On stapled, slick magazine covers across Food Town, behold the randy, dancing boy, smooth-whiskered, pink-cheeked Justin Timberlake, gaping, blinking for his youth and freedom, while a glowering, suddenly dark-haired, Demi Moore’d version of Cameron Diaz, 34 but somehow older, pouts and jangles the keys to the jail cell in her basement.

There Was Something About Cameron in the 90’s, but Mr. Timberlake is the latest boy to wear this decade’s America’s Sweetheart sash. It may be an Age of Hillary thing: Justin’s ex-, Britney, is playing the rough-living, hard-drinking rehab role and he is innocent on the way up; Britney is Norman Maine and Justin is Vicky Lester.

And on Jan. 31, the former ’N Sync star, who nearly went the way of Jordan Knight, turns 26—still so young, newly unattached, universally popular and … oddly respected. He’s the ultimate vessel of escapism and therefore the quintessential escape artist. Happy birthday, Justin—for your 26th birthday, you get a pass.

Americans react to Mr. Timberlake with the same giddy hope they fling on Barack Obama, who, with that walk of his, could do worse than use Mr. Timberlake’s “SexyBack” as his campaign song. The power of “SexyBack,” arguably one of the worst tracks on Mr. Timberlake’s excellent second album, had less to do with the “Sexy” than with the idea that anything good was “Back.”

Mr. Timberlake has been making money in music for over a decade. But this country needs any Comeback Kid it can get.

In the words of one 29-year-old male hip-hop fan: “It’s not easy to go from being Mr. ’N Sync to being a complete pimp.” Skinny white boys everywhere have taken note.

Mr. Timberlake’s two solo albums seemed to prove he’d broken from his lame past—twice, if you count the Mickey Mouse Club. No one cared if it was really producer Timbaland who deserved credit for FutureSex/LoveSounds, because Mr. Timba-lake’s conversion was like a tectonic shift on a continent where Kelly Clarkson’s queen. There’s nothing like reinvention at a time when everything seems stuck.

In Nick Cassavetes’ widely disparaged Alpha Dog, critics not only heralded Mr. Timberlake as a real actor, but, according to The Village Voice, as “the moral center of a movie sorely in need of some conscience.” His character in the film helps kill a kid. What a feat of charisma and white teeth.

Take us with you, was the popcorn-chomping vibe at Alpha Dog on 19th Street in Manhattan every time Mr. Timberlake giggled and said “fuck” on screen, to that special place where everything’s funny and white men can dance and rap with rappers and you can admit you love your mama and no one beats you up and Scarlett Johansson still wants to sleep with you ... where you’re the only American on the planet anyone still likes ….

“He’s so tall,” a woman behind me cooed.

In Mr. Timberlake’s case, authenticity of talent means less to his fans than what appears to be Mr. Timberlake’s authenticity of self: Tearing free from his packaging, supposedly, he unveiled the more desirable idol underneath. Forget up-from-the bootstraps: The beloved celebrity storyline is the one where the marionette cuts his own strings and comes to life. What a fine fantasy that is, too.

That SNL Thing

At the Golden Globes, Mr. Timberlake affectionately made fun of Prince, to whom he owes much of FutureSex/LoveSounds. Everyone laughed. Remember Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction? Remember those were Mr. Timberlake’s paws? Few cared. When Britney Spears cheated on him, or so the story goes, he made a music video about the saga, called it “Cry Me a River,” and this worked.

He did his homework. Mr. Timberlake’s lyrics are simultaneously lust-filled and polite (“Tell me which way you like that / Do you like it like this? / Do you like it like that?”), old-school romantic (“If I wrote you a symphony / Just to say how much you mean to me”) second-wave feminist (“You don’t need no Maybelline / Cuz you a beauty queen”) and so pro-marriage, you need to rewind a few times before you believe your ears:

This ring here represents my heart

But there is just one thing I need from you

Saying ‘I do.’

It’s probably only a matter of time before Us and Star change the storyline, do their best to take Mr. Timberlake down to the sewer with Aniston, Jolie and Spears—there’s a law firm!—because sometimes in tabloid-world, single + man = cad. But when it comes to anointing or torching celebrities, the tabs may no longer be a match for the mass-infiltrating power of YouTube.

The current conventional wisdom about Mr. Timberlake’s popularity suggests that while his solo albums garnered critical raves, that while he made the greatest comeback in boy-band history, that while he’s very cute and wears Jams nicely and surfed and golfed giddily with the elderly Ms. Diaz for almost four seemingly monogamous years, it was actually his Saturday Night Live self-parody video “Dick in a Box” that brought him back to the commercial world of the living.

