Robin Thicke: Blurred Lines – review

Robin Thicke, an American R&B singer who's a vocal ringer for Justin Timberlake, had been making reasonably successful albums for years without exciting a morsel of controversy. The worldwide No 1 single Blurred Lines changed that. The focal line of this lubricious party jam is "I know you want it", repeated over and over, and has precipitated an internet storm over its "rapiness". Whether it's "rapey" is debatable, but Thicke certainly doesn't do himself many favours elsewhere on the album. The music is sunny funk/soul, there are seamless cameos from Pharrell and Kendrick Lamar, and Thicke proves a loose-limbed loverman of a vocalist – but the positive qualities are overshadowed by his blunt-instrument romantic technique. He regularly divests himself of dignity, claiming on Give It 2 U that he's "got a little Thicke for you, big dick for you", offering on Take It Easy on Me to "rip through all your fancy clothes" to "get a shot of your underwear" and so on. Shame: this could have been a pretty good album.