Justin Timberlake has been keeping a low profile for quite some time now. The pop superstar of the noughties had all but withdrawn from the public eye in recent years.
Most recently, the NSYNC singer involuntarily hit the headlines in October when his name came up in the tell-all book of his ex-girlfriend Britney Spears.
The 43-year-old singer is now stepping back into the spotlight, and after co-releasing a comeback single last year, he's now set to launch his sixth solo album on March 15.
Timberlake told Jimmy Fallon's "Tonight Show" in January that he spent four years working on "Everything I Thought I Was", collaborating with various songwriters and different producers. "We ended up with almost like 100 songs - that's not an exaggeration."
In the end, 18 made it onto the album. Timberlake's record company Sony has been extremely tight-lipped about the release. Apart from two songs, nothing could be heard in advance. The album cover has been unveiled, but even that only shows the back of his head.
The pop singer released the first single "Selfish", a soft, romantic R&B ballad with a gentle electro beat and somewhat cheesy lyrics, back in January.
The second single, "Drown", on the other hand, is a little darker. "You left me alone out in the dark with all of your demons," he sings.
Some have interpreted the song, apparently about a failed relationship, as a reckoning with Spears. Timberlake himself has not commented on this and has hardly given any interviews.
At a concert in New York, however, he raised eyebrows when he said during his hit song "Cry Me A River": "I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize ... to absolutely fucking nobody"
Shortly afterwards, his celebrity ex-girlfriend deleted an Instagram post in which she had apologized for "hurting the people I really care about" with her book.
Timberlake had also previously given a free concert in Memphis. The singer had to cancel a third concert in London, for which tickets had previously been raffled off, at short notice after falling ill. He plans to return in the summer on his "Forget Tomorrow" world tour.
Adding to anticipation ahead of the album release, we now have a tracklist for "Everything I Thought I Was" with Fireboy DML ("Liar") and Tobe Nwigwe ("Sanctified") appearing on tracks.
But above all it's NSYNC fans that have high hopes of a reunion, since Timberlake's band mates of old have contributed to a song on the album. For track number 17 it says: Justin Timberlake featuring NSYNC.