As expected, Justin Timberlake announced a new album entitled “Man of the Woods” and a new single coming Friday via a minute-long video posted on his social media accounts. The album is due Feb. 2 — two days before his halftime performance on the Super Bowl on Feb. 4.
“This album is really inspired by my son, my wife, my family, but more so than any album I’ve ever written, where I’m from — it’s personal,” he says in the video, which is filled with shots of Timberlake in outdoors settings. In other shots he is seen working with Pharrell Williams, who says “It feels so earthy, it’s just where you are in your life right now,” before adding emphatically, “That is a smash,” presumably about a song. Snippets of two or three new songs play in the background during the video.
While the wintery scenes contrast with Timberlake’s upbringing in Memphis, Tennessee, he has been saying for some months that the album, on which he also worked with longtime collaborators Max Martin and Shellback (with whom he collaborated on his last single, the hit “Can’t Stop the Feeling” from the movie “Trolls”) and Timbaland, reflected his roots, calling it “Southern American music.”
Timberlake’s halftime performance during the Super Bowl is set for Sunday, Feb. 4 at Minneapolis’ U.S. Bank Stadium. Variety reported that he was the frontrunner on Sept. 27.
