The Ten Best VMA Performances Of All Time

Justin Timberlake, “My Love/SexyBack” (2006)

Sometimes I wonder how we explain to what a big deal it was to watch Justin Timberlake break out with FutureSex/LoveSounds. By the time we reached 2006, Timberlake had been on the scene for nearly a decade. He’s broken out once, from the boy band back, with the bizarre and lush-to-the-point-of-overproduced “Cry Me A River.” He’d weathered the Superbowl “wardrobe malfunction,” and pulled himself back together with Timbaland to bring his next big hit.

“SexyBack” wasn’t even a big hit yet when he performed it at the VMAs, and the entire choice was a risk, when he could have easily spun out a medley of his former stuff and then tacked “My Love’ (the far more conventional sounding track) and gotten just a big of a reaction. But what’s really fantastic about this performance is that, unlike many, it’s not lipsync’d and there’s no costumes or pyro or flash. It’s a reminder that Justin Timberlake is actually a shockingly talented song and dance man in the old school sense of the word, and there’s nothing that can top that.