Don’t be coy, Robin! Give what to me? Wait, you don’t mean… oh Robin, you naughty boy, you!
[Video][Website]
[4.56]
Anthony Easton: Thicke has been working on this for a decade, and his push forward this year is both smart and opportune. He chose the right producers, the right directors and the right collaborators, and he was able to choose those people because he spent the last decade working up the social capital. He is having a career year, and he drops this with Kendrick’s best verse, the best-written things on the track. His verse is the only thing that doesn’t emphasize the same kind of bromides — but, oh, Thicke delivers those bromides: how he rises to falsetto on “true” and “you,” how that falsetto rises above production all angular and abstract, how he rhymes “little Thicke” with Lamar’s “big dick” (insert mandatory reference to homosocial tension and hints at other kinds of male sex play), how he hints at sexual practices (“let me put it on your face for you”) that are at odds with the smiles and angel talk, how he spends as much time figuring out what she wants, and also how the general rarely settles into the specific. I think that it’s more respectful and less stupid than the first lesson would suggest, and I look forward to more from this year’s vanilla R. Kelly.
[6]
Alfred Soto: Straight guys will lapse into falsetto for the sake of fucking an angel, said angels will laugh, gay men will wonder why the fuss, and synth bass will continue to buzz and crackle. With Lamar giving his most dextrous guest appearance, it’s hard to fault the professionalism of the recording. But I’m bored of craving good Maroon 5 or Timberlake, perhaps bored of the come-ons too.
[5]
Patrick St. Michel: At least last time Robin Thicke and pals were gettin’ gross with the ladies, they had the courtesy to back it up with a summery bit of funkiness. This time, the world gets a knockoff “Like A G6” display leading into what sounds like someone discovering French electronic music for the first time.
[1]
John Seroff: “Give It 2 U” is the apotheosis of Thicke’s slick dick schtick, an unasked for but clearly all-too-marketable synthesis of Timberlake and Pitbull. Unctuous, bass heavy Dr. Luke production lends a late-era Prince-via-ringtone quality that almost overcomes “Give It”‘s rancid PUA lyrics but, as the saying goes, take a chocolate sundae and mix in a pinch of bullshit and you get a bullshit sundae regardless of the proportions. I don’t care how hot the summer has been; any confection that forces me to listen to Kendrick say “you’re like a needle in a haystack/I wanna sit you where my face at” can GTFO.
[5]
Scott Mildenhall: No you’re alright.
[4]
Brad Shoup: Pull up, Kendrick! This isn’t the True Path. As for #Thicke, when I want a blue-eyed Prince homage, I’ll cue up Sam Sparro’s “Quarter Life Crisis”. And when I want to hear that bassline, I’ve got Trina’s “Long Heels Red Bottoms”. This is fine as an album-ender, but it’s just the sum of its curated parts. And I’m definitely done with hearing about his Special Purpose.
[5]
Katherine St Asaph: Is Robin Thicke’s comeback secretly just a viral marketing campaign for his penis? I kind of hope this succeeds “Blurred Lines” as Song of Late Summer, though, because I keep finding so much of it hilarious: how the Thicke/Timberlake/Pharrell/Timbaland feedback loop is approaching infinite recursion; that break for “angel,” as if they’re in awe they invented the pickup hashtag (which they can’t have — I mean, at latest it’d have to be Lil B, right?); the moment I decided the “ooh baby baby” at the beginning synced exactly to “…Baby One More Time”; for that matter how Thicke sings “make a grown man cry” exactly like Al Walser.
[4]
Edward Okulicz: So “Blurred Lines” is no longer the most rapey song I’ll embarrassingly admit to kind of liking in 2013. Timberlake-y, yes, but rather than just trying a bit too hard like JT does when he gets his falsetto-soaked prowling disco on, this goes so far off the other end that it comes across as pure comedy. No doubt when he heard the first playback, Thicke thought it was smooth and sexy, and would have been utterly wrong on both counts. From the sex-predator lyrics underneath the discount “SexyBack” electro sleaze to the “angel” interjection, I haven’t ever laughed so hard at a sure-to-be massive pop hit that wasn’t trying to be funny, or even one that was.
[7]
Will Adams: You can’t tell that will.i.am was involved until that obnoxious “#ANGEL” storms through (and is repeated because of course it is). That’s the least of this song’s worries, though. Where “Blurred Lines” was goofy enough to be read as harmless, “Give It 2 U” goes skeevy — like, “I came to this club with lace panties I bought so you can put them on and then I’ll take them off” skeevy. Some disco sneaks in towards the end, but it can’t alter the tone that the more aggressive (and admittedly good) breakbeat sets. And please, enough with the Thicke jokes.
[4]