"Pusher Love Girl" is a song by American singer Justin Timberlake from his third studio album, The 20/20 Experience (2013). Timberlake wrote and produced the song with Timbaland and J-Roc, with James Fauntleroy providing additional songwriting. The song became available as the album's opening track on March 15, 2013, when it was released by RCA Records. An ode to the "intoxicating effects" of love and sex, "Pusher Love Girl" is a slow-tempo R&B song that goes through several stylistic shifts during its eight-minute duration. It opens with an orchestral intro before moving into its "funky main section". The song concludes with an outro in which Timberlake raps over futuristic hip-hop beats, comparing several narcotics to the love of his significant other.
"Pusher Love Girl" received generally positive reviews from music critics, many of whom regarded it as one of the best songs on The 20/20 Experience. Some critics, however, were critical of the song's length and certain lyrics. In North America, "Pusher Love Girl" peaked at number 64 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and number 21 on the US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. In Europe, it peaked at number 122 on the UK Singles Chart and number 20 on the UK Hip Hop and R&B Singles Chart. In Asia, it peaked at number 15 on the Gaon Chart in South Korea.
Timberlake debuted "Pusher Love Girl" live during his comeback performance at DirecTV's Super Saturday Night in February 2013. He also performed the song at the 55th Annual Grammy Awards, the SXSW MySpace Secret Show, on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Wireless Festival, and his NPR Tiny Desk Concert. He also included it on the set lists for three of his concert tours: the Legends of the Summer Stadium Tour (2013), The 20/20 Experience World Tour (2013–2015), and The Forget Tomorrow World Tour (2024–2025). At the 56th Annual Grammy Awards (2014), "Pusher Love Girl" won the award for Best R&B Song.
Background In September 2006, Justin Timberlake released his second studio album, FutureSex/LoveSounds, which was a commercial success and received generally positive reviews from music critics. The album spawned six singles, including the US number-one singles "SexyBack", "My Love", and "What Goes Around... Comes Around". After wrapping up a worldwide concert tour to support the album in 2007, Timberlake took a break from his music career to focus on acting, with occasional guest appearances on several singles by Madonna, T.I., Jamie Foxx, Timbaland, and Esmée Denters.
Timberlake's music manager Johnny Wright approached him in 2010, discussing the possibility of going back to his music career and the difficulties of releasing his future material because, according to Wright, "a lot of the physical record sellers were gone, by the time [they]'ve got music again [they] needed to think about different ways to deliver it". Wright proposed a promotion based on an application or releasing a new song every month. Timberlake, however, was not interested in returning to music; instead, he continued to focus on his film career. Around the "late part of May, first week in June" 2012, Timberlake invited Wright to dinner and revealed that he had spent the last couple of nights in the studio with Timbaland working on new material. Wright was shocked by the revelation, and the two immediately began planning how to promote and release the album. Ultimately, they agreed on a shorter period, seven or eight weeks, between the singles and the album. Wright told Billboard that "such a short window" demanded "a big impact".
In August 2012, producer Jim Beanz reported that Timberlake had started work on his new music project. Shortly after the announcement, Timberlake's publicist denied plans for a new album, stating Timberlake was instead working on Timbaland's upcoming project Shock Value III. Wright stated that although the project involved artists who are primarily Timberlake's friends, it was tough to keep it a secret, so they used codenames. Originally planned for release in October 2012, Timberlake's project was postponed because of his wedding to actress Jessica Biel.
Release and live performances The 20/20 Experience was released on March 15, 2013, through RCA Records; "Pusher Love Girl" was revealed as the opening track. In North America, "Pusher Love Girl" peaked at number 64 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and number 21 on the US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. In Europe, it peaked at number 122 on the UK Singles Chart and number 20 on the UK Hip Hop and R&B Singles Chart. In Asia, it peaked at number 15 on the Gaon Chart in South Korea.
Timberlake premiered "Pusher Love Girl" as part of the set list for his comeback performance at DirecTV's Super Saturday Night in New Orleans on February 2, 2013. Timberlake next performed the song live at the 55th Annual Grammy Awards on February 11, for which he received a standing ovation. Brad Wete of Billboard ranked Timberlake's performance at the ceremony as one of the night's best. He also performed the song live at the Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on March 12 and at the SXSW MySpace Secret Show on March 17. During the performance of the latter, Timberlake danced at "full tilt", while "owning his own signature falsetto like a seasoned maestro conducting a symphony orchestra", as noted by Maurice Bobb, a writer for MTV News.
Timberlake performed "Pusher Love Girl" alongside "Mirrors" on The Ellen DeGeneres Show on April 25, 2013. As noted by Jon Blistein, a writer for Rolling Stone, he performed the former with "a small squadron of suit-and-tie-clad back up dancers". Timberlake performed the song on the first day of the Wireless Festival in London on July 12. The song was also included in the set lists for Timberlake and Jay-Z's co-headlining Legends of the Summer Stadium Tour (2013), The 20/20 Experience World Tour (2013–2015), and The Forget Tomorrow World Tour (2024–2025). He also included it on the set list of his NPR Tiny Desk Concert on March 15, 2024.