Every college kid in America, even people who never had seen ’N Sync, loved “Dick in a Box” before they even viewed it. It’s called “Dick in a Box,” and that’s comedy, all right. But it’s also called “Dick in a Box,” and for anyone who ever endured boy-band pop music in the 90’s, it was pay dirt. The link was sent via e-mail, and clicking is more expedient than reading. And it was the ideal American combination—forbidden and really funny. NBC had thrown it off its site, and Saturday Night Live, which followed up the Timberlake coup with a Jake Gyllenhaal performance nearly as funny as “Dick,” was back in the business of making stars out of stars by simply making them seem—as they did with Paul Simon, Christopher Walken and Alec Baldwin—that they understood their prior lives were a joke. Only difference was: Maybe this transformation was happening on thousands of computer screens at work on Monday, rather than on Saturday night, live.

Suddenly, straight men partial to football and/or indie rock had uncomfortably warm feelings for this former boy-band wuss. I was advised to watch “Dick in a Box” by your typical mid-thirtysomething New York music snob whose exposure to mainstream pop music is so paltry I’m pretty sure he still hasn’t heard “Hey Ya.” He spoke enthusiastically of FutureSex/LoveSounds, Mr. Timberlake’s album. He referred to Mr. Timberlake as “J.T.”

“Dick in a Box” boasts a Wikipedia entry that includes “Plot,” “­R­esponse” and “Parodies and Homages,” and claims that “Dick in a Box” is the fourth-most-viewed video on the whole entire Internet. I learned of the most famous parody, “Box in a Box,” produced by a busty University of Pennsylvania sophomore who maintains her own fan site, when a bewildered but amused 60-year-old called to tell me she’d seen it on Keith Olbermann. Waxing rhapsodic about Mr. Timberlake soon followed—she’d never really seen him before all those boxes.

‘J.T.’ Is Not Your Friend

So everyone calls him J.T. Apparently, it’s cool to show affection for a high-voiced former ballad-crooner once he abandons his vanity. The laws of celebrity in the Wedding Crashers era dictate that Vince Vaughn one-ups Brad Pitt on the thinking woman’s imaginary-boyfriend list, and Mr. Timberlake, no fool, chose self-effacement over self-seriousness.

J.T. was always hot but unthreatening. He dressed up in a gingerbread suit and danced to M.C. Hammer on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. He dressed up in a huge soup cup and danced and cracked up on SNL. And, again, he dressed up as his former self in “Dick in a Box” and ripped that guy to shreds. Don’t forget, the guy’s a former Mouseketeer; he understands he’s here to entertain.

Mr. Timberlake’s a jack of all trades, like a vaudevillian who’d talk directly to the audience, anything to make ’em smile. Americans, we know, love a semblance of ordinariness; even our celebrities must jump through hoops to prove that their two feet actually touch the ground. A banner showing on SNL brings a celebrity down to a level of accessibility that fans can handle; it means Mr. Timberlake’s hanging with the funny guys, that he knows that he’s surfing the waves of culture, and that moving up and down the banister in jump-cut sequence and crooning romantically about your member is just the thing to save a career.

But none of this explains why critics thought Mr. Timberlake, in his big-screen debut, outshone a raft of experienced actors in Alpha Dog. With his lanky, long-necked vulnerability, those limbs swinging willy-nilly, his odd pallor and dark blue eyes hinting at late nights, his wide smile quick and pristine, Mr. Timberlake made a convincing stunted adolescent. But the other actors were clearly the pros.

Critics not only disliked Alpha Dog, they were repulsed by the subject matter. No one enjoys watching rich white kids behave like monsters, and they especially don’t like watching them behave like embarrassingly absurd monsters. There’s no dignity to it.

“The implication is that too much video culture and too little parental supervision make Johnny a danger—and that it sure is fun to play at being Johnnies in movies,” wrote Entertainment Weekly, recycling an argument beloved of a certain generation.

A far more popular recent film, Borat, highlighted frat boys—not even scary, handsome frat boys with tickets to Goldman Sachs, but silly, beefy, unattractive frat boys—beating their chests and heads in an R.V. That scene was unscripted—i.e., real—but this majority group is easily disregarded as some harmless drunken minority. Or Southern. Under the rug with all of them! They vote for the other guys.

J.T.’s acting turn was a far happier revelation. A singer previously thought to be all smoke and mirrors was only just beginning to prove his depth! His image survives on the premise that he’s a guy of real and endless possibilities, and apparently audiences are all too eager to affirm that dream.

“Timberlake is the latest resident and/or weekend visitor to Hip-Hop Nation to prove himself superb in the movies,” cried The Buffalo News, lumping him in with Ice-T and Ice Cube rather than, interestingly, Elvis.

