Justin Timberlake’s ’20/20 Experience’ Sequel To Feature Material From New Recording Sessions

Carl Williott | April 18, 2013 9:35 am

Man, remember all that excitement leading up to Justin Timberlake‘s The 20/20 Experience and the frenzy of buzz and speculation during his perfectly executed publicity campaign? Feels like it was ages ago, doesn’t it? We sure felt alive back then, didn’t we? Well pretty soon our lives will have that sense of purpose all over again, as Volume 2 of 20/20 is scheduled for a November release and key players are starting to reveal tidbits of information about the album. As JT’s Tennessee Kids guitarist Elliott Ives told us back in March, the forthcoming second volume will include material from the original 20/20 sessions, and now Jerome “J-Roc” Harmon — who co-produced and co-wrote just about every 20/20 song save for the two bonus tracks — confirmed Ives’ note about the initial sessions and also teased that there would be brand new material on the sequel.

Speaking with Billboard, J-Roc said he, JT and Timbaland had “over 30, 40 tracks” the first time around, so Timberlake will likely “take some of the stuff that we’ve already done, and of course create more music at the same time.” For some reason it’s exciting to think that Justin will be back in the studio so soon to record even more stuff. Based on everything that happens on Volume 1, he’s clearly not at a loss for ideas, so it’s great that he’s so invigorated by music again that he can churn out two massive albums in a year’s time.

But the most interesting thing J-Roc revealed in the interview was that “Mirrors” originated a few years ago as a simple, four-minute ballad.

“‘Mirrors’ was something we started working on in 2009, and [Timberlake] just shelved it,” Harmon said. “He’s like, ‘I’m gonna save this one, and this is gonna go on my album.'” J-Roc added that the extended R&B coda on the single was pasted on years later. “Once we got all the songs that [Timberlake] knew he wanted on this album, then that’s when we began to tie everything together, and the second part just fell in order.”

Do you think Volume 2 will outshine the first one? Let us know in the comments below, or hit us up on Facebook and Twitter!