Yet...I feel that most people who reviewed that album actually looked at it not through the perspective of what the album itself sounded like without the knowledge of what was going, but, instead, let their knowledge of events influence their reviews of it. I'm not going to say that nobody reviewed the album fairly, but the overall feeling I get is that most people who reviewed it spent more time focusing on how the album fit in with what was going on with the couple at the time than focusing on the album itself, and that's not really a fair way to judge the album. Yes, it's important to mention, but suppose someone were to pick up the album months down the line with no knowledge of the events that inspired the album? Are they going to be able to join the dots? I think not, and it is for them that I am going to write this review.
That said, before I start, I do feel that I have to give context on why, despite not liking Thicke much and feel that most of the events that lead to his separation (and possible soon-to-be divorce) from Paula Patton can be fairly blamed upon him, I do have to say that I do actually feel a bit sorry for him. See, he and Paula have been a couple possibly since before I was born (I'm 21 now, for reference, and have a birthday in May) and have certainly known each other since before I was born (they apparently met in 1991). Let us put that into context: everything I have seen and done in my life has been while the two of them have been a couple. That's a HUGE amount of history to sweep under the rug and forget about, and even friendly break ups between couples who have only been together for a few months can be really tough to get through (...from what I've heard: I've never even been in a relationship, so I wouldn't know how tough break ups can be from personal experience): imagine trying to sweep nearly 21 years worth of memories under the rug with someone who you have been married to for nearly a decade AND have a child with.
Yeah...let that all sink in and think about it.
Now, while I think that Thicke's behaviour does not make him particularly deserving of sympathy (if some of the reports I've heard are correct, he's been involved in infidelity, which is hardly behaviour most people's girlfriends will take kindly to, let alone wives that you have kids with and have been with in some form or another for over two decades!), I do have to say that I honestly wouldn't have blamed him and Paula of wanting to take breaks from the industries they are in or imposing a ban on discussing their private lives with everyone until they feel like they're ready to talk about it if they wanted to. It's ultimately a very fair thing to say "I'm sorry, but I don't want to talk about that just now" when it comes to painful matters like this (no matter how the press likes to spin stuff like that into making it sound like you're angry with the other person) and I do say that the two of them deserve to have their privacy respected until such a time as they're ready to discuss these matters in public. I don't know whether both of them have done that, as I've not followed them (I'm a metal fan, for goodness sake: why would I follow the private lives of an R&B/pop singer who I cared nothing for when I heard his breakthrough into mainstream popularity (sorry, but I didn't like "Blurred Lines": I'll stick with "Get Lucky" by Daft Punk and "Treasure" by Bruno Mars when I want to hear disco influenced hits from last year, thanks!) and an actress who has not appeared in anything that I've watched before now?), but, if they haven't, then I'd be very surprised!
Now, why do I bring all of this up when I'm going to ignore it once I actually start the review? Two reasons: I want to highlight why this is an album that is REALLY awkward listening experience when you listen to it if you have those factors in mind, but also explain why I think that a lot of people have been surprisingly insensitive to both Robin Thicke and Paula Patton by focusing on the circumstances surrounding the making of this album and, in the process, done a bit of a disservice to the people who wanted a real review of the album. Yes, it would be impossible to talk about the album without mentioning it, but there is a difference between mentioning something for the sake of context and speculating on everything connected to the album purely because you think you know why the album was made and using that to form your opinion of the album, and that is what I feel most people who have reviewed this album have done. Some people might feel that is justified, but, at the end of the day, the quality of the material on the album is the actually important thing, not the circumstances surrounding it.
And that really is the question which needs to be asked: is this album actually worth listening to or are the circumstances surrounding it more interesting than the album itself? Well, let us put aside the circumstances of this album and let us find out!
First up, the cover art. I'm not going to lie, I took one look at this and thought "Well, that's one black mark against the album already". I don't like cover art which is just a photo of the performer on it at the best of times, but this feels kind of like it's taking the piss a bit. Seriously, Robin Thicke in front of a black screen with various lights (that oddly make me think of a stereotypical Rastafarian hat) covering him? That's pretty fucking unimaginative! I'm not exaggerating much when I say that I probably could come up with a more imaginative idea for cover art for this album in less than five minutes...in fact, I have: an image of a somewhat realistic looking heart (obviously, drawn, not a picture of an actual heart!) with cracks covering it to form the album title (the cracks can be removed if that's not the point of the album, but the idea is still basically the same). Want to know how long it took me to come up with that? About a minute (technically two, as I came back with the idea for the cracks to form the album name a bit after writing that and moving on to continue writing this bit), and I did it sitting in my chair without having actually listened to the album (beyond a snippet of the first track of the album) at this part of writing the review AND without putting any real thought into it. In fact, I got the basic idea for it from Good Charlotte's album Cardiology, so it's not even me being original! And I STILL came up with a possible cover art for the album that is more imaginative than the one we've got here! Either I am in the wrong industry or everyone involved of working out the cover art for this album was being completely unimaginative...
Well, that's that over and done with, so let's finally move on to the album!
The good thing that I can say about this album is that it's surprisingly varied: musically, it does a lot more than I'd have expected from an album by a pop artist. You get some points which remind me a bit of big band music, some more typical modern pop music and a few RnB influenced songs. The variety, unfortunately, doesn't stop most of the songs from being uninteresting outside as background music...and it's REALLY tough to do that when you get to songs like "Lock The Door" and "Black Tar Cloud", which both can be downright harrowing to listen to even when you don't know the circumstances behind the album, as they're very harsh depictions of things which you'd not expect to see in a pop album at all.
