You know for all of the supposedly hetero songs on Robin Thicke’s 2013 album “Blurred Lines” never before have I seen a man with a more obvious crush on Justin Timberlake. All the warbling “Oooh baby”s, the vague attempts at hip-hop, the guest rappers, the more than slightly 90’s boy band sound of “4 The Rest of my life.” I’m pretty sure if we delved a little deeper we’d find out that Robin thicke has a life-sized Justin Timberlake poster above his bed and makes his wife dress up in shades and a fedora before sex, but I digress.
I found out about Thicke more or less the same way every one else did, being lampooned with youtube adds for Blurred Lines and eventually being forced to watch it . Perhaps over optimistically I thought this track, and Thicke himself might fade out of the limelight in a couple weeks as just some one hit wonder who we would soon stop talking about, but alas, here we are. Apparently having a former child star with a micky mouse hand twerk on you while you botch the vocals to your only notable song is a good way to stay in the public consciousness. So how does his remarkably successful new album which Rolling Stone called a “near-perfect summer record” hold up to scrutiny you ask?......badly, the answer is badly.
The Album starts with its inescapable title track “Blurred Lines” which at this point has been talked to death from an analytical standpoint. I could go on for paragraphs here talking about whether or not its misogynistic or promotes rape culture or what have you, but this strikes me as both A. incredibly dull and B. irrelevant to whether its a good song or not. Is it objectively pretty sexist? Sure. Are the lyrical implications pretty rapey? Yeah just a tad. However these facts having nothing to do with why I hate it. I hate it because it's four minutes of those insufferable white-boy-R&B falsetto vocals over an annoying disco beat which repeats over and over for the duration in a ceaseless circle until I find myself wanting to stab puppies. I don’t inherently dislike it because its sexist, I listen to Combichrist for fucks sake, but no matter where you stand on that part of the argument it remains one of the most annoying songs I've been subjected to in a long time.
The rest of the album seems to fall between two primary categories. First you have songs like “Take it Easy on Me” and “Give it 2 U” which exhibit Thicke’s rather sad and invariably annoying attempts to be Mr. Timberlake, and also some incredibly funny moments of Thicke attempting to do hip-hop. “Give it 2 U” also has the dubious honors of both containing a synth line which sounds simultaniously identical to pretty much anything Will.i.am has produced in the past five years, particularly “#thatpower”, and having a title which makes me die a little inside whenever I have to type it. Also why is Kendrick Lamar on this song?! Kendrick, buddy, You made one of the best albums of 2012, you actually make good music with interesting insightful lyrics, why are you on a Robin Thicke song?
The rest of the album is made up of pretty standard loungy soul/R&B tracks, which while on the whole not terrible, do nothing to tip the balance in favor of this actually being a good album. In the same way adding more white bread to a sandwich containing a dead cat you found that morning won’t suddenly make it haut cuisine, these songs don’t do anything to make you forgive or forget the truly awful ones.
On the whole this album isn't abjectly terrible, I've listened to far worse in the past year. But if only for managing to become as popular it has while being this powerfully mediocre It has earned a special little place of enmity in my heart. I’m also pretty sure someone's payed off the greater population of Syracuse to exclusively blast Blurred Lines when passing me on the street, so there’s that grudge as well. One can only hope that music this forgettable will soon be forgotten and replaced with something which is at the very least more interestingly bad.
I found out about Thicke more or less the same way every one else did, being lampooned with youtube adds for Blurred Lines and eventually being forced to watch it . Perhaps over optimistically I thought this track, and Thicke himself might fade out of the limelight in a couple weeks as just some one hit wonder who we would soon stop talking about, but alas, here we are. Apparently having a former child star with a micky mouse hand twerk on you while you botch the vocals to your only notable song is a good way to stay in the public consciousness. So how does his remarkably successful new album which Rolling Stone called a “near-perfect summer record” hold up to scrutiny you ask?......badly, the answer is badly.
The Album starts with its inescapable title track “Blurred Lines” which at this point has been talked to death from an analytical standpoint. I could go on for paragraphs here talking about whether or not its misogynistic or promotes rape culture or what have you, but this strikes me as both A. incredibly dull and B. irrelevant to whether its a good song or not. Is it objectively pretty sexist? Sure. Are the lyrical implications pretty rapey? Yeah just a tad. However these facts having nothing to do with why I hate it. I hate it because it's four minutes of those insufferable white-boy-R&B falsetto vocals over an annoying disco beat which repeats over and over for the duration in a ceaseless circle until I find myself wanting to stab puppies. I don’t inherently dislike it because its sexist, I listen to Combichrist for fucks sake, but no matter where you stand on that part of the argument it remains one of the most annoying songs I've been subjected to in a long time.
The rest of the album seems to fall between two primary categories. First you have songs like “Take it Easy on Me” and “Give it 2 U” which exhibit Thicke’s rather sad and invariably annoying attempts to be Mr. Timberlake, and also some incredibly funny moments of Thicke attempting to do hip-hop. “Give it 2 U” also has the dubious honors of both containing a synth line which sounds simultaniously identical to pretty much anything Will.i.am has produced in the past five years, particularly “#thatpower”, and having a title which makes me die a little inside whenever I have to type it. Also why is Kendrick Lamar on this song?! Kendrick, buddy, You made one of the best albums of 2012, you actually make good music with interesting insightful lyrics, why are you on a Robin Thicke song?
The rest of the album is made up of pretty standard loungy soul/R&B tracks, which while on the whole not terrible, do nothing to tip the balance in favor of this actually being a good album. In the same way adding more white bread to a sandwich containing a dead cat you found that morning won’t suddenly make it haut cuisine, these songs don’t do anything to make you forgive or forget the truly awful ones.
On the whole this album isn't abjectly terrible, I've listened to far worse in the past year. But if only for managing to become as popular it has while being this powerfully mediocre It has earned a special little place of enmity in my heart. I’m also pretty sure someone's payed off the greater population of Syracuse to exclusively blast Blurred Lines when passing me on the street, so there’s that grudge as well. One can only hope that music this forgettable will soon be forgotten and replaced with something which is at the very least more interestingly bad.
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