Country: U.S.A.
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,
Timberlake
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
Timberlake,
intimidating if you were Chasez since it not only raises the bar, it
suggests that the press and public are prepared to coronate
Timberlake as the sole survivor of
*NSYNC, the way that
Beyoncé Knowles elbowed
Kelly Rowland aside in the battle of
Destiny's Child. To make matters worse, just weeks before Chasez launched his solo career with his debut album,
Schizophrenic,
Timberlake 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 Chasez 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, Chasez is determined to outdo
Timberlake
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
Schizophrenic, which Chasez 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
JC
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
Timberlake, trading
JT's
Michael Jackson 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
Justified 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
*NSYNC released, and it's often pleasing on the surface, but it's undone by the showbiz kid at the heart of it all.
JC
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
Justin'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,
JC
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
Prince to
Diamond David Lee Roth
haven't sung lines like Chasez'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
Schizophrenic
-- 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 Chasez 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 ballads 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
Schizophrenic 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 of "She Got Me," the
Prince
homage "100 Ways," the robotic electro pulse of "All Day Long I Dream
About Sex" and "Come to Me" with its "Sunglasses at Night" sample, or
the mock reggae of "Everything You Want,"
Schizophrenic
is filled with terrific pop 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,
JC 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
Justin
has him beat -- he may not have much personality on record, but he can
sell the groove by not getting in its way. Chasez 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
Timberlake's star status. But in his favor, he does have an album that on a strictly musical level tries harder and achieves more than
Justified.
tags: jc chasez, schizophrenic, 2004, flac,
