Justin Timberlake’s ‘Man of the Woods’ is about where he’s from. Where’s that?

Ol’ Tennessee Timberlake: Confess Your Unpopular Opinion: I never thought Justin Timberlake owed Memphis anything. Timberlake’s family home may have been in Millington, north of the city, but his music was never really born or bred here. It came from nowhere. (Ok, Orlando. Same difference.) It was a product of the pop industrial complex, a homestead built somewhere along the journey from Mickey Mouse Club to Michael Jackson.

Timberlake may have been the biggest “Memphis” star since Elvis, but Elvis abandoning Graceland for La La Land permanence would have shaken the city. Timberlake had no Graceland to leave. If Memphis had been rendered no more than a biographical footnote in Timberlake’s story, no one would have raised an eyebrow.

So Timberlake keeping a toe in the Mississippi River waters was a bonus. His Millington golf excursion. His tequila with a familiar numerical moniker. His supporting role in Craig Brewer’s “Black Snake Moan”. His failed bid to take Memphis band FreeSol national. His Memphis Grizzlies ownership stake and public role in Marc Gasol and Mike Conley’s free agent courtship. His south of the Mississippi line tour prep. His mammoth Memphis Music Hall of Fame induction speech. All gravy.

When Timberlake got married, had a kid, and acquired an estate in the Nashville area, it was akin to settling down and moving out to the suburbs. Some in Memphis may have resented it, but Timberlake’s not here for the Memphis-Nashville rivalry. He named his band and fan club the Tennessee Kids. He wants to be a uniter, not a divider. (Show up at a Predators or Titans game, fine. But you start wearing Vol orange instead of Tiger blue, we might have to talk.) The other thing is this: Nashville is on America’s modern Mt. Rushmore of recording centers, with New York, Los Angeles, and Atlanta. Memphis is a great music city too, but it’s comps are more Austin and New Orleans. It’s trad-cool, not titan of industry. It’s a different lane. Which brings us to this teaser, released yesterday, for Timberlake’s new album, due next month:

I mean, let’s just acknowledge upfront that this is achingly close to a “Saturday Night Live” parody video, Timberlake running away from (not with) horses and auditioning for the Robert Redford role in a remake of mountain man movie “Jeremiah Johnson”. Or maybe that’s not the Robert he has in mind. Has Timberlake been reading Robert Bly?

It presages a country album, or “country” album, and if some even beyond the Memphis-Nashville nexus have taken this as another kind of betrayal, I take it as a logical next step. We all knew it was coming. Timberlake didn’t just move to Nashville, he started collaborating with Chris Stapleton and Little Big Town. (Bob Mehr has more on this and other Memphis-related records on the horizon.)

Maybe Hank wouldn’t have done it this way, but the reason Nashville is what it still is as a music center is because country has always evolved as pop music and is now one of the steadier forces in a volatile market. Country fans still buy music, even the kind you hold in your hands.

In terms of sound, country is where non-heavy, mainstream rock has gone to survive a kind of musical nuclear winter. (Half the American radio rock acts of the 1980s would be considered “country” today.) In terms of content, it’s the only pop genre that routinely embraces the married-with-kids domesticity that’s Timberlake’s new reality and apparent theme. In a youth-centric pop world, country has become a refuge for all kinds of artists who wouldn’t have seemed to fit in an earlier age. (Taylor Swift is the maybe the only one who took it the other direction, and she’ll be back.) And mainstream country is no longer untouched by sounds and styles from elsewhere. How big of a difference is there, really, between Timberlake and hip-hop-influenced country star Sam Hunt?

Timberlake doing a “country” album? Of course he is. And, hey, I guess The 9:01 can’t fully speak for the city, but if you want to go deeper into the woods and record an analog “Americana” album, Sun and Sam Phillips are always here for you, Justin Timberlake. You want to lace up some Memphis horns for a soul-driven project, Royal will open its door.

But here’s the thing about that video: “This album is really inspired by …. more so than any other album I’ve every written, where I’m from”. It’s not just that those snow-covered fields and snow-capped mountains and horses running free (I guess “Man of the Pasture” didn’t quite have the same ring) do not suggest “Memphis”. They don’t suggest Nashville either.

Here’s a headline: Justin Timberlake reveals new Montana-inspired album.

Nashville: Is Justin Timberlake cheating on you already?

Commercial Appeal