Robin Thicke’s ‘Sex Therapy’: Not As Therapeutic As ‘Sexual Healing’

Not…gonna…make….lame Growing Pains joke…….

Robin Thicke, “Sex Therapy”

The bottom line is that I am very simply not the type of person who would ever bump a Robin Thicke song of his own volition. In this regard, I might compare Thicke to John Lege;alskfjla;sdfjksdjfj

Sorry, I fell asleep there for a second. John Leg;aklsdfjaksdfl;dscj

My apologies. Ahem. John Legend is the artist to whom I was going to compare Thicke. Because both make music for women and, worse, the smooth, sensitive, romantic men who play these types of songs to impress women. (You might also know these men as Pussies.) Robin Thicke is very handsome and well dressed and rich-seeming, and he brings a Luther-Vandross-for-the-21^st-century R&B vibe to most of his songs, which are so classy, respectful, and safe that they might as well be open letters to the old whites who vote for the Grammys. His hushed falsetto is like a heat-seeking missile right into all the ladies’ hearts. I mean, this guy is just the worst – right?

But then there’s the fact that he writes and produces all his music, as well as music for Usher and Aguilera and Lil Wayne and a bunch of others; and he plays guitars, drums, piano. So fine. He is a well-connected musician. There are a lot of musicians out there. Is the music he makes worth a damn?

Well let’s see. “Magic,” though a Curtis Mayfield knockoff, was at least a passable-to-good Curtis Mayfield knockoff, and since that genre of music is the best kind of music ever invented in the history of music, how are you really gonna complain? And then there’s “Shooter,” his collab with Lil Wayne, where he was able to fuse their very different styles into a monster hit. Based on these two examples, I’d like to be able to say he’s more worthy of our musical respect than Justin Timberlake, his closest contemporary. But the playfulness exhibited on “Shooter” isn’t representative of most of Thicke’s work. Usually, as on new single “Sex Therapy,” he’s in slow jam mode, sounding like a cleaner and less crazy, but in no way better, version of R. Kelly – you can just smell the lavender candles, erotic lotions, and chocolate-covered strawberries. Timberlake at least takes legitimate chances with his sound, even if he’s not as cool as he thinks he is. Thicke dips into different genres but it’s almost always too cautious to be exciting.

In the official video for “Sex Therapy,” Thicke is surrounded by ridiculously attractive women, his beautiful blue eyes gaze longingly at the camera, and he proceeds to assure all the ladies out there of his most definite ability to fulfill any and all sexual desires they may harbor. His lovemaking prowess is unsurpassed, you see. Like Kellz, his songs sometimes start to sound like a spoof, like an Andy Samberg digital short. Um. Did I mention the song is called “Sex Therapy”?

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