A Beautiful World

Description

2003 album from the R&B/Pop vocalist and songwriter.Comparisons generally stink, but sometimes they re so obvious that they re inevitable. So it is with L.A. native and blue-eyed soul man Robin Thicke. Equal parts Remy Shand and Jamiroquai--though funkier than the former and less knuckleheaded than the latter--Thick s Cherry Blue Skies staggers through the speakers with moxie to spare. Opening track "Oh Shooter"--which finds Thicke drawling lazily while tires screech in the background--is a bait-and-switch for what s to come. By "Sugar Mama," Thicke is outfitted in the proverbial white suit and fedora, slinking around the edges of the groove and wailing in a falsetto like some funk-soul cat from the 70s. Levity plays an essential role in the formula, too; "Make a Baby" is as silly a love song as its title suggests, and "When I Get You Alone" steals wholesale from Walter Murphy s disco-era novelty hit, "A Fifth of Beethoven." But the dance floor is only one destination in Thicke s view. Earnest ballads also appear (notably, the sweetly sentimental, minor-chord lament "The Stupid Things"), and one is again inclined toward another comparison, this time to Stevie Wonder. Funky, jazzy soul-pop, with a touch of salsa in "Vengas Con Migo"; that s as accomplished as it is welcoming. --Kim Hughes