Justin Timberlake isn’t solely dedicated to music these days — he’s a film star in his own right — but he’s certainly dedicated to the theme of his new album, The 20/20 Experience, out now. From the spacing of the text, which resembles an eye chart, to the eye-exam instruments, “It makes me think that he’s thinking this is perfect,” Philip Schiffman says. “You know, 20/20 vision, his [musical] vision is perfect.”
Though Storey finds Timberlake instantly recognizable despite his covered-up face, she says the addition of the text could be a visual aid for the growing number of listeners experiencing music through small digital screens. “Everybody’s trying to think of it as a thumbnail, which is a conversation I hear all the time at the record label,” Storey says. “People are looking at a tiny thumbnail trying to figure out what a record is.”
Carney had a completely different take on the cover’s branding: “It’s interesting that he’s obscuring his face, that rather than having it say Justin Timberlake anywhere, it says JT,” he says. “It’s something you’d expect on an indie record.”
(RCA Records)