Composition
"Pusher Love Girl" was written by Timberlake, Timothy "Timbaland" Mosley, Jerome "J-Roc" Harmon, and James Fauntleroy, and produced by Timbaland, Timberlake, and Harmon. It is a slow-tempo R&B song lasting exactly eight minutes and two seconds. The song "simmers" on an "elastic" soul groove that contains "retro-synth" hooks, hand claps, horns and a "squelchy" bass line. Jason Lipshutz of Billboard called the song "a more seasoned version" of "Señorita", the opening track of Timberlake's debut album, Justified (2002). The song is an ode to the "intoxicating effects" of love and sex.
Nate Jones of Popdust cited the introduction of "Pusher Love Girl" as being "straight from a Hollywood classic". Allan Raible of ABC News wrote that the "stringed fanfare" is something you would expect to hear on the red carpet of an awards ceremony. Jim Farber of the New York Daily News called the opening "classic enough" for Michael Jackson. After the "sweeping" orchestral intro, the song transcends into a "funky main section", which, according to Helen Brown of The Daily Telegraph, is a "sweet slice of funk-soul seduction".
Five minutes into the song, "Pusher Love Girl" morphs into a spoken-word outro where Timberlake raps "Childish Gambino style" over futuristic hip-hop beats. Timberlake compares narcotics, such as heroin, cocaine, plum wine, MDMA and nicotine, to the love of his significant other. Kitty Empire, writing for The Observer, commented that Timberlake's list of narcotics sound "tempting". Youssef stated that the outro may seem "bloated" to many, but that it enhances the atmosphere and "cross-genre" feel that Timberlake and Timbaland wanted, while also "building on and completing the ideas" that Frank Ocean experimented with on his debut album, Channel Orange (2012). Sarah Dean of The Huffington Post wrote that Timberlake channels his "inner mid-'80s" Prince during this period of the song. Mikael Wood of the Los Angeles Times wrote that Timberlake raps with "surprising authority".
Vocal style
Writing for the Houston Chronicle, Joey Guerra stated that Timberlake "hits that unmistakable falsetto" from the first chorus of "Pusher Love Girl". Sobhi Youssef of Sputnikmusic noted that the song introduces Timberlake's "beautiful" falsetto at "the apex of his game". MusicOMH David Meller wrote that Timberlake's vocals "retained some of its boyish appeal but now has a measured, kind of sophisticated charm", while Dean declared that his "trademark falsetto" sounds "as-good-as-ever". According to Sean Daly of the Tampa Bay Times, the "street-savvy middle range" of Timberlake's vocals further separates him from his boy band start with NSYNC.
According to Brown, in "Pusher Love Girl", Timberlake sounds like he "inhaled" 1970s Stevie Wonder, "breathing it out" as it "disperses into something spacily 21st century". Rolling Stone reviewer Jody Rosen noted that Timberlake borrows Curtis Mayfield's falsetto and Wonder's chord changes in the song. Jed Gottlieb of the Boston Herald wrote that Timberlake "snatches swagger" from Wonder, Marvin Gaye and Al Green soul "with dashes of Frank Sinatra swing and Prince's heavy breathing". Empire wrote that "Walt Disney meets Quincy Jones" on "Pusher Love Girl" and that the song rivals English space rock band Spiritualized for "dovetailing affection with addiction".
Critical reception "Pusher Love Girl" received generally positive reviews from music critics. MSN Music's Robert Christgau cited it as a highlight of The 20/20 Experience, while Genevieve Koski of The A.V. Club called it the best track on the album. Billboard writer Jason Lipshutz called the song an "extended glide", commenting that even though the song includes some dubious lyrics, Timberlake's "easy delivery will leave listeners hopelessly, er, addicted". Jean Bentley of Hollywood.com wrote that the intro to "Pusher Love Girl" is "very much in tune" with the "retro-soul vibe" of Timberlake's recent live performances. She wrote that it is one of the catchiest songs on The 20/20 Experience and commented that it "most certainly" would be his "second or third single". The Boston Globe reviewer James Reed wrote that "Pusher Love Girl" begins the album on a "blissed-out high".
Nate Jones of Popdust stated that the album version of "Pusher Love Girl" improves on the live version that was performed at the 55th Annual Grammy Awards. He commented that the "instrumental thump, slightly plodding in the live versions, tightens up until it's propelling the song forward" with an "elephantine self-assurance", clearing "enough space" for Timberlake's Prince impersonation to work "out its sweet shimmy". He commented that it might be "slightly uncouth" to compare "your lover to a drug pusher", but "when you're doing it with harmonies like these, we don't think she'll mind." According to ABC News' Allan Raible, the lyrics to "Pusher Love Girl" are "very calculated" and the drug references are meant to give Timberlake, an artist who "somehow lives in a Tiger Beat bubble", "edge". Raible wrote that in the song, Timberlake is "supposed to be the bad boy with the pseudo-'50s smile and the charm to match", a comparison that was "tired" when Roxy Music used it in 1975. He concluded by stating that it is "past even being a dead horse by now".