How Robin Thicke, Pharrell, and T.I.’s cursed megahit predicted everything bad about the past decade in pop culture
By Jayson Greene
March 29, 2023
“Blurred Lines” wasn’t supposed to be a meaningful song. It was, by design, a trifle: Pharrell, in imperial-superstar mode, goofing off with the white soul singer and textbook sex idiot Robin Thicke and tossing in a tongue-twisting T.I. verse later for good measure. It’s safe to assume that no one involved in the making of “Blurred Lines” assumed anything legacy-defining was happening in the room where Pharrell wrote the lines “I feel so lucky/You want to hug me/What rhymes with hug me?”
Now, 10 years since its March 2013 release, “Blurred Lines” is a poisonous time capsule. In many ways, all of them unfortunate, it could be considered the song of the 2010s. Pick any disheartening pop-cultural trend of the past decade and chances are it applies to “Blurred Lines”: The hollow outrage cycle in news, increasingly reliant on hot takes tossed out with superhuman speed, often without a speck of human logic? The predatory power dynamics of the entertainment industry, and American society’s ongoing dismissal of consent? The increasingly litigious pop landscape, in which lawyers and music publishers fight for scraps, and every pop song feels safely Xeroxed from the last one? Every decade gets the songs it needs and the songs it deserves.
It is worth remembering that when “Blurred Lines” first came out, people manifestly did not hate it. In fact, Robin Thicke was considered something of an underdog. This was an absurd designation for the large adult son of a sitcom dad, whose career was launched because jazz legend Al Jarreau financed the recording of his demo and passed it along to R&B superstar Brian McKnight. But for a brief time—starting around 2006, when Lil Wayne remade Thicke’s track “Oh Shooter” for his universally acclaimed Tha Carter II—Thicke became a minor cause celebre within the music industry. Busta Rhymes sought him out; Pharrell signed him to his Star Trak label. Between 2006 and 2013, he released five studio albums, each of which performed respectably—The Evolution of Robin Thicke, his first record for Star Trak, eventually cracked platinum. There was a lane for a guy like him: He was a second-string Timberlake, the blue-eyed soul man whose music could smoothly make the leap onto Black radio formats at a time when radio formats still defined career arcs.
When the Diane Martel-directed video for “Blurred Lines” made its debut on March 20, 2013, it was greeted mostly with praise. SPIN called it “another fun slice of throwback soul from the perpetually underrated Thicke” and gave a fond blow-by-blow of the video’s “many, many great moments.” Multiple publications approvingly noted what they called a sample of Marvin Gaye’s “Got to Give It Up.” At this point, the narrative around “Blurred Lines” was framed as a labor-of-love for all involved. For one brief and improbable moment, “Blurred Lines” was a feel-good story.