Justin Timberlake Recalls Being Told One Of His Biggest Hits 'Wasn't Going To Work'

One of Justin Timberlake's biggest songs initially got pushback from his label for being too "different."

While ranking his Top 10 songs in an episode of Complex's Re-Rank series published on Thursday (November 5), Timberlake recalled his label being against his 2006 song "SexyBack," a track co-written and featuring Timbaland that went on to become one of his biggest hits, per People.

Timberlake ranked the song No. 4, saying that it "makes zero sense but all the sense in the world" and was written as a way to "redefine" how dance music could sound. He added that the new sound received pushback from his label would thought it was too different to what was popular on the radio at the time.

"When people heard this song for the first time, I didn't want them to know it was me. I wanted it to sound almost androgynous in a way, where if you were singing along to it, you were that person," he said. "And when I brought it to the label, they were like, 'This is not gonna work. You don't sound like you. It's too fast. Nothing on the radio right now is 118 BPM.'"

However, that didn't deter Timberlake. The "Selfish" musician explained that all of the reasons he was told the song "wasn't going to work" are exactly why he thought it would - and he was right.

"It was personally an experience of trusting your gut and doing something so decidedly different," he said. "It kind of changed everything."