Robin Rock N Roll Ihr Affen
Robin Thicke, a Romantic, Has a Naughty Striking
BOSTON — Robin Thicke was having a fume backside the Colonnade Hotel here after performing his hitting "Blurred Lines" at a radio promotion party when he attracted the attending of some teenagers passing by. They knew he was famous, but they nonetheless had trouble placing him.
"Is that Justin Timberlake?" a fellow asked. Mr. Thicke exhaled smoke and shook his head with a wry smile. "It's Robin Thicke," Mr. Thicke'due south managing director said. "Can I hug yous?" a wide-eyed immature woman asked. She ran to Mr. Thicke, and as they hugged, she squealed, "Oh, my God."
These days, Mr. Thicke gets mistaken for Mr. Timberlake less and less. With "Blurred Lines," he has finally scored a No. 1 striking, after 20 years of writing romantic R&B songs that did well with black audiences, especially women, but never crossed over to popular radio.
As the young woman left with her friends, Mr. Thicke climbed into the dorsum seat of a blackness Due south.U.5., settling in next to an empty car seat that belongs to his 3-year-old son, Julian Fuego. The boy had fallen asleep during his father'south set, and his mother, the actress Paula Patton, had taken him back to the nearby Four Seasons. "We still got the baby seat in here," Mr. Thicke said. "How rock 'n' roll is that?"
At 36, Mr. Thicke is a parcel of contradictions: a white singer from a privileged Hollywood family who sounds as if he got his showtime working smoky R&B clubs; a family homo who married his first sweetheart but croons about sex and seduction with the moist heat of a veteran ladies' homo; a songwriter with a political conscience whose video for "Blurred Lines" is and so risqué — information technology features near nude models cavorting around Mr. Thicke as he leers and sings, "I know you want information technology" — that critics defendant him of objectifying women and reinforcing rape myths.
The deliberately lewd video stirred up a predictable tempest of publicity, both positive and negative. Information technology turned out to be a marketing coup, transforming Mr. Thicke within days into a recognizable star and helping to propel the vocal up the popular chart. The vocal is a tricky come-on that Mr. Thicke composed in a few hours with Pharrell Williams (who besides performs in it) over a '70s funk beat, and information technology has topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart for v weeks. That success has raised expectations for his 6th studio album, also titled "Blurred Lines" (Star Trak/Interscope Records), to be released on July 30.
"It's like being an athlete and finally winning a championship," he said. "I experience like I've been waiting to win a championship, simply 1, before I retire."
This moment was long in coming. From the time he was 16 and landed a recording contract with Jimmy Iovine at Interscope Records, Mr. Thicke has had some of the most influential producers and artists in the R&B globe betting on his talent.
His early mentors included the vocalizer Brian McKnight and the producer Andre Harrell. Both heard a powerful soul singer in the longhaired, idealistic son of the thespian Alan Thicke, best known for playing the father on "Growing Pains," and the vocaliser Gloria Loring. "It's really hard for a white singer to play on the radio and really audio like he's a black church vocalizer," Mr. Harrell said. "His souvenir is romantic intimacy."
Mr. Thicke's smooth vocals and falsetto became a staple on urban adult radio, and a few of his songs, like "Lost Without U" and "Sex Therapy," accept topped Billboard'southward R&B chart. But until now, a pop radio hit had eluded him.
Mr. Iovine attributes the success of "Blurred Lines" to the popularity of the retro R&B sound that has developed over the last two years, not any change in Mr. Thicke'south songwriting. "The market is at present timed to where he wants to be," he said. "He didn't go subsequently the marketplace."
Mr. Thicke said he gravitated toward R&B from a young historic period. Though his father loved Bruce Springsteen and Gordon Lightfoot, his mother, who had a long career as a singer and recorded the hit duet "Friends and Lovers" in 1986, considered rock vocals to be "a bunch of yelling." Her house in Sherman Oaks, Calif., was filled with the music of Aretha Franklin, Luther Vandross and Marvin Gaye.
Ms. Loring recalled that her son started singing every bit a toddler and frequently pretended to be a atomic number 82 singer when he and other children would play. A great mimic, he learned early on to practice impressions of Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson to impress his friends. By 14, he had formed a vocal group, As 1, and started performing R&B songs in churches. Information technology was a demo tape he recorded with the grouping that intrigued Mr. McKnight and eventually led to his first recording contract.
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His debut album in 2003, "Cute World," which many in the manufacture thought would make him famous, bombed commercially, sending him into an emotional tailspin. "All of a sudden the balloon pops," he said. All the same, the album opened doors, winning him fans amongst the likes of Mr. Williams and Usher, who became collaborators. "I was blown away — I thought Beatles, Earth Wind & Burn, Shuggie Otis, Marvin Gaye — all in 1 anthology," Conductor said. "He'south got a soul you can't buy, man."
