Woke up, sheeple, Justin Timberlake just dropped 'Supplies', the worst music video of 2018 so far
Forgettable trap-pop song gets unforgettably misjudged visual
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This was the reaction from one of my colleagues 30 seconds into the new Justin Timberlake music video first thing this morning, hand clasped to mouth. The laboratory-certified woke visuals strip the song of whatever scant nuance it had, which was almost nonexistent to begin with. 'Supplies' sees Timberlake gather together President Trump, #MeToo, #BlackLivesMatter, the threat of nuclear war, Big Pharma and gun laws, and run them through a lukewarm pop-trap song that would normally sink on Soundcloud.
After a brief and in a lot of ways regressive verse in which he steps in to rescue a woman from a potential attacker, he runs through a series of bizarre metaphors about supplies. "I'll be the wood when you need heat / I'll be the generator, turn me on when you need electricity / Some shit's 'bout to go down, I'll be the one with the level head," he raps, before trivialising: "The world could end now / Baby, we'll be living in The Walking Dead."
"I got supplie-ie-ies," he summarises in the awkward, verbally taxing chorus, apparently declaring himself the saviour of 2018.
Showing no signs of the “modern Americana with 808s” he's promised on his new album Man of the Woods (not that we necessarily want to hear that), 'Supplies' should just be a forgettable track rather than a horrifying one, but that's where the music video comes in.
Dave Meyers, the music video director of the moment who was behind Kendrick Lamar's sensational 'HUMBLE.' one, was brought on board, clearly given a misguided brief but not able to turn things around no matter how many incredibly expensive visual set-ups he threw at it. JT stares numbly at a wall of TV screens apparently showing trending topics on loop. He sets fire to an Illuminati-esque pyramid. He raps at an all-female rally, deadlifted by a woman wearing a 'PUSSY GRABS BACK' t-shirt. He beats up whited out fashionistas/security guards. At one particularly bizarre point the song suddenly switches to major key and he and a woman are circled by some dodgy CGI fire as he sings about how his progressive politics make him a "generous lover" - the very worst kind of feminist, hoping the cause will get him laid.
After four minutes of this madness, full self-parody is achieved at the video's close, when JT is surrounded by children in dishevelled clothes in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. One steps forward to address the camera: "Just leave! Die already! You're still asleep! Wake up!"
Justin Timberlake seems like a nice, well-meaning guy, but his latest output ends up trivialising protest as irresponsibly as that Pepsi ad before it.
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