But in the movie theater, no one was reacting to Frankie, the happy thug Mr. Timberlake plays. They were twittering and shivering for J.T., their all-American boy, in a good way. Men and women laughed at his every move, as if eager to prove to celluloid J.T. that they were with him, that they got his joke. They were in on it, too. They were with him, they were him. That’s a good sign for any star, and it’s about enough to get you in a big movie or elected to the Presidency. It’s what American celebrity consumerism is all about.

Happy birthday, J.T.! At least you know what you’ll be getting when you open your box—the best present any boy could ever get. May you, and we, enjoy it for years to come!'

Mr. McCulloch's view of his band's place in history isn't shared by most of the world's pop listeners. Generally, he and the other Bunnymen–guitarist Will Sergeant, bassist Les Pattinson and the late drummer Pete DeFreitas–are considered in conjunction with several other bands that arose from the British isles at the dawn of the 80's, introducing a wide-open sound and an intensely serious demeanor: U2, the Waterboys, Big Country, the Alarm.

Listening to the 72 tracks collected on Crystal Days –of which nearly 40 have never previously appeared on CD–it's easy to hear the traits that these groups shared early on. The rhythm section is thunderous but economical. Rudimentary guitar lines sparkle with the residue of a dozen effects pedals. Vocal melodies are delivered in a passionate bellow. Simple parts add up to a powerful whole.

Yet on closer inspection, Echo and the Bunnymen's music distinguishes itself through its boundless darkness. While the message of nearly every U2 song is ultimately one of redemption, the Bunnymen inhabit a world turned in on itself, wracked with existential pain. On 1980's "Rescue," the band's first major-label single, Mr. McCulloch hissed, "Things are going wrong / Can you tell that in a song?" He proceeded to make a career out of telling just that, reaching an apex two years later with "The Back of Love," a bravura display of withering rage and grandiose despair. Moments like these reveal that the Bunnymen's true generational kin were Joy Division and the Cure.

Few of this box's B-sides and outtakes will be treasured by non-fanatics, but they're all at least interesting. Neither the Mac-less early-90's version of the Bunnymen nor the mid-90's McCulloch-Sergeant side project Electrafixion are represented, but that's no great loss. The only real misstep here is the ditching of the 1987 studio version of "New Direction" in favor of an earlier recording that lacks the crucial "Higher and higher / Souls on fire" hook. Otherwise, Crystal Days does a marvelous job of tracing the Bunnymen's path from their first charmingly awkward indie recordings to the surprisingly respectable work they've done since reuniting in 1996.

Yes, the Bunnymen–consisting of Mr. McCulloch, Mr. Sergeant and various hired hands–are still active. Their latest album, Flowers (spinART), though lacking the drama of old, features enough semi-psychedelic anthems to rouse the envy of Oasis. At an invite-only concert at Fez on July 9, Mr. McCulloch demonstrated where Liam Gallagher picked up his best moves. Decked out in leather jacket and shades, Mr. McCulloch introduced a magnificent rendition of the Bunnymen chestnut "Ocean Rain" with these words: "This is the greatest song ever written." Some things never change, thank heaven.

–Mac Randall

'N Sync: Growing Pains

As the lip-licking doomsayers crank out obituaries for teen pop, it's worth noting that 'N Sync were ahead of the curve in presaging their demise. Long before the Backstreet Boys donned sarongs and weird hairstyles in a misguided effort to woo older fans, 'N Sync fashioned themselves as marionettes and invested their career-sustaining capital in self-awareness. It wasn't especially clever stuff, but as an extension of the blueprint that boy bands are built from, it was at least kind of interesting.

But now, the games are over. With one of the Backstreet Boys in rehab and MTV covering the impending death of teen pop as a news story, the guys in 'N Sync are pleading their case for real-deal status. "Pop," the first single from Celebrity (Jive), opens with the lines, "I'm sick and tired of hearing all these people talk about / What's the deal with this pop life and when is it going to fade out?" Of course, the answer no longer matters much to little Janie, who tore the 'N Sync posters off her walls last year in a fit of embarrassment.

Celebrity is all about trying to keep fans like little Janie on board. 'N Sync sprinkles their newly grown-up tastes with zingers cribbed from a post-boy-band manifesto. Over purposefully jarring tracks by such A-list producers as BT, the Neptunes and Riprock 'n' Alex G, they deconstruct their own image, exposing little more than their own cartoonishness. Their most accomplished songs–the Pac-Man-sampling "The Game Is Over" and the steamy, two-step garage rave "Up Against the Wall"–ultimately sound like a group trying to shed the skin that made them more than just five weird-looking guys from Orlando, Fla.

The biggest problem with Celebrity –and the one that's bound to turn off their maturing 'tweenage fans–is that 'N Sync lost their sense of humor along the way. They rail against the vapidity of pop and celebrity culture as if a boy band could ever stake a claim to street cred. It's a reverse sellout pitched to an audience that, for all its mindlessness, is smart enough to know what it doesn't want .

