and electronic tracks. Critical reception Man of the Woods received mixed reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has an average score of 55 based on 29 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews". In Rolling Stone, Christopher R. Weingarten gave the album a positive review, saying "parts of Man of the Woods are his most exploratory music in years." In Variety, Chris Willman expressed "there are plenty of reasons to like Man of the Woods, not least that it's got a good beat and you can dance to it," and concluded "It's the utterly weird boldness of Timberlake figuratively dragging Pharrell and Danja into the middle of a frosty field that makes the album memorable. This is undeniably the real him right now – funkster, family man, firewalker." Jason Lipshutz of Billboard summarized his review saying, "Man of the Woods is worth exploring, but it's already worth wondering how Timberlake follows it". Q said "throughout, Man of the Woods seesaws brilliantly between pop and country." Billboard included it among the best 50 albums of the first half of 2018. Man of the Woods received a B from Entertainment Weekly, while The Guardian and NME gave it three out of five stars. In her review for The A.V. Club, Annie Zaleski said "At its best, this approach leads to sonic whirlwinds." Brock Radke of Las Vegas Weekly deemed it Timberlake's "most experimental album" that is "far from a failure, and that's because its bright spots will accomplish the singular goal of all of Timberlake's music: making non-dancing people get up and dance without remorse or self-consciousness." He considered "Higher, Higher" the album's best track, and "Midnight Summer Jam" a "throwback soul party a la Earth, Wind & Fire." In Exclaim!, Ian Gormely gave the album a 5 out of 10 score, saying that the album is "immaculately produced and performed" but also noting that "sound and feel are no substitute for soul." Jamieson Cox of Pitchfork rated the album 3.8/10 and called it "a huge misstep for the pop star" as well as "warm, indulgent, inert, and vacuous". Commercial performance Man of the Woods debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 with 293,000 album-equivalent units, making it the biggest first week of the year at the time, and gave Timberlake his fourth consecutive number-one album