To be fair, old gangster rapper Snoop Dogg almost rivalled Timberlake on the opening bill, with a laptop set dependent almost entirely on his sly charisma and popular hits extolling the joys of pimping and dope-smoking. But there was still a tangible gulf between the two. Snoop Dogg is an incredibly engaging pop character. Timberlake is a potential multi-generational world-beater.
Having taken a five-year break to diversify into a not particularly satisfying Hollywood acting career, Timberlake has returned to music with real intent. He opened with a trio of his biggest hits, the kind of surefire crowd-pleasers other artists save for encores, all the time demanding "Are we there yet?" As the last notes of Cry Me a River faded, Timberlake surveyed the 40,000-strong moving and swaying mass of young, enthusiastic urban ravers occupying an astroturfed London car park beneath the Olympic stadium, and smiled "I think we're there." There was still another hour to go, and it never let up.
Timberlake's principal model is Michael Jackson, although drawing more on Off the Wall funk than his later plastic pop. He made that debt explicit on a free-flowing cover of the Jacksons' Shake Your Body Down (To the Ground) but there was a big shot of Prince's rock-funk-jazz swagger in there, too, and it is no coincidence that many of his band members served time in the New Power Generation.
This was a set that didn't really rise or fall - rather it was all about keeping the groove and the crowd moving. The arrival of Jay Z on stage, that most royally confident of rappers in a genre never short of bullish swagger, was a crowning moment, like an endorsement from the godfather of hip hop to a new prince of pop.
No comments:
Post a Comment