Maudlin guitar strums and a feathery-light falsetto just may not be enough to save Robin Thicke’s marriage.
“Paula,” released July 1, is Thicke’s latest album – a 14-track apology dedicated to his estranged wife, actress Paula Patton, from whom he has been legally separated since February.
“I should’ve kissed you longer/ I should’ve held you stronger/ And I’ll wait for forever for you to love me again,” the singer pleadingly croons on the album’s lead single, “Get Her Back.”
While the album starts off endearingly enough with soft acoustics and intimate lyrics of a woeful lover, it then switches to an upbeat, funk-infested segment that spouts lyrics seemingly too irrelevant for an album devoted to winning back Patton’s affections.
“I’m living in New York City/ Where streets are witty, and girls look pretty/ I’m living in New York City/ And it’s living in me,” Thicke delivers amid James Brown-inspired screeches on the track “Living in New York City.”
A soul-heavy number, the song sits awkwardly after four down-tempo songs and gives the impression of capriciousness rather than heartbreak. Perhaps the song serves to showcase some content variety, and all might be forgiven if the lyrics of the subsequent song, “Love Can Grow Back,” did not take a turn for the lewd.
“Oh, you’re way too young to dance like that/ In front of a man like me, baby/ Oh yes, you are/ You know cigarettes are bad for you, baby/ So am I,” Thicke sings with melismatic panache against a bluesy piano.
Not only is Patton no longer the implied subject of Thicke’s lyrics, but, as a result of his past year’s promiscuous, bad-boy image – thanks to a certain 2013 chart-topper that had feminists and anti-rape advocates bristling – not even the lines of this song are blurred enough to stop more suggestive imagery. 2013’s Video Music Awards performance with Miley Cyrus, anyone?
“With your new nails on my back/ You’ll be scratching and scratching my itch/ With your new nails on my back,” Thicke continues on “Love Can Grow Back.”
Besides disclosing Thicke’s nail fetish, the sexual themes of this song merely render it a recycled “Blurred Lines.” The animalistic snapshot of scratching nails is eerily similar to that of “Blurred Lines,” in which Thicke sings, “But you’re an animal/ Baby, it’s in your nature.”
Irritatingly so, Thicke seems bent in both songs on painting himself as a sleazy onlooker, content with taking a backseat while women wildly carnalize themselves for his gratification.
Why Paula would want to hear of her estranged husband’s rendezvous with another woman is beyond me. In fact, “Love Can Grow Back” is counterintuitive to the entire album.
Questions beg to arise: Is this album actually an earnest apology to Patton? Does the lyrical desperation of the first few tracks atone for the debauched tone of later tracks? Is this album solely a promotional scheme?
The answers to these questions can only be speculated, but the album’s effect is clear. Thicke seems to be a man torn between humbling himself in the name of love and entitling himself so that no one usurps his status as entertainment’s self-satisfied sex fiend.
In what is seemingly a last-ditch effort to remind listeners of his original intent, Thicke concludes the album with “Forever Love,” a slow ballad in which he mournfully laments, “You and I, we were family.”
Unfortunately for Thicke, “Paula” is a mess of mixed messages.
Boxing oversexed songs in between heartfelt confessions that open and close the album does little to portray the image of a remorseful man. There is no middle ground for “Paula,” as Thicke’s reluctance to entirely give up his bad-boy persona eventually taints what might have been a genuine 14-track act of reconciliation.
This isn’t the first time an artist has taken to songwriting for emotional heartache – one only has to listen to any pre-existing Taylor Swift record. And yet, unlike others of its kind, this album rubs off as an exploitation of private and sensitive matters.
While audibly a pleasant listen, “Paula” is messy and indirect at best, distasteful and manipulative at worst.
If Thicke had been hoping to prove his love, any sentiment is eclipsed by trite shamelessness as well as a stubborn refusal to drop a public front that hovers in between sincerity and an overactive libido.
– Ashley Vu