Pharrell in my mind hat11/10/2022 ![]() ![]() The song has lyrics such as "And that's why I'm gonna take a good girl" and "I know you want it", lines that Pharell says he would "never write or sing today". In an interview with GQ Magazine, the 46-year-old musician shared that the song was a turning point for him, but he admitted that at first he "didn't get" why it was deemed "rapey". ![]() ![]() Grammy winning artist Pharrell Williams says he is "embarrassed" by the controversial 2013 hit Blurred Lines, which he recorded with Robin Thicke. G I R L may not be breaking many new boundaries, but it’s guaranteed to keep Williams in ludicrously large hats for some time to come.“I’m giving up the Buffalo Hat I wore to the Grammys to help undeserved kids get the educational tools they need.' - Pharrell Williams Yet Pharrell remains very good at what he does – and when that trademark falsetto kicks in, its easy to see why he’s so successful. Pharrell in upbeat mode is certainly more palatable than the few loved-up ballads scattered through the second half of the record, with the inspid reggae dub of Know Who You Are (featuring Alicia Keys) and the ‘secret interlude’ track of Freq both sounding particularly plodding, dated and dull. Miley Cyrus also turns up to repay the favour of Pharrell producing some tracks on Bangerz – the resulting Come Get It Bae is a lightweight but fun party track even if lyrics like “you want to ride my motorcycle” aren’t going to win any awards for subtlety.Įlsewhere, Happy is probably by now verging on over-familiarity, but it can still stand side-by-side with Outkast‘s Hey Ya or Cee-Lo Green‘s Forget You when it comes to modern-day pop anthems, even if, rather like those two songs, it always seems just about to turn ever so irritating. Daft Punk’s unmistakable vocoders feature on Gust Of Wind – it may not be about to straddle the world in the style of Get Lucky, but is still a mesmerising slice of disco-soul. Some old friends make some reappearances, some of which fare better than others. Despite that, it still works rather beautifully. In fact, the first half of G I R L rivals prime-era Prince for all-round funkiness – the terrific collaboration with Justin Timberlake, Brand New, could quite easily sit on the latter’s The 20/20 Experience (and features some fine beatboxing from Timbaland), and opening track Marilyn Monroe mixes sumptuous strings with the beats, namechecks Joan of Arc and Cleopatra and even finds time for none other than Kelly Osborne to announce, rather portentously, “In honor of the groove and all who’s surrendered to it, we say thank you, and we take it back”. If there’s one thing that Williams excels at, it’s making people dance, and Hunter more than succeeds on that level. He’s possibly the only mainstream male pop star who could get away with entitling a song with the charming moniker of Gush (and he’s not talking about problems with the plumbing).Īs you may expect, there are a lot more odes about how just how damn great it is to have sex with ladies – not least Hunter, which (if the rather questionable lyrics – “just because it’s the middle of night that don’t mean I won’t hunt you down” – can be ignored) is probably the stand-out track, a ridiculously funky dancefloor anthem that quickly becomes impossible to sit still to. Yet whereas his old cohort Robin Thicke comes over as a bit creepy and threatening, there always seems to be more of a cheeky nod and wink with Pharrell to stop anyone taking it too seriously. Williams’ customary lasciviousness is writ large throughout G I R L. Nowadays, he’s part of the establishment, making crowd-pleasing, feel-good RnB pop – and it’s something he’s very good at. Back in his days with The Neptunes and N.E.R.D., Pharrell sounded futuristic and a genuine maverick. If you’re familiar with those tracks (and, seriously, how could you not be?), you’ll probably already have an idea of what G I R L sounds like. 2013 was arguably the year that Pharrell Williams made the step-up from highly regarded producer and solo artist to zeitgeist embracing mega-stardom.Īfter having a hand in three of the year’s most successful songs – Daft Punk‘s Get Lucky, Robin Thicke‘s Blurred Lines and his own Happy – he became so ubiquitous that, several minutes after donning an enormous hat for the Grammy Awards, the said hat had gained its own parody account on Twitter. ![]()
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