The next album, "The Development of Robin Thicke," from 2006, for which Mr. Williams was the executive producer, started slowly but eventually sold ane.6 million copies afterward the single "Lost Without U," a tender love ballad for Ms. Patton, became a sleeper hitting. And so he hit a plateau. The next two albums never broke the 500,000-sales mark.
In an interview over dinner at the Four Seasons, Mr. Thicke said he let go of the reins for the "Blurred Lines" album. Tall, with advisedly cut pilus and rakish good looks, he is a lively conversationalist, ofttimes reflecting instantly on what he has just said with a touch of self-deprecating humor. He considers himself a songwriter with a social conscience, like his idols Marvin Gaye, John Lennon and Bob Marley. On his first five albums, he delved into problems like racism and being married to a black woman. He likewise mined his ain insecurities and the emotional battlefield of marriage for songs.
But on "Blurred Lines," he abandoned that introspective cloth to interact with some of popular'southward biggest hitting makers — Mr. Williams, Timbaland, Dr. Luke and Will.i.am. "I needed people like Pharrell and Will.i.am to get me out of my head," he said.
Making the new anthology, he played demos of songs for his wife in the evenings to get her opinion, every bit he often does. He said they found themselves wanting to skip the serious tracks in favor of the upwardly-tempo songs. "At the end of the nighttime, after the babe goes to bed, you just desire to dance with the one yous love and take fun and let it go," he said. "I ended upward deciding to keep my sadder songs for a afterward appointment and go along this album as much fun as possible, more of an escapist album."
The album has a split up personality: five tracks are archetype R&B songs with a 1970s feel that Mr. Thicke wrote with his longtime songwriting partner Projay. "For the Remainder of My Life" is a ballad that recounts how he fell in love with Ms. Patton when he was 15. But the other five tracks are poppy dance grooves with erotic lyrics. Similar "Blurred Lines," they seem tailor made for Rhythmic Top twoscore radio. The 2nd single scheduled for release is "Requite It two U," a menacing, sexually explicit electronic track produced by Dr. Luke and Cirkut, featuring Kendrick Lamar.
Mr. Thicke said "Blurred Lines" came out of a three-day writing session in July 2012 with Mr. Williams. On the last 24-hour interval, he told Mr. Williams he wanted to do something similar Marvin Gaye's "Got to Give It Up." Mr. Williams started playing a funk rhythm with syncopated cowbell accents on the drums, and that, coupled with a unproblematic 2-chord progression, became the spine of the track. Mr. Thicke improvised a tune and some lyrics near seducing another man's girlfriend.
"Within an hour and a half, we had the whole record recorded and finished, completed, magical," he said. T.I. added a rap several months later.
It was Mr. Williams who came up with the repeated catch phrase "I know you want it." That line earned the ire of feminist critics, some of whom called information technology "rapey" and argued it reinforced the myth that women who say "No" to a man's proposition really mean "Aye." Others took consequence with lyrics in the rap that describe crude sex and even the title, which hints at moral ambiguity. "Both the lyrics and the video seem to objectify and degrade women, using misogynistic language and imagery," Katie Russell of the British clemency Rape Crunch told The Contained.
Mr. Thicke said the lyrics were meant to be humorous. "If people desire to take a chat about 'Is it sexist or is the video sexist or misogynistic?,' then that's fine. Nosotros tin can have a conversation," he said. "But one time you throw the word 'rapey' in, that'southward not fair. There is absolutely no bone in my body, or Pharrell'southward, that would ever write a song with that type of idea in it."
He said it was the director, Diane Martel, who decided to become in what she saw every bit a goofy, taboo direction: topless models dancing and holding absurd props — a lamb, a behemothic syringe, a blimp dog.
"I merely want to do something funny or silly, like Benny Loma or something," Mr. Thicke said. "And that sparked her to get, 'What if nosotros have the girls take their wearing apparel off?'"
Ms. Martel has defended the video in interviews, maxim she sees the women every bit being in a powerful position, subtly ridiculing the men and their absurd pickup lines.
Mr. Thicke said he found it odd that he had gained notoriety for the video when and so many of his songs take been inspired by his marriage and respect for his wife. She advised him to make the video and offered suggestions, he said. "She'south not only my muse, but my creative mirror," he said.
"My music has e'er been woman friendly, and if my wife didn't like information technology, I wouldn't consider putting it out," he added. "But you know what my married woman wants to do right now? She wants to feel young."
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/21/arts/music/robin-thicke-a-romantic-has-a-naughty-hit.html
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