Robin Thicke, The Evolution of Robin Thicke

Robin Thicke is a curious case: a musically conservative blue-eyed soul singer who would fit snugly on to the Radio 2 playlist, but who isn't averse to singing about bank robberies and drugs. Pharrell and Lil' Wayne are both roped in to help Thicke indulge his hip-hop fantasies - the latter more successfully than the former. Shooter is a terrific blast of horns and lazily swaggering drums. Elsewhere, Thicke is most palatable when refining his natural yuppie-soul sound: the delicate Got 2 Be Down, a duet with Faith Evans, and the gorgeously decadent Cocaine - the kind of song one can imagine Patrick Bateman from American Psycho listening to. Thicke's problems, though, are twofold: his smooth falsetto calls to mind a mature Justin Timberlake and, like him, Thicke has a tendency towards ill-advised metaphors. (The teacher/pupil scenario of Teach U a Lesson is decidedly creepy.) Coupled with the slower jams' anonymity and the bossa nova nightmare that is Everything I Can't Have, further evolution would not go amiss.