This is not an album that is easy to listen to, even with forward warning like I had, because it's really not an album that's meant to be listened to so much as experienced. If that was Thicke's intention (creating an album that sums up the breaking up of a marriage in rather unpleasant detail), then I have to admit that it's an intriguing idea that I could get behind if it was very well done. Unfortunately, the album hits two pretty serious road blocks which drag the album down for me: the fact that it is based on reality (which I'm trying my best to ignore, but it's very hard to do that when some of the songs indicate some VERY unpleasant behind-the-scenes stuff!) and the fact that so little of the material leaves a proper impression upon you (or, when it does, for entirely the wrong reasons!). I almost feel like this album is looking inside the mind of a man who is on the verge of falling apart...and I wouldn't be surprised if this is actually pretty accurate for summing up Robin Thicke at the minute, as it doesn't feel like an album that Thicke wrote when he was wanting to create an album to be listened to by the general public, but, instead, wanted to use the album as a reason to get his thoughts on the breakdown of his relationship out into the public. Some artists have done that and made it work, like Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Fleetwood Mac, Bruce Springsteen, Phil Collins, P!nk (yes, seriously: Funhouse was produced after she separated from her boyfriend (or husband? Not sure which he was...)), Adele and Paul Simon (seriously, anyone else notice that most of those artists have been solo artists of some sort?), but Robin Thick isn't going to be on the list of artists who can make classic (or, at leave, very good) albums with that idea on their minds. He probably won't be the worst artist to have made an album running on this idea, as I can at least listen to some of the songs on this album without complaint and, on another album which...isn't like this one, they could be rather enjoyable listens, but, when the best songs feel like they're still lacking something to make them worth listening to frequently..."abandon all hope, ye who enter here" sounds about right.
OK, dropping the cynicism for a second, none of the material on this album strikes me as being completely unsalvageable. Sure, it's HIGHLY awkward to listen to if you know the circumstances behind the album's creation and there's very little material which is worth taking from the album...but it's not in that position out of being insufferably bad. Mostly, it's just not especially memorable, which is not the same as bad, but is arguably WORSE overall in terms of what you expect from the album, as being left with a bad impression of the song at least means the song had an impression on you. This album, however...most songs leave either a poor impression or no impression on me. The closest song to being a highlight is "Something Bad", as, despite being a bit repetitive, it is at least given a fairly enjoyable hook and is pretty catchy overall, although the lyrics to it do let it down pretty seriously (in particular, the final two lines to the second verse would probably make Steel Panther blush and left me going "Did you seriously just put that line in a song? Because I've heard more subtle innuendos from glam metal bands!"). No word of a lie, if this song was given better lyrics, I'd actually be inclined to call it a fairly good pop song! No luck with the rest of the album, though: "Get Her Back", despite being the album's single, leaves me bored, "You're My Fantasy" is an overly long song that doesn't even warrant being nearly six minutes long and, while I like the swing jazz influence to "Time Of Your Life", it's not interesting enough to really warrant repeated listens. These songs all had potential to be good, but, whether it's due to their lyrics, their overall connection to a theme for an album that is somewhat uncomfortable to listen to or just not being especially interesting in their released forms, that potential is never really capitalised upon.
I have to give some credit to the performers for their very good work on this album. While nothing they do is particularly difficult, they perform the music very well. Also, credit to Robin Thicke for one thing, he doesn't actually have a bad singing voice: he has a very pleasant tone to his singing voice which makes him very listenable, he has a fairly decent range (although I wouldn't say his singing range is exceptional either) and he doesn't really try to force himself to do something which his voice isn't suited for. I don't think Robin Thicke is likely to have any major lasting appeal as a mainstream pop artist and his lyrics put forward some very unsavoury opinions about women which makes me wonder whether Steel Panther could just cover a Robin Thicke song without changing the lyrics and nobody would notice much beyond the lack of strong language or sexual references, but he certainly has a voice that paints him as at least a passable vocalist and I can understand how he managed to maintain a career for about a decade before getting noticed among the mainstream.
If I did have to give the album proper praise for something done well, I have to say that the production is actually pretty good overall, aside from my usual complaints related to modern production rearing their head (although, happily, to a much smaller extent than usual!). It's got the polished production job that you'd expect from a pop album, but none of the instruments feel like they've been neglected to me in the mixing process and the mastering, while still a bit loud, feels a bit more respectful to the ears that a lot of metal productions that I've heard. I almost feel like commending this album for the production values alone...but, in all seriousness, this album's simply not good enough to suggest checking it out just for the production.
So, overall...actually, I think this review makes my point clearly enough to not really need to sum it up here. This just isn't an album that I can recommend, as there's so little to it that's worth checking out that I actually feel kind of surprised that Robin Thicke (or his label) thought this album was release worthy. If you're a die hard fan of Robin Thicke, you might find this worth at least a single listen (and might come out finding it an acceptable album), but, for most people, this is not really worth checking out, even ignoring the elephant in the room about the album's creation. I highly doubt Robin Thicke is reading this, but, if he is, I'd suggest he take a break to allow himself to get over Paula before he writes his next album, as making another album like this one is just not going to be a good move for him in the slightest!
Final Rating: 3 Out Of 10
Personal Favourite Tracks: Erm...none really, but "Something Bad" (ironic, when you consider the title of the song...) had the potential to be pretty good and only sabotaged itself due to the lyrics being pretty poor.
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