2003: #10 - "Cry Me A River"

With "Cry Me A River", Justin Timberlake established himself as the post-modern King of Pop, a more self-aware version of Thriller-era Jacko, where the protagonist of the song (and video) is not an a victimized innocent (see "Billie Jean"), but a conflicted anti-hero who clearly has his own faults and is not afraid to put them out there for the entire pop world to see.

Sonically, the closest to M.J. that J.T. and Timbaland get is through the use of some pretty upper-register vocals, and production arrangements that sound like an army of ghostly Justin falsettos (attacking the ghost of Britney?).

The rest of it is almost standard-issue Timbaland - creepy clavs, odd syncopated percussion sounds, slightly dissonant non-Western melodies - in other words, exactly what we've come to expect from Mr. Mosely, but still pretty good.