The Drunkard and the Thief: A Blurred Lines Retrospective

How Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams continue to steal music and marginalize women

When it comes to comparing the careers of Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams, you might as well be comparing Pat Boone to Prince. One’s an ageless producer, constantly dipping his fingers into multiple projects and delivering a neverending supply of hits. The other is the son of that guy from Growing Pains…a goofy, era-less vocalist whose identity could be summed up as a white guy singing familiar soul/R+B tracks.

Now that may sound a little harsh, but it’s meant to give you an idea of how truly unremarkable Robin Thicke was before the summer of 2013. It wasn’t until his collaboration on “Blurred Lines” that Thicke propelled himself out of the shadows of his father and Justin Timberlake.

You know how the story goes by now, Thicke and Pharrell’s teamed up to release, “Blurred Lines” and subsequently seized control of Top 40 stations throughout the remainder of 2013. It had a lot going for it…and a lot against. It was a catchy pop hit that could be played at parties and clubs alike, but it also had some rather questionable lyrical content.

Pick what offends you. The topless models fawning over Thicke and Pharrell? Or the unsettling line, “I know you want it”, that repeatedly gets slurred throughout the track? Whatever it was, the two artists created a messed up cocktail of a song that managed to setback feminism a few years by redefining what constituted consent.

Also worth mentioning, it set the duo on two completely separate paths.

Pharrell, feeling remorseful for the pervasive ickiness left by “Blurred Lines”, released G.I.R.L. and went on to perform at multiple award shows, achieving ubiquity in our collective minds [we’ll get to this in a second].

As for Thicke? It’s probably just best to give you the abridged version of how he managed to self-destruct both his career and personal life.

• Had a string of affairs that ultimately led to his divorce with Paula Patton.
• Got caught in the vortex that was Miley Cyrus’ infamous 2013 VMA performance. Whoops.
• Decided to file a lawsuit against Marvin Gaye’s estate to fight accusations that he and Pharrell ripped off “Got to Give it Up”.
• Released Paula, a train wreck of an album dedicated to his ex-wife.
• Gave all the credit to Pharrell during his deposition, admitted to being jealous, and hinted that there may have been some “borrowing” from Marvin Gaye.

Oof. It’s been a pretty hard fall for Robin Thicke, and for as much as he deserves blame for what’s happened to him, he’s already been dissected enough by the media. It’s more interesting to examine why Pharrell has managed to remain completely unscathed from this controversy.

Let’s go back to G.I.R.L., an album that Pharrell created as a dedication to women, who, “have just been so loyal to me and supported me.” It was meant to be an atonement for any perceived wrongdoing and cleanse his name from the past summer’s controversy. With the exception of a few critics who were paying attention, it worked. But to fans and listeners? Pharrell is now seen as a high-profile musician that champions the rights of women. Basically, he’s received a free pass to do whatever he wants.

And that’s the problem. It’s easy to promote an innocent sounding album when “Happy” is your biggest single. But scratch a bit past that surface, and you’ll find that G.I.R.L. is just as troubling as “Blurred Lines”. Perhaps even more so because Pharrell is deliberately pushing this album out as a pro-women tribute.

Take the song “Hunter” for example. Obvious metaphor aside, Pharrell is pursuing a woman that he plans on “hunting down” and mounting on his wall, like a taxidermy piece. Admittedly, that’s probably the worst of the bunch, but there’s no denying that in all but two songs Pharrell is pursuing girls purely for sex. In the over-the-top “Gush”, Pharrell explains how he could treat a girl right and take her on a nice date, but he just wants to get “dirty”. Tell me again how this is supposed to be different from Blurred Lines?

Speaking of “Blurred Lines”, we should probably mention something about the deposition over whether or not Pharrell stole from Marvin Gaye. Last year, a judge ruled that a team of music experts “made a sufficient showing that elements of ‘Blurred Lines’ may be substantially similar to protected, original elements of [Marvin Gaye’s] ‘Got to Give It Up.’ Defendants have identified these with particularity for purposes of analytic dissection.” Barring any new evidence, its looks like Pharrell blatantly ripped off Gaye, assigned himself credit, and decided it would be a smart move to preemptively sue.

But we shouldn’t be surprised that Pharrell reacted that way. Over the course of his career you’ll find multiple instances where the artist has been accused of stealing material. Though some are definitely a stretch, it certainly says a lot to be plagued with this many lawsuits. Here’s a quick list of the more recent ones:

• Franz Ferdinand claims Pharrell pilfered a guitar riff from their song
• Will.I.Am files lawsuit over branding issues
• Does “Happy” sound similar to this song by Velvet Hammer?
• Geggy Tah released a song in 1996 titled “Whoever You Are” and says Pharrell stole it a decade later in 2007
• The Neptunes were accused of “cloning” beats from Joseph Zakoni

Then there’s the whole Girl Talk issue, where it looks like Pharrell got the idea for his 24 hour “Happy” music video from this one, by creative agency Wild Combination.

Notice the similarities? Look, this wasn’t meant to be a smear piece on Pharrell Williams. This isn’t the vent of some jilted fan or an angry critic who’s dealing with Dudley Do Right fatigue, it’s just interesting to examine how one artist has gotten away with taking so much from the music community. How egotistical do you have to be to try and repackage misogyny as feminism? To ruthlessly take from the past and claim it as your own?

For an industry that loves to complain about problems with piracy, they certainly do a good job of ignoring the issue when it’s one of their own.