–Andy Battaglia

Greg Osby: The Jazz Solution

The prolific alto saxophonist Greg Osby has titled his latest album Symbols of Light (A Solution) (Blue Note). We might be tempted to ask, parenthetically, "What's the problem?" But we more or less already know.

Even the cautious New York Times announced two months ago that American jazz is dead, its grave to be danced on by French and Scandinavian jazzers more adept at samples and grooves–or so claimed the contentious Brit-crit-penned piece. Ignoring for a moment that the fashionable Swedish trio E.S.T. often sounds like warmed-over Miles circa Kind of Blue , and that the French group St. Germain is a meld of pop-star Miles and current house music, the article's unfairness to someone like Mr. Osby is breathtaking. He and fellow altoist Steve Coleman, pillars of Brooklyn's M-BASE collective, were fusing post-bop jazz with electronic funk and hip-hop back in the late 80's and early 90's. But with his recent streak of excellent Blue Note albums– Zero, The Invisible Hand, Banned in New York and now, Symbols of Light –the 41-year-old Mr. Osby has found a different-sounding solution to the very real problem of stagnation in American jazz. Mr. Osby's open ears have taken him from pop rapprochement back to a conventional acoustic-jazz format, where he and his coterie of sharp young musicians have dedicated themselves to pushing the jazz mainstream into something more organic and heartfelt, if only an inch at a time.

"3 for Civility," the first cut off the new quartet-plus-strings album, is in its way a perfect refutation of trend. The Osby tune commences with the high-modernist splank of Wünderkind Jason Moran's piano, leads into Nioka Workman's slow, finger-snapping cello line and is joined by Mr. Osby's suave alto, steeped in the bop tradition but beholden to nothing. "3 for Civility" reminds me of my favorite Bill Frisell album, 1996's Quartet , in the way it communicates some non-clichéd jazz essence while being enriched by folk and classical traditions, and in its evocation of an eccentric and slightly melancholy American mood. Of course, with Marlon Browden on drums, Mr. Osby's take on a pan-stylistic Americana kicks more ass.

If the rest of the album were this good, I'd shut down the voting for the 2001 best-of polls. However, the bracingness of "3 for Civility" or "Social Order" gives way to tunes where Mr. Osby, now miles away from his knotty, metrically shifty M-BASE persona, floats along in a melodic, minor-key way. Still, it's hard to imagine anything gutsier for a hip jazz intellectual than to risk a little corniness in the service of beauty. Beauty will be better served when Mr. Osby figures out how to write for individual strings instead of deploying them en masse in not especially imaginative ways. That's a skill that could take four or five albums to develop. Given his current rate of production, that should be sometime next year.

– Joseph Hooper

The Greg Osby Quartet will perform at the Village Vanguard July 31 to Aug. 5.

Melissa Etheridge: Mediocrity Is Skin Deep

I can't say for sure if Skin (Island), Melissa Etheridge's seventh album, is the worst record she's ever made, since I've never before been paid to appraise her music. Out of curiosity, I've tried to listen to her records, but I just couldn't make it through track 2 without feeling bile tickle my throat.

But Skin is newsworthy by dint of the fact that each song seems to address her breakup with Julie Cypher (the woman who allowed herself to be inseminated with the issue of David Crosby, a man whose gene pool must be more vile than a Fresh Kills downwind). Skin seems redolent of Tunnel of Love , the breakup album from Bruce Springsteen, who amounts to Ms. Etheridge's aesthetic boss.

The ceaseless drumbeat for Mr. Springsteen's status as an Important American Artist irritates me, but his plain-spokenness is never less than eloquent. Ms. Etheridge, on the other hand, is about as banal and overripe a songwriter as exists today. For instance, it's shocking that she's never written a song called "Walking on Water" before now. That particular gem includes a bunch of lovelorn tropes along the lines of "You wanted more/ I gave you less," while "The Prison" comes complete with a folksy harmonica accompanying the couplet "I know before you try to run / You gotta learn to crawl."

Now let's consider the utter bankruptcy of the following: the widescreen "heartland-rock" production; the dopey drum loops on half the album; her allegedly soulful, overwrought howling; and the decision to feature Hollywood pals Meg Ryan and Laura Dern singing backup on the typically redemptive "Heal Me."

It's a shame that Ms. Etheridge and Ms. Cypher couldn't keep it together (think of the children!), but the fact that she couldn't come up with a lyrical insight at gun point, coupled with her aggressively ordinary musicianship, renders Skin nothing less than wretched. If Middle America must have blustery, confessional, middlebrow rock (which I have no intrinsic gripe about), it deserves much, much better than Melissa Etheridge.

–Rob Kemp