Patrick’s will be done…
[Video][Website]
[5.89]
Patrick St. Michel: More .GIFs of T.I. dancing, less of Robin Thicke’s women-as-animals sleazing please.
[3]
Britt Alderfer: Loopy good fun — I’ve got a little fixation. I don’t really take Robin Thicke seriously, but taking him seriously is not required to enjoy this song. The way he hiccups “domesticate ya!” He is constantly in whatever the musical equivalent of 4-wheel drive is; he tries so hard. Except for that “What rhymes with hug me?” line. I’m still trying decide whether it’s great or just precious.
[6]
Anthony Easton: Robin Thicke’s sexual personae is getting more and more convincing the more he plays around with it; in this phase, it has a strange and seamless elegance and suggests a liquidity that matches the phase shifting of lyrical strangeness. Extra points for the extending “ooo” in “good girl”, conveniently ignoring some of the politics.
[8]
Scott Mildenhall: This is an answer song to Gilbert O’Sullivan’s “Get Down“, no? It’s 40 years to the week since he had a number one with that — and 40 years tomorrow since Pharrell was born. That simply cannot be a coincidence.
[6]
Alfred Soto: The line is between “Got To Get It Up Pt. 1” and Thicke’s ambitions, which are as dorky as Justin Timberlake’s (and he adduces them by hiring two former JT collaborators). At least the aptly named Thicke’s dorkiness is fleeter than JT’s this time out. Did the cowbell and synth bass help?
[4]
Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: Like last year’s Usher collabo “Twisted” and funk tributes like their Sprite-commissioned rarity “Make It Funky”, “Blurred Lines” finds The Neptunes crafting wisp-light melodies over a busy-bee percussion line, sounding effortless and fun on first impression but stuffed to the gills on the second. In the clutter of the backing track, there’s a fun Easter Egg in the constantly breaking glass — a cheeky nod to their tutelage under Teddy Riley, who stuffed albums like MJ’s Dangerous full of similar percussion. Thicke and a nimble T.I. wisely stick to following the keys here, getting loose vocally and morally, the song becoming an invitation to rebel (the lady of his affections is being domesticated against her will, he reckons). “Blurred Lines” sounds like bad behaviour: cheeky, busy, unapologetic.
[7]
Brad Shoup: A good chunk of this song’s audience won’t place this easily, but that doesn’t let the creators off the, uh… hook. This thing is 80% chorus, all lines on deck. God knows when people will fall for the old “banned video” ruse again. Give him this: Marvin would have been proud of that video. Needs more/any amount of Kevin Hart tho.
[6]
Jer Fairall: That he cannot get through the line “what rhymes with ‘hug me?'” without chuckling defines this winsomely goofy track’s appeal for me; the whole thing is so playfully derivative in its MJ-by-way-of-JT way that Thicke’s insouciance becomes every bit as infectious as the bobbing bass line and rattly percussion. Also, his clunky “hey hey hey”s are kind of what I assume the kids mean when they call something “adorkable.”
[8]
Katherine St Asaph: Sorry, Robin, but your Prince is in another castle. Lose the hashtags.
[5]