Album Review

There's no sympathy for Thicke's aching soul

Robin Thicke: Paula

After a 20-year struggle for success, US soul singer Robin Thicke achieved a global breakthrough last year with his chirpy, sexist pickup anthem Blurred Lines.

In an act of breathtaking career self-sabotage, he has followed it with a divorce album, 14 tracks picking over his separation from childhood sweetheart, actress Paula Patton. It is like eavesdropping on a one-sided marriage counselling session, with Thicke running the gamut from abject misery to self-lacerating guilt and lovelorn pleading, all shot through with an arrogant streak of lechery and deluded fixation on make-up sex.

The sad truth is no one wants to know, as microscopic sales show.

Actually, there is some fantastic stuff on here. The problem is context. It is karmic comeback time - the cosmic goddess is punishing this bragging Lothario because, well, he just doesn't get it.