Sonic Sandwich: Outside Blurred Lines

There's an old line about the film critic, Pauline Kael. Famously, perhaps stereotypically New York left wing, she was stunned that Nixon won re-election in 1972, saying at the time, "I don't know anyone who voted for him." This may never have happened, but I think about it sometimes when I need to make sense out of something I don't like, or don't get. And this time, it's not about Vampire Weekend (or Vamp Wknd.) This is about a song by Robin Thicke, the soul singer and son-of-Alan, called "Blurred Lines," which is currently cutting a swath of destruction across mainstream radio.

It's a kinda-funky trifle of a song. It sounds like it was written in about 18 minutes, while a Casio Keyboard demo was playing and a room full of people pitched cheeky, cutesy lines like "What rhymes with 'hug me?'" It's kinda repetitive, and every time it seems like it's going somewhere, it foresakes a hook and goes on its way until it spins out. When I first heard it, I thought of it as a nuisance: not as objectionable as LMFAO or Bruno Mars, not quirky like Macklemore, not transcendent like Ke$ha or JT or Daft Punk.

But man, somebody must be hearing something in this song. Dunno if there was brainwash signals in those Casio loops, or that weird little Chimp squeal that it occasionally emits, or whatever. But people have been asking about it. As you may know, I work in retail, I sell (among other things) CDs, which are still a thing people sometimes buy, and I've been asked about this song many many times, with the CD not even slated for release until the end of July. There's fervent interest in this song, albeit mainly from middle-aged ladies, and I'm partly convinced that's because they're still pining for his dad. But no, this song has taken off. This is a legit thing, and not a trick, not a "Oh, they just used the same beats and hooks and tricks every other songs uses so of course they had a hit." That isn't what happened here.

This is why I am not making money off of music criticism. I couldn't have seen this one coming. I can't explain it, I can't account for it, I can't even really relate to the people who like it, unlike a lot of things. I can step back and scratch my head and go, "Well, I guess it's a hit," but I can't step far enough outside my narrow worldview to explain or discuss why. I write about a few things decently, and even fewer things very insightfully, and this is far, far outside that. We don't really talk about pop radio here, but even if we did, I still wouldn't have pegged this one as something special. Y'know? Wouldn't have seen it. But it's different, and it's kinda funky I guess, and people like it. Look forward to half the songs on the top 40 sounding exactly like it in 8 months.

I wish I was better. I want to keep getting better. I still don't want to spend a lot of my time thinking about music I don't love, though, so I'll probably still never make money off this site, and I'll still never understand how a song like "Blurred Lines" becomes a huge hit. But it resonates, and you can't fake that shit. It doesn't always last, but when it hits, it's true.