BACK WITH THE HEAVY HITS…

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[4.30]

Doug Robertson: Blimey! Doctor Ruth’s upped her game, hasn‘t she?
[5]

Anthony Easton: This is not actually supposed to be sexy?
[2]

Chuck Eddy: I don’t buy the helium-inflated breathiness of his falsetto, or the way he sustains it instead of employing it strategically, for emotional emphasis. He doesn’t have the pipes to depend on it so much (i.e.: he’s no Eldra Debarge or Russell Thompkins Jr.), and he should leave the sexual healing to Marvin Gaye. Also, this doesn’t have half the groove of “Sidestep,” his excellent single last year. But he does steal a dependable old Lesley Gore hook, which counts for something.
[5]

Martin Skidmore: I like the Polow Da Don production: big drums, synth washes and pulses. Thicke sounds too thin for my tastes, high and strained — you can imagine Marvin Gaye making this something special, but it would take someone of something like that calibre.
[5]

Al Shipley: Nice vibe, pleasant enough beat, and Thicke generally works well in suave sleazeball mode. But the tune goes nowhere even with a big shameless interpolation to lean on.
[5]

Alfred Soto: Frankly, I wouldn’t want Maxwell or Al Green anywhere near a track with this pedestrian a metaphor. The first person who came to mind was the Beck of “Debra,” which should give you an idea of how one should approach singing this track. “Arranging” the track is a different story — can’t have enough glacial synths lifted from an early nineties disco or enough variations on Ciara’s “Promise”.
[6]

Alex Macpherson: It’s just as well that enunciation doesn’t seem to be Robin Thicke’s priority here, with lines like – seriously – “we don’t need no breadcrumbs”. Best just to immerse yourself in the luxuriant, aqueous ebb and flow of the production and half-listen to Thicke’s tactile falsetto whispering sweet nothings about hardness and softness into your ear.
[8]

Martin Kavka: While I appreciate a man who tells me “it’s your body — we can do whatever you like”, I have greater appreciation for a man who can tell me that without putting me to sleep. But just as I doze off, with no vision of Robin Thicke dancing in my head, I hear him say “don’t be scared of me”. I wasn’t planning on being scared until he told me not to be! Now I may never sleep again, lest he come into my room and “take me like Twilight”. This is one of the creepiest slow jams in recent memory.
[1]

Matt Cibula: Don’t wanna be a hater but the song forces me to disapprove of it. I did not like Color Me Badd, and I do not like Thicke’s blatant biting of The-Dream tropes because there’s nothing behind it, and thinking of them both at the same time makes me not feel so good.
[3]

Edward Okulicz: So watery and nauseous, the overall effect is like having this “sex therapy” on a leaking water-bed.
[3]