Robin Thicke

No longer Alan Thicke's little boy nor the crazy goofball who sang "When I Get You Alone" over Walter Murphy's "A Fifth of Beethoven," Robin Thicke has matured into something less interesting than he promised at first. It's not that his blue-eyed soul is terrible stuff. He's referred to it as "Wine and bubbly" music, and it has a smoothness that many artists only pretend to, but he's moving steadily into Arbor Mist territory. Do we need a new Michael McDonald to appreciate sans irony? Or are the aisles of K-mart really lacking for mildly hummable material to play over the loudspeakers?

All this is a bit harsh, but Thicke originally seemed to be a transmutation of the terrible into true delight, and he's continued to class it up with each successive album. Something Else moves along in that same direction, with songs that take "Dream a Little Dream of Me" as a touch point, then translate that dreaminess into R&B, ending up in songs that are undeniably pretty but thoroughly yawn-inducing. It's not that you can't have an album that's mostly smooth, but you need a little rough thrown in there to break it up and keep you awake, which is what Lil Wayne provides on the final track, "Tie My Hands." As has been the case frequently, he's one of the best things about the record, even when operating at half speed.

—Hillary Brown
09.30.08

Looking like a Europop album from 1997 or 1998, Something Else's sleeve design would be much more indicative if it grafted a bunch of little Robin Thicke heads onto each dancing and playing body in Ernie Barnes' Back to Sugar Shack, the painting used for Marvin Gaye's I Want You. Not only would it be apt, it would play to Thicke's predilection for populating his covers with several images of himself. But it would obviously cause some problems. While a few songs do modernize the sound and feel of Gaye's steamy 1976 classic -- filled as they are with serene sexual energy and lush, impeccably layered arrangements built on rolling bongos, liquid basslines, and Thicke's acutely Gaye-indebted upper register -- there are several inspirations floating throughout, including indications that Thicke has a deeper understanding of Brazilian music, correctly believes that Philadelphia International did not flame out in the mid-'70s, and has transitioned into doing rocking R&B à la Van Hunt (cool, relaxed, natural) rather than pre-New Radicals Gregg Alexander (forced, awkward, unintentionally seriocomic). Following The Evolution of Robin Thicke, which went to the top of the R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and reached number five on the Billboard 200 (there was an Oprah appearance), Something Else features improvements in every aspect. From the tropical serenade opener to the album's quietly dazzling true close (the somber Lil Wayne collaboration "Tie My Hands" is really a bonus cut, having already appeared on Tha Carter III), Thicke has shed his affectations to the point where it's much easier to detect the sincerity he once obscured with hubristic tendencies. No longer a show-off, he sounds much more sure of himself; he would not have been able to pull off a socially conscious Southern-styled ballad like "Dreamworld," whether from a writing or singing standpoint, in 2003. Though his sources remain numerous, this is his most focused, least scattered, and least dilettantish set, and it benefits greatly from its brevity relative to The Evolution. That means everything has a deeper resonance -- especially the ballads, of which there are several. The man does know his audience. ~ Andy Kellman, All Music Guide