We
first met Robin Thicke about a decade ago, zipping through the
streets of Manhattan on a bicycle in his debut video, Jesus mane
flowing behind him, then doing some sub-“Saturday Night Fever”
moves in a freight elevator. The song was “When I Get You
Alone,”and it sampled Walter Murphy’s “Fifth of Beethoven,”
the 1976 disco-classical fusion, a hybrid of flash and seriousness
that Mr. Thicke appeared perfectly comfortable with, even if few
others were: wildly out of step with the sound of the time, his
single never hit the American charts.
Jump
forward to “BlurredLines,” the song that has topped the Billboard Hot 100 for
eight weeks now, and that has elevated Mr. Thicke from white-soul
curio to pop certainty. There he is in the crisp video, chipper and
smug, in a beautifully cut suit, frolicking with barely clothed
models (in the version where they’re wearing clothes at all, that
is). He has the look of a man finally coming into the privilege he
was sure was his all along.
But
don’t let the video’s modernism fool you: white-soul conservatism
is the order of the day, and this hit is just as nostalgic as Mr.Thicke’s first single was, under a much cooler cover. “Blurred
Lines” is influenced heavily by Marvin Gaye’s “Got to Give ItUp,” and even with the producer Pharrell Williams’s clean, large
drums and a sizzling, naughty guest rap by T.I., Mr. Thicke can’t
help himself — he loves yesterday way more than today. That’s
also clear from the bulk of his new album, also called “Blurred
Lines” (Star Trak/Interscope), on which his hit is one of several
songs that sound helicoptered in from three or four decades ago. Mr.
Thicke may be the sound of now, but he’s only passing for
contemporary.
With
its full-band soul arrangements that hark back to disco and before,
“Blurred Lines” is a loud reminder of the fundamental
conservatism of white soul. Nostalgia is a frequent hallmark of white
participation in black genres, a way of signaling respect and
knowledge without presuming to reshape the art form’s present. It’s
a safe space, guaranteeing an audience of nostalgists and
that-white-boy-can-sing true-schoolers.
That
leaves white singers — in the last few years, there have been Mr.
Thicke, Mayer Hawthorne, Eli (Paperboy) Reed, Allen Stone, NickWaterhouse, Jamie Lidell and many more — largely in the role
of preservers of a heritage. They are tentative innovators, if
innovators at all. That isn’t the case 100 percent of the time, but
there hasn’t been a white-soul singer at the genre’s vanguard in
quite some time, and at the moment, there is no Eminem of R&B.
Luckily
for Mr. Thicke, though, it so happens that 2013 is the best year in a
while to be a white-soul conservative, thanks largely to the newly
mature, and newly dull, Justin Timberlake, whose third album,
“The 20/20 Experience” (RCA), was released in March. (A follow-up
album is due next month.)
At
one point, just after his liberation from ’NSync, Mr. Timberlake
was the vanguard figure of pop-R&B, partnering with the hip-hop
visionary Timbaland to create the most inventive pop of the day. (You
could also argue that ’NSync itself was an innovator in
forward-thinking R&B.) But Mr. Timberlake is now 32, and far
removed from his best pop star years. His sheer fame, though, has
made conservatism cool.
It’s
in that environment that Mr. Thicke, 36, has thrived. Of the old
ideas on “Blurred Lines,” the album, the title track is the most
modern. Mr. Thicke is a singer of sometimes punishing sincerity;
“Blurred Lines” is such a departure for him not just because it
is less blatantly throwback than his typical fare, but also because
he’s arching his eyebrows throughout the song, willingly poking fun
at himself.
But
what’s striking is how unambitious most of the rest of the album
is, especially the half that’s produced by Mr. Thicke with his
longtime production partner Pro-Jay. They’re pleasant enough, these
songs about seduction and tender love, but musically, Mr. Thicke is
still interested in the same modes he was a decade ago: smooth
crooning, orchestral soul, disco thump. “Ooo La La” is so slick
it could pass for something by Toro Y Moi, who’s been refabricating
1980s soul through a child’s lens for the last few years. “Ain’t
No Hat 4 That” is ornate and explosive — it’s a reminder that
sometimes in the past, soul was a luxury concept.
That
idea is wrung dry like a washcloth by Mayer Hawthorne, 34, who
recently released his third album, “Where Does This Door Go”
(Universal Republic), full of thick disco and 1960s soul homage.
Early in his career, Mr. Hawthorne was quickly upstreamed from the
soul nostalgist underground to the majors, almost too quickly for him
to decide whether his tepid productions were to be taken seriously.
This
album is his most committed to date. He has a meager voice, and a
boatful of ideas, especially about the yacht-soul of the 1970s. It’s
notionally erotic music — more so than Mr. Thicke’s, whose sound
is more complicated — but it rarely feels sweaty, because Mr.
Hawthorne won’t, or can’t, commit.
Over
the course of an album, his smoothness reads as aggressive shtick.
Wine comes up a few times as a signifier, because, of course, it
does. Mr. Hawthorne’s version of soul music is a fantasia, a
collection of received ideas. It should be said, though, that in the
context of his conservative peers, that insincerity feels like a kind
of innovation. He knows exactly where he stands — on the outside.
Source:
nytimes
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