“Filthy” is the Funky Sex Song 2018 Already Needed
Haters gonna say it’s fake.
Listen. I am not, and probably never will be, a die-hard Justin Timberlake fan. Sure, I know a lot of his hits (who doesn’t?), and I was a pretty serious N*SYNC fangirl when I was eight years old, but Timberlake was never my favorite. Besides, I’m too much of a POS indie pop girl to readily admit that I actually fuck real hard with music like this.
But “Filthy,” the first single off of Timberlake’s forthcoming album, Man of the Woods, is a bop. It is a bop that cannot and will not stop, and I am not ashamed to admit it.
I’ve had “Filthy” on repeat since I woke up to tweets about it early this morning (shout out to TRL’s Terron Moore for bringing me to life with his reactions), and with every listen, it just gets better.
It’s the ideal blend of everything that’s great about an artist like Justin Timberlake: the sexy, kind of mindless lyrics, his effortless vocals and harmonies, and a beat so thick and syncopated that you literally can’t help but bob along while he commands that you put your filthy hands all over him (this is NOT the clean version).
It is a bop that cannot and will not stop, and I am not ashamed to admit it.
The song starts off in a surprising way, vamping up with drums and electric guitar — honestly, I wasn’t expecting it to go where it does after the opening bars. Timberlake goes from a heavy intro that suggests that things are about to get dramatic to a stripped, dubstep-y beat backed by funky synthesizers and some pretty hot samples of Timberlake just…breathing in an undeniably sexy way, and it works so well.
“Filthy” mixes the sexual appeal of Future Sex/Love Sounds with the funky grooves of the infamous “doing it” songs of the ’70s (I’m getting some serious “Tell Me Something Good” vibes), while seamlessly mixing in modern dubstep beats, and…y’all, I just can’t stop listening to this damn song.
Setting aside the intoxicating nature of the music alone in “Filthy,” I need to say a few things about these lyrics. Sure, they’re pretty cheesy, and they’re not really saying anything besides, “Let’s have dirty, hot sex,” but sometimes that’s all you need out of a song, you know? Timberlake is obviously pretty good at being sexy (he brought it back, ha ha), so it should come as no surprise that he can turn a line as simple as, “Put your filthy hands all over me / No, this ain’t the clean version,” into something so perfectly seductive. And don’t even get me started on the pre-chorus:
Baby, don’t you mind if I do, yeah
Exactly what you like times two, yeah
Got me singin’, “ooh, ooh”
So baby, don’t you mind if I do
Jesus take the wheel.
The song ends with a quick snippet of a woman’s voice (it’s Jessica Biel) inviting Timberlake (and us, I guess) into the woods. Get it?? It’s a nice little taste of what’s to come when Man of the Woods is released in February, and it doesn’t totally take you out of the groove of the song (but I do just keep cycling back to the beginning every time that part starts…just saying).
Now, is Timberlake saying anything deeper than, “We are going to have sex and it is going to be very, very good” in “Filthy”? No! He isn’t! And that’s okay with me! Sometimes it’s just nice to have a song with a dope beat that’s mindlessly hot to take your mind off the daily stresses that come with being a broke ass wannabe writer like me, and there’s no real shame in that.
Anyways. I’m ready for it. If “Filthy” is any indication of what’s to come with the rest of Man of the Woods, I’m here to admit that I’m excited to bop to the other 15 tracks.
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