" is aimed at all the students on campus. The program was designed with a goal of celebrating creativity in the student body through the promotion of original works composed and performed by University Students, she said. "It's just because we've seen so much student creativity here in the School of Music, Theater and Dance beyond those students who are enrolled,' Simoni said. "We wanted to give them a creative outlet on the label - just the joy of having their music heard by the world" The contest will be judged by a panel consisting of experienced producers, composers, University faculty and media personalities, according to Block M. The panel will select winners based on creativ- ity, originality and quality of perfor- mance, and will award the winning performers with a recording contract for the winter 2007 semester. Winners will also get a chance to record their music at the newly reno- vated Audio Studio in the Duderstadt Center. Block M and the School of Music, Theater and Dance will help produce the piece. The new sound engineering program at the school, Simoni said, will bring students together both in the composition and in the production of original music. "It's directly tied to making our classroom a living/learning experi- ence for all our students," she added. Distribution of the winning pieces through iTunes is also a possibility. Simoni said that the School of Music,Theater and Dance and Block M are planning on making the com- petition a yearly event, and that in the future the program may expand to include video, a rising creative art among the student population. "It could be video art, documenta- ries," Simoni said. "It could be music videos." The contest, which runs through Friday, accepts submissions on CD only, and a submission form must accompany each entry. Entrants may range from single student perfor- mances to groups of 100 members. The main qualification is that the work must be original and must be performed by University students who are currently enrolled. Submissions are due by 5 p.m. Friday, and should be hand-deliv- ered to the School of Music, Theater and Dance and Block M Records in the Moore Building on North Cam- pus. Winners will be notified by Oct. 1, and will receive invitations to perform at the Video Studio at the Duderstadt Center on Oct. 20 and 21. The competition is sponsored by Block M Records, the School of Music, Theater and Dance, the Digi- tal Media Commons of the Duder- stadt Center and Apple, Inc. Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in Public Policy Introducing a new interdisciplinary liberal arts degree from one of the nation's top public policy schools. We invite you to attend one of two upcoming information sessions about the Ford School B.A. Professor John Chamberlin, faculty direc- tor of the undergraduate program, will describe the new degree program and will be available to answer questions. The Ford School B.A. is a junior/senior program. The application deadline for the first incoming class is February 1, 2007. Wednesday September 13 4pm - 5pm, Weill Hall Betty Ford Classroom, miso Monday, September 18 6:30pm - 7:30pm, Weill Hall Betty Ford Classroom, 11o C) rra