Robin Thicke

“Paula”

Interscope

I don’t know if Robin Thicke is really a horrible person or not, but there’s no doubt he’s got a bad habit of ruining everything he touches lately. “Blurred Lines” was bad. Not necessarily as bad as it was made out to be, but then Thicke signed off on a decidedly date-rapey music video to support it and, well, there you go. “Paula” suffers from the same problem. It’s not a terrible album. In fact, it’s really not particularly noteworthy at all. It’s really just a painfully bland R&B album. Under normal circumstances, that would be just what the doctor ordered, to make everyone forget about “Blurred Lines,” and remind them that Thicke does this R&B thing pretty well. But then he had to go and open his mouth again, and now all anyone can think about is how Robin Thicke seems to be stalking his ex-wife in the most spectacularly public way possible. I’m not going to properly review it, because it turns out, this isn’t an album. It’s Exhibit A for the restraining order. CV

Grandchamp

Rinse Cycle

Independent

I’m old. Not like, extraordinarily so or anything, but older than most of my readers. As such, I can get a little curmudgeon-ey, and am prone to dislike some things that younger people do, simply because they’re younger than me, and to hell with them for that. But dammit, Grandchamp (a band where I am older than any two members put together) won me over. It’s not the world’s best music, but it will get better with experience. In the meantime, what’s here is surprisingly tight and crisp. Opening track “Wasting Words,” with its saxophone-laced intro, reminds me of Christopher the Conquered. Special attention should also be paid to the excellent drum work of Bridget Albaugh, the best example of which can be seen on “Keep Me Where I Am.”

Grandchamp’s EP Release show at Vaudeville Mews, Thursday, July 10. CV