2003: #5 - "Rock Your Body"

If "Cry Me A River" was J.T.'s attempt at a big, splashy, serious mini-epic to announce his arrival as a solo artist, then "Rock Your Body" was him saying, "And I can do this, too."

It's just a really fun dance-pop nugget, a Neptunes-influenced update of the discoey stuff Michael Jackson used to do in the late 70's, sorta fluffy in an ex-boy band kind of way, but with just enough soulful edge to make it work.

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.

2006: #2 - "My Love"

You wouldn't think that a song with what sounds like a sped-up version of the crying baby from "Are You That Somebody?" as basically the main percussive backbeat would be sexy, shimmering and beautiful, but throw some stuttering, pitch-shifted Timbaland snyths and some multi-tracked J.T. falsetto all over it, and you've got all of that and more. It's one of the most futuristic yet romantic ballads of the era, and one of our favorite love songs ever.

Much has been made of the cornball lyrics - and we admit, it took us a while to fully accept Justin's lame come-ons - but when the track sounds this good, who cares?

2006: #5 - "SexyBack"

What a year this was. Though songs 11 through 20 are kind of iffy, we just ran through a bunch from nos. 6 through 10 that would be legitimate Top 5 contenders in any other year this decade, and we still have five more to go.

This one may be a surprise to some, however. One of the more polarizing megahits of the decade, "SexyBack" actually turned some long-time fans totally off of J.T., while spawning a new legion of hipsters and hip-hoppers who finally, reluctantly, were forced to take notice.

Timberlake himself described this one as "David Byrne or David Bowie covering 'Sex Machine'", and while we'd be hard-pressed to find any of the grit or sex of the James Brown classic in here, there is a certain swagger to it, not to mention a fascinating mix of odd, mechanical electronic-dance-funk and Eno-esque sound effects we heard in late-70's music from the aforementioned hipster touchstones.

2007: #7 - "LoveStoned"

People tend to rave about the shimmery interlude part (oooh look gtrz omg), and it's cool and all, but we love "LoveStoned" more for its dance-funk first half, where Justin out-sexies "Sexyback" and rocks "Rock Your Body" right to the ground.

And though "Rock Your Body" had far superior melodic hooks, it's on "LoveStoned" where Justin takes the funk groove of the earlier hit and outdoes himself on the Prince tip, going from flirty young dance goof to mysterious lothario with one falsetto swoop.

2007: #8 - "Give It To Me"

"Give It To Me", a cross between an early Madonna dance anthem and an easily digestible version of the stuff Timbaland used to do with Missy Elliott and Aaliyah, is the forgotten stepchild of Tim's most recent spate of #1 hits. While songs like "Apologize" and "The Way I Are" (and also any number of hits by guests Nelly Furtado and Justin Timberlake) continue to garner a fair amount of airplay on dance and Top 40 stations, this one seems to have been lost in the abyss of summer of '07 radio playlists.

That's a shame, as a massive yet snaky beat, and a stunning double tracked chorus laid down perfectly by the inimitable (for better or worse) Furtado, more than make up for some ludicrous rapping by the chart-topping trio. Though Timbaland has one good dis (the "I'm a producer and you just a piano man" line that almost started a producer feud between him and Scott Storch), the rhymes almost do it in; one can't help but think how much better this might have been with Missy Elliott, or even Jay-Z (think "Big Pimpin'" or "Dirt Off Your Shoulder"), singing over it.

2009: #6 - "Dead and Gone"

(Not the official video, sorry)

T.I. repents, mourns death and develops anger management skills, while (mostly) avoiding treacle and melodrama in this Justin Timbaland-produced smash.

Can a sentimental rap ballad produced by a former member of *NSYNC actually be any good? Actually, the fact that JT is not only guesting on, but producing, Southern hip hop hits shouldn't come as too much of a surprise. He's from Memphis after all. But this is, of course, no Three 6 Mafia song. The track is super radio-ready, and not surprisingly, very Timbaland-esque (think early-00's Ludacris or even Aaliyah, all heavy synths and syncopated beat boxing). As you will learn, we think Timbaland's sound is great, but JT manages to expand it a little in his own way, almost Max Martin-style. Like when the chorus slams in with full force after each verse, it kind of reminds us of something like "It's Gonna Be Me" or "Oops... I Did It Again".

But those songs, as great as they were, didn't feature the breathlessly nimble rhyming of a rap superstar at the top of his game, trying to bring pathos to a Southern hip hop style that desperately needs some. He's no Leonard Cohen, but in "Dead and Gone", T.I. adds some emotional depth to his great skill and Southern swagger. Combine that with the way it all builds into the near-epic chorus and middle-eight, and you have a powerful mainstream rap classic.