8A - Friday, October 4, 2013 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com 8A - Friday, October 4, 2013 The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom ALBUM REVIEW Nothing new in JT's 'Experience' HNE A RT NO TEBOOK Bad theater can prove to be a good time Sequel would do better as a re-release By GREGORY HICKS Daily Arts Writer Excess will be the undoing of Justin Timberlake. The suave pop and R&B singer isn't the first big name to relentlessly C+ release mate- rial - a com- The 20/20 mon critique f or praise of """' the dynamic 2 Of 2 Barbadian pop Justin singer Rihanna T - but Timber- Timberlake lake's work is jive ,far too monot- onous to be generated in surplus. The 20/20 Experience was about twice the length of a standard album, and The 20/20 Experience - 2 of 2 is even longer than its 70-minute counterpart. That's nearly four albums' worth of material with- in the same seven months. Per- haps Timberlake is eager to fill in the gap for his six-year music hiatus. At the very least, work with somebody - anybody - other than Timbaland. This will be Timberlake's third album entirely produced by the cel- ebrated hip-hop producer, and those who don't verse them- selves on their music history are doomed to repeat it. Artists who. cling to the same producer will preserve the sound they've come to be known for, but shorten their musical shelf life in doing so. Grungy pop artist Ke$ha encountered this dilemma in By REBECCA GODWIN Daily Arts Writer While on vacation with my family this summer, we happened upon a local theater production and, being the theater fanatic that I am, I convinced my parents to see the show. Thus began both my worst and best night ever at the theater. The show, titled "The Lost Col- ony," has been running for years, and details, through creative license, the very unclear fate of the Roanoke settlers, performed in an outdoor amphitheater. Reviews online were favorable and locals said the show was worth the price of the tickets. Withinotwo minutes of the start of the production though, those hopes were all but shattered. As dozens of settlers walked onto the stage, singing what I can only describe as a Gregorian chant interspersed nicely with moments of high-pitched shrieking, I knew this was going to be a rough night. After the settlers finally stopped moaning, a narrator (picture a televangelist wearing a judge's robe) entered and began to summarize ... something. I say something because he wasn't real- ly saying anything of real value. There were a lot of words, tons of religious symbolism, plenty of projecting and dramatic hand flourishes, but not a whole lot of exposition. I told my mom to give it a few minutes, as the show couldn't truly be this bad; it had won a Tony Award (at least according to the program anyway), and the audi- ence members who had reviewed the sh been s qualit3 But cans" keep u would a little Ameri cans a of Ca painte shade aeen, I can-A The curaci and ti neous traditi not an cultur Native very m Sc At t two of fact th having experi accept and ta and h chose1 hell - time. The The r filled ow before us could not have accents, sword fights that were so so blind to the low level of slowed down you could clearly see y they were witnessing. fake blades being shoved under when the "Native Ameri- armpits rather than through I ran onstage, even I couldn't chests and gunfire that was repeat- Lp the charade that the show edly and obviously shot straight get better. I was more than into the air while still managing to confused when the Native "kill"various actors. cans weren't Native Ameri- But the best moment came near t all, but rather a large group the end of the intermission and ucasian men and women had very little to do with what d the most unconvincing was happening onstage. A couple of copper brown I've ever with an elderly woman had, for led by a very large, fit Afri- one reason or another, decided to merican man. return the woman to her wheel- racial and cultural inac- chair to watch the remainder of es were simply astounding, the performance. Just as they hey only grew more erro- positioned her in the wheelchair, when the group began its the lights in the theater went out onal tribe dance. Now, I'm again. After 30 seconds, a loud expert on Native American crash off to my left rang out, and I e, but I'm fairly certain that turned to discover thatthe gentle- Americans weren't doing man hadn't wanted to wait for the aany arabesques and jetds. stage lights but had instead rolled the elderly woman into four metal folding chairs. The commotion settled down yland the actors entered the stage a l to begin the second act. One of the it's funny. settlersyelled agreetingto afellow actor onstage, and the old woman, apparently unfazed by her crash, yelled, "Hello!" right back. The :his point in the show, I had audience fell silent and I had to ptions. I could sulk over the bite down on my hand to'stop from at it was terrible and leave erupting in peals of laughter dur- g had a very unfortunate ing a scene that included the death ence at the theater, or I could of several settlers. the show for its awfulness While the old woman turned ke it in all of its cheesy, corny out to be the highlight of the pro- istorically incorrect glory. I duction, my parents and I left hav- the latter, figuring what the ing had a pretty good time.We had I might as well have a good stories to tell others and memories that would make us laugh when we show didn't disappoint: looked back. So I guess even bad emaining two hours were theater can sometimes be good. with undecipherable English But we're never going back. Ever. "To be or not to be." 2012 after gluing herself to Dr. Luke for four years, when War- rior massively undersold. There's nothing to be said about The 20/20 Experience - 2 of 2 that couldn't be said by describing The 20/20 Experi- ence. Seems like an obvious statement, given the titling, but why not just opt for a re- release? Artists like Lady Gaga experienced immense success with their re-releases, such as The Fame Monster, despite hav- ing a new number of tracks that could've constituted an entirely new record. Each song on The 20/20Expe- rience - 2 of2 was created simul- taneously with the tracks from The 20/20 Experience, making it a recipe for a secondhand piece of work. It's essentially a col- lection of every song unworthy of Timberlake's musical hiatus return six months ago. Releasing unused goods is common prac- tice for artists, but once again, typically done on re-releases or EPs. Drake spices up the collabo- rations a bit on "Cabaret," but another Jay-Z-Timberlake tag team on "Murder" only serves to highlight JT's predictability.. Surprisingly, "TKO" - one of the album's most watered-down, beat-oriented tracks - was cho- sen as the record's second pro- motional single. Sadly, most of its tracks aren't worth any detailing, aside from the lead single, "Take Back the Night," which comes as a com- bination of Michael Jackson's Off the Wall era and Jackson's single "Wanna Be Startin' Some- thin' " from his Thriller days. Though debuting in the Top 40, the single performed poorly in contrast to his last few releases. Timberlake may be taking back the night, but he should consider taking back the album instead. CHECK OUT MICHIGANDAILY.COM/BLOGS/THE+FILTER 0 0 a N c N Ic v N W 3