Blurred Lines

Background and composition

Thicke detailed the album's concept in an interview with The Breakfast Club, stating, "The album is titled Blurred Lines. I've realized as I've gotten older that we all think we're living either in a black or white world, or on a straight path, but most of us are living right in between those straight lines. And everything you thought you knew, the older you get, you realize, 'Damn, I don't know nothing about this. I better pay attention, I better listen and keep learning.' So I think that, that's what I've been realizing these past few years."

Thicke also explained his foray into a more mainstream pop-oriented sound than his usual milieu. "The last year I've been wanting to have more fun. I think I took myself very seriously as an artist and I wanted to be like Marvin Gaye, and John Lennon and Bob Marley and these great artists and songwriters that sang about love and sang about relationships," Robin explained. "And then the last year, my wife and I just really wanted to have fun again, we wanted to be young again and we wanted to dance again and go out with our friends, so I wanted to make music that reflected that culture also."

According to AllMusic, it is an R&B album. Music critic Greg Kot called Blurred Lines a dance-pop album, while Caroline Sullivan of The Guardian characterized its music as upbeat "funk/soul". According to AllMusic's Andy Kellman, it has an array of glossy, pop-oriented dance tracks that deviate from the title track's "disco-funk" style, while other songs such as "Ooo La La" and "For the Rest of My Life" are more rooted in soul. Elias Leight of PopMatters said that the album's first half draws on the luxuriant funk and disco popular in the late 1970s, while the second half is characterized by club-oriented electronic sounds and a few ballads.

Copyright infringement case

In 2014, the family of Marvin Gaye launched a suit against Thicke and Pharrell Williams as well as EMI April – the song publisher now owned by Sony/ATV – claiming similarities between "Blurred Lines" and Gaye's 1977 song "Got to Give It Up". On March 10, 2015, the jury found that Thicke and Williams had infringed on the tune, but not rapper T.I., who was also named as a party in the suit. The eight jurors also determined that the infringement was neither willful nor innocent. According to expert witnesses and musicologists, "Blurred Lines" was found to infringe, with liability affirmed on appeal, thereby establishing a convincing argument that the song was essentially stolen from Marvin Gaye. The jury awarded the Gaye family $4 million in damages, with profits of more than $1.6 million from Williams and more than $1,760,099 from Thicke. Statutory damages of $9,375 were assessed.

Singles

The album's lead single is the title track "Blurred Lines", released on March 26, 2013. It officially impacted US Rhythmic radio on April 16, 2013, and Top 40/Mainstream radio on May 21, 2013. The video was released on March 20, 2013, and garnered more than a million views in the days after release on Vevo. Thicke said he had received the approval of his wife Paula Patton before shooting the video. The single peaked at number 1 on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, as well as the Billboard R&B Songs chart. It became Thicke's most successful song on the US Billboard Hot 100, being his first to reach number 1 (he previously climbed as high as number 14 with "Lost Without U", back in 2007). The song reached number 1 in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Ireland, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States, as well as the top 10 in Belgium, Denmark, Lithuania, France, Iceland, Italy, Portugal, and Switzerland.

The album's second single, "For the Rest of My Life", impacted urban adult contemporary radio on May 21, 2013 and was released digitally on June 3, 2013. The album's third single, "Give It 2 U" which features American rapper Kendrick Lamar, was released on July 2, 2013. "Give It 2 U" impacted Top 40/Mainstream radio in the United States on August 27, 2013. "Feel Good" was released as the album's fourth single. It also impacted US Top 40 radio on November 12, 2013.

Critical reception

According to the review aggregator Metacritic, Blurred Lines received "mixed or average reviews" based on a weighted average score of 59 out of 100 from 22 critic scores.

Nick Catucci of Entertainment Weekly found its music predictable and characterized by unadventurous "boutique-lounge grooves." Slant Magazine's Andrew Chan felt that, while the album has "an effervescent start", Thicke offers little to contemporary R&B on an album marred by "narcissistic come-ons" and "blunt pronouncements". Caroline Sullivan of The Guardian said that Thicke's "blunt-instrument romantic technique" lacks dignity and keeps Blurred Lines from being "a pretty good album." In her review for The Observer, Hermione Hoby wrote that some of the songs are "passable party pabulum", while Thicke's obnoxious lyrics make the album less entertaining. Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune said that his distasteful lyrics ruin the music's exciting mood.

In a positive review, Rolling Stone magazine's Rob Tannenbaum called it an optimistic, "near-perfect summer record" that improves over Thicke's previous albums, which he felt were dulled with his "expressions of angst". Annie Zale of The A.V. Club praised Blurred Lines for both its "sincere" songs, including "For the Rest of My Life" and "The Good Life", and for the less introspective songs' "playfulness", which she felt is the album's most appealing quality. In his review for USA Today, Brian Mansfield believed that Thicke's braggadocio improves the tastelessly sexual songs and that the lyrics "may make listeners laugh, wince or even groan, but that doesn't mean they won't get turned on, too." Spin magazine's Keith Harris wrote that Thicke "exaggerates and sings the hell out of" the limitations of his pickup artist character.

Commercial performance

In North America, Blurred Lines peaked at number 1 on the US Billboard 200, the US Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums, and the Billboard Canadian Albums. It was certified gold in Canada by Music Canada and in Mexico by Asociación Mexicana de Productores de Fonogramas y Videogramas (AMPROFON).

In Europe, Blurred Lines peaked at number 5 in Austria, numbers 19 and 17 in the Flanders and Wallonia regions of Belgium, number 13 in Denmark, number 10 in France, number 2 in Germany, number 34 in Italy, number 3 in the Netherlands, number 15 in Norway, number 20 in Poland, number 15 in Portugal, number 1 on the Scottish Albums Chart, number 42 in Spain, number 1 in Switzerland, number 1 on the UK Albums Chart, and number 13 on the UK Hip Hop and R&B Albums Chart. It was certified platinum in Austria by IFPI Austria and gold in France by Syndicat National de l'Édition Phonographique (SNEP), in Poland by the Polish Society of the Phonographic Industry (ZPAV), in Switzerland by IFPI Switzerland, and in the United Kingdom by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI).

In Asia, Blurred Lines peaked at number 30 in China. In Oceania, it peaked at number 4 in Australia and number 5 in New Zealand.

Track listing

Notes

^[c] signifies a co-producer.

"Go Stupid 4 U" contains excerpts from "Tive Razão", written and performed by Seu Jorge, and excerpts from "The Message", written by Edward G. Fletcher, Clifton Nathaniel Chase, Sylvia Robinson, and Melvin Glover, and performed by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five.

Personnel

Visuals

Young & Sick – art direction, packaging

Terry Richardson – photography

Todd Russell – custom typography