Something Else (CD - 2008)

Personnel: Robin Thicke (vocals, acoustic guitar, piano, Fender Rhodes piano, glockenspiel, shaker, sleigh bell, background vocals); Bobby Keys (guitar, acoustic guitar, banjo, sitar); Pro J (guitar, drums, congas, bongos, tambourine, percussion); Andrew McKay (guitar); Alfredo Rivera (flute); Jerahm Orozco, Dan Higgins, Kamasi Washington (saxophone); Chuck Findley, Gary Grant, Josef Leimberg, Brian Warfield (trumpet); Isaac Smith, Charlie Morillas (trombone); Larry Cox II (Fender Rhodes piano, organ, Wurlitzer organ, synthesizer); Sean Hurley, Greg Malone (bass guitar).

Audio Mixers: Richard Travali; Fabian Marasciullo.

It would almost seem like an insult to call Robin Thicke's SOMETHING ELSE "neo soul." That term is often applied to slavish retro rehashes, and Thicke's fourth album is anything but that. SOMETHING ELSE assimilates the influences of everything from Marvin Gaye to Prince to Philly soul to disco, and puts them in a sonic blender that delivers a distinctive, original-sounding end product. While this album isn't a wild stylistic divergence from what Thicke has done previously, it's a more singular, atmospheric experience, an album of mellow blue-eyed soul that you can really sink your teeth into, from the Jeff Buckley-meets-Otis Redding "Dreamworld" to the romantic, horn-punctuated falsetto-fest "The Sweetest Love." Think of Thicke as something like a hipper, alternate-universe version of Justin Timberlake. minimize