What We Know About Justin Timberlake’s “Man of the Woods”

After months of speculation, and a Super Bowl halftime show announcement in late October, Justin Timberlake has finally announced a new album, entitled Man of the Woods. Following 2013’s The 20/20 Experience and The 20/20 Experience – 2 of 2, Man of the Woods will mark Timberlake’s first album in over four years. Thankfully, fans won’t have to wait much longer, as Man of the Woods was announced January second, via a video posted to social media, titled “INTRODUCING MAN OF THE WOODS.” All while exploring nature, Timberlake explains that the album was inspired by his family, and Tennessee, where he’s from. The video concludes by sharing that the album will be coming out on February second, two days before his performance at the Super Bowl. What else do we know about this exciting new venture?

Album Cover: The cover shows Timberlake sliced in half like a unevenly torn picture, with his top half wearing a blazer, and his bottom half wearing ripped blue jeans with a hint of a red white and blue flannel. This image sits on top of a splotchy orange backdrop, making for arguably JT’s most rustic and varied album cover to date.

📷 #ryanmcginleystudios https://t.co/oydnUMzBE8 pic.twitter.com/40nvpuf4Mt

— Justin Timberlake (@jtimberlake) January 2, 2018

Producers and Writers: For the album’s production, Timberlake has enlisted longtime collaborator Timbaland, The Neptunes, whom he collaborated with on his 2002 album Justified, as well as Rob Knox, and Danja. As for the writers, Pharrell is back, and in the promo video, described the sound of the album as “earthy” and “where you are in your life right now”. Pharrell’s partner in crime from The Neptunes, Chad Hugo also has writing credits on more than a few of the songs.

First Single: Released on January 5th with an accompanying video, Man of the Wood’s first single is “Filthy”. With a glitched out, swampy beat, Timberlake takes a softer approach to his vocal delivery, showing that he is clearly more than willing to take chances on this new album. The video echoes this sentiment, complete with a dancing robot, and Timberlake appearing character similar to Steve Jobs, delivering a speech at the Pan-Asian Deep Learning Conference in 2028. While the songs is far from the “earthy” sound that Pharrell described, we can only assume that was in reference to other songs on the album.

Tracklist: Posted to Twitter on January 5th, Timberlake announced the tracklist for the album, which includes 16 songs, and two collaborations, one with A.K. (rumored to be Alicia Keys) and the other with C.K. (rumored to be Chris Stapleton). With song titles such as “Flannel”, “Montana”, and “Livin’ Off The Land”, we can’t help but feel like Pharrell’s “earthy” description just might be spot on after all.