Robin Thicke
Ok sure, not everybody likes Robin Thicke – in fact most people think he promotes rape culture and is kind of weird and sleazy – but no matter what you think of him you can’t deny that he’s fucking humongous. Blurred Lines is the most downloaded song ever in the history of iTunes in the UK (and probably the world too) and was pretty much the soundtrack to last year for a lot of people (mainly rapey uni lads, sure) and so it seemed that Robin Thicke had well and truly arrived.
What nobody seemed to know though was that Robin Thicke used to be a long haired hippy and ride bicycles around New York and just be called Thicke. You’ve probably heard this song below in the club or at a house party somewhere but hadn’t realised it was Robin Thicke before. You’ll be amazed, trust me:
Different huh? Now, at the time – which was 2002, 11 years before Blurred Lines – I suppose this song was kinda big (at least enough for people to dance to it in the clubs without anyone knowing who sang it) but I doubt that anyone could have predicted that 11 years later this dumb hippy would have ditched the long hair for a slick back and sides and a suit and come out with one of the biggest selling songs of all time.
It’s probably more puzzling that he was so out of the scene for 11 years? What the hell was Thicke/Robin Thicke up to then huh? It’s a shame that that question didn’t come up in his recent Twitter Q & A.
Interestingly, whilst I was writing and researching this article I read that Robin Thicke had recently released a new album called Paula last week – in honour of his estranged wife who just couldn’t handle all those Blurred Lines when he blew up – and it’s a complete and utter flop. It’s sold 24K in the US (Blurred Lines sold 177K in its first week), 530 copies in the UK and less than 54 in Australia. Oof. It seems that just like Tamagotchis, Robin Thicke’s year in the sun is over and he’ll go back to being a WTF were we thinking in 2013 oddity. Later man.
Here’s the latest single from said record entitled ‘Get Her Back’. No guesses what that’s about then and yes, it’s definitely really creepy.