It's easy to feel a little sorry for
JC Chasez
, who seems fated to a perennial role as
Justin Timberlake
's sidekick. When both were in
*NSYNC
and, earlier,
the New Mickey Mouse Club
, they were part of a collective that divided the work equally, but
Timberlake
slowly pulled away from the group, dominating the
Celebrity
singles and press, and then he released
Justified
, his solo debut, in late 2002. A year later,
was a genuine superstar, not just dating movie stars but earning good critical notices, culminating in a handful of breathless raves that he was the heir to the thrones of
Stevie Wonder
and
Michael Jackson
(who apparently did not share the same throne). Heady stuff if you were
, intimidating if you were
Chasez
since it not only raises the bar, it suggests that the press and public are prepared to coronate
as the sole survivor of
, the way that
Beyonce Knowles
elbowed
Kelly Rowland
aside in the battle of
Destiny's Child
. To make matters worse, just weeks before
launched his solo career with his debut album,
Schizophrenic
,
dominated American headlines due to his role in tearing off
Janet Jackson
's top during an infamous Super Bowl stunt gone awry. To retaliate, the NFL promptly bumped
off his starring role in the halftime of the Pro Bowl, once again shoving
JC
into a subservient role to
Justin
.
Aware of this problem,
is determined to outdo
at his own game, to be sexier and sleeker, to reach further and be hipper, to try something different on each track. Hence, the title
, which
probably chose with blissful ignorance of its similarity to the name of
Geri Halliwell
's disastrous post-
Spice Girls
debut,
Schizophonic
. That doesn't mean
is wrong, of course. He does change sounds and styles frequently over the album, going much further into both hard dance-club music and sappy
urban
-
soul
ballads
than
, trading
JT
's
fixation for an obsession with
Prince
, hip producers
the Neptunes
for the even hipper
Basement Jaxx
, while delving into retro-
new wave
for good measure. This may not follow the
blueprint to a tee, but it's certainly in the same spirit -- it's a far more ambitious and diverse set of music than anything
released, and it's often pleasing on the surface, but it's undone by the showbiz kid at the heart of it all.
is a competent singer, but he's also an affected one, filled with mannerisms that surface whether he's crooning or growling, and he has no vocal signature as smooth or assured as
's slick falsetto. So, he tries harder to distinguish himself, particularly by shedding his boy background preening as a sexually charged yet sex-starved loverman. Problem is,
is hardly convincing as a sex machine. It's partially because his voice is a little thin, partially because he resorts to schoolyard slogans like
"All Day Long I Dream About Sex,"
but mostly because his words play like somebody who is trying to be sexy instead of simply being sexy. There's a reason why sex-obsessed singers from
to
Diamond David Lee Roth
haven't sung lines like
's "'Cause when I'm all alone/I lie awake and masturbate" -- it doesn't sound like seduction, it sounds desperate, lonely, and needy. And that's just the most quotable of the dozens of weirdly worded, panting come-ons on
-- there's also the cheerfully banal "so much fun being naughty," the exhortation that his lover is "such a sexy dame," his desire to "sleaze you girl," and his confession that he has to "adjust the button fly on my Levis when you walk into the door," which suggests that
is a sucker for clumsy dames.
If these hadn't been pushed to the forefront on over half the album, they'd be easier to forgive, but they're as incessant as his hyper-self-conscious, mannered phrasing, the work of a music-theater kid using everything at his disposal to sound street. It's telling that he sounds his best when he relaxes on the sweet
at the end of the album, or on the infectious sugary
pop
of
"Something Special,"
since this is where he sounds comfortable. If the music on
was as awkward as
Chavez
's singing and stance, it'd be an easy album to dismiss, but what makes it so frustrating is that he has a lot of good music on the album. Whether it's the heavy dance-club throb of
"Some Girls (Dance With Women)"
or
"Shake It,"
the skipping lite
funk
"She Got Me,"
the
homage
"100 Ways,"
the robotic
electro
pulse of
"All Day Long I Dream About Sex"
"Come to Me"
with its
"Sunglasses at Night"
sample, or the mock
reggae
"Everything You Want,"
is filled with terrific
music, filled with undeniable hooks and a vibrant, imaginative production. Sonically, it's easy to get sucked into the grooves of nearly every song here, but inevitably,
will do something to pull you out of a song, whether it's something he says or the way he says it. That's where
has him beat -- he may not have much personality on record, but he can sell the groove by not getting in its way.
can't do that, at least yet, nor does he have his former bandmate's ingratiating charm, which will likely prevent him from ever reaching
's star status. But in his favor, he does have an album that on a strictly musical level tries harder and achieves more than
. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine