So the last time Justin Timberlake participated in a memorable live performance with an iconic female singer/dancer phenom resulted in that legendary "wardrobe malfunction" suffered by one Miss Janet Jackson. Sure, it was staged and Timberlake's "oops!" facial expression prophetically foreshadowed his subpar acting skills to come, but at least in our opinion, the whole thing was kind of hot. Sadly, last night he obediently agreed to perform on stage with his new vitamin injectress Madonna, and despite Madge's impressive torso maneuvers and immobile hairdo, her attempts to grind and dirty dance the life out of Timberlake in this clip just made us uncomfortable.

Putting all that awkward choreography aside, we're more disturbed by the ridiculously blatant lip syncing going on throughout the performance. Sometimes we can hear Justin singin' along all hardcore, and yet, he's holding his mic down by his hip and not even bothering to move his lips. As for Madonna, we don't expect much from her in terms of vocal talents, but was she really that distracted by JT's far-superior hip thrusts that jealousy overwhelmed that kinda important need to pretend you're actually singing by holding the mic somewhere in the vicinity of your face as the sound system pumps out your pre-recorded lines? And yet, even after nitpicking the pair, we feel obligated to confess the following: we liked the song so much we downloaded it an hour ago. It has something to do with saving the world in four minutes, but we don't care. It makes us want to go out, which is all a song should really do at the end of the day, no?

• Hard Candy [Madonna.com]

Tags: clips | janet jackson | justin timberlake | madonna | wardrobe functions