Justin Timberlake Doesn’t Feel ‘Can’t Stop the Feeling!’ Is His Song
Justin Timberlake‘s “Can’t Stop the Feeling!” managed to be both retro and trendy at the same time. However, the “Cry Me a River” star seemed lukewarm on “Can’t Stop the Feeling!” Regardless, the public couldn’t get enough of the track.
Why Justin Timberlake recorded ‘Can’t Stop the Feeling!’ when he didn’t want to do so
On one level, “Can’t Stop the Feeling!” is a quintessential Timberlake song. He wrote it with Max Martin, the producer behind some of the hits from Timberlake’s boy band days. It’s also a disco song. When Timberlake isn’t making R&B, he’s making dance songs. He even previously experimented with the genre with “Take Back the Night.” However, Timberlake seems distant from “Can’t Stop the Feeling!”
During a 2020 interview posted on his YouTube channel, Timberlake discussed “Can’t Stop the Feeling!”
“This song trips me out,” the singer said. “It is not something I would have ever written for myself.”
Notably, the song was from the soundtrack of the animated film Trolls, which is based on the famous dolls from the 1980s. “Again, this is a song I don’t feel is mine,” he said. “Honestly. Because we wrote it for this movie. It just turns out that they said ‘No, you have to sing it [too]. And I was like ‘OK.'”
Justin Timberlake’s son inspired his new direction
“Can’t Stop the Feeling!” is a lot less risque than most of Timberlake’s solo hits. During a 2016 interview with Entertainment Weekly, Timberlake said that his change of pace was inspired by his wife, Jessica Biel, and their son, Silas. “It changes everything. You literally wake up and look in the mirror and go, ‘I have no idea what I’m doing.'”
Timberlake revealed he might have written “Can’t Stop the Feeling!” because he became a father. “I don’t know that it was directly inspired to be something that my son could listen to of mine, because there’s a lot of music he can’t listen to of mine — at least not yet,” he said. “It’s crazy, this new appreciation [I have] for both of them — her and him. It’s humiliating and humbling at the same time.”
‘Can’t Stop the Feeling!’ was unstoppable
“Can’t Stop the Feeling!” became Timberlake’s most recent No. 1 single. It topped the Billboard Hot 100 for a week, lasting on the chart for 52 weeks in total. It charted longer than any of Timberlake’s other songs. The 2010s disco revival probably helped catapult the track to the top of the charts. Other songs from that revival include Lady Gaga’s “Marry the Night,” Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines,” and Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky.”
To date, “Can’t Stop the Feeling!” hasn’t appeared on any of Timberlake’s studio albums or compilation albums. Perhaps he feels so detached from the song that he doesn’t want to include it on one of his records. On the other hand, he still hasn’t released a greatest hits album that covers the music he released in the 2010s and 2020s. Maybe Timberlake will eventually include “Can’t Stop the Feeling!” on an album that encapsulates his whole career.
“Can’t Stop the Feeling!” might not be Timberlake’s favorite among his own songs but it put smiles on millions of faces.
