People still buy albums, was writing Taylor Swift a few days ago…. But not Robin Thicke’s albums apparently! Iman was just writing about it, his new album ‘Paula’ only sold 540 copies in the UK! This is a big surprise as he was previously so successful (his 2013 album ‘Blurred Lines’ sold 25,981 copies in this same country during its first week, according to Music Week). In the US, it was barely better for Thicke, ‘Paula’ only sold about 25,000 copies in its first week, down from 177,000 sales of ‘Blurred Lines’ in its first week. But in Australia, Thicke has turned into a bad joke: According to News.com.au, Thicke sold less than 54 copies in Aussie country during its first week of release! The album even failed to place in the country’s ARIA Top 500 album charts whereas, ‘Blurred Lines’ had reached No.1 on the Australian charts at the time of its release. What a dive!
So what happened? According to the Guardian, Thicke, who split from his wife Paula Patton in February, named the album after her and had the intention to win her back with the help of songs and music. However, after a disastrous #AskThicke sessions on Twitter, things turned really badly as people flooded Twitter with harsh criticisms of Thicke, his music and his treatment of women. With questions (or just plain rhetorical ones) like these ones:
‘On a scale of 1 – Robin Thicke, how creepy is your next single going to be? Any general tips for women trying to avoid men like you?’
‘If train A leaves the station at 5mph and train B leaves at 44mph, how far is the judge gonna order you to stay away from Paula? ‘
‘If we say your name three times, will you disappear?’
‘And when did you decide that the Creepy PE Teacher look was the style for you?’
After this video for ‘Blurred Lines’ Thicke should have seen the rape jokes coming. The abuse and the hate fest went on and on, and obviously it was a really bad idea since people can be pitiless on the internet, didn’t Thicke know that? Or may be he was not aware he could generate so much hatred.
But let’s go back to the album, it’s not because I am not familiar with Thicke’s music that I don’t know how much it sucks, and how creepy the whole thing sounds. As Sophie Gilbert writes in The Atlantic: ‘As art goes, Robin Thicke’s Paula is less Marvin Gaye’s Here, My Dear and more the musical equivalent of a Facebook friend who refuses to stop overdoing it on tequila slammers and ranting about the demise of their relationship. It’s messy, it’s generally grammatically incoherent, it’s humiliating for everyone involved.’
Is it the end of Thicke’s career? Celebrities are very vulnerable now with social media, they should realize this, and this bad PR move should make people think twice about doing this again. But the most surprising thing in the story may be Thicke’s album position in the Official UK Chart: No 200. Really? You mean, reaching No 200 requires selling so few copies? And this says a lot about album sales.
