In the summer of 2013, “Blurred Lines” was inescapable. Almost any music-listener of the time could’ve told you that the song would go down in history as being a classic, but today, “Blurred Lines” does not have the same connotations associated with it as it did five years ago.
“Blurred Lines”, featuring Pharrell Williams and rapper T.I., was released on March 20, 2013 as the lead single from Robin Thicke’s album with the same name. The track was written solely by Pharrell and Thicke in less than an hour in 2012, with inspiration from Marvin Gaye’s “Got to Give It Up.” Pharrell’s label Star Trak Recordings, realizing the potential hit in the bubbly and smooth beat and swaggy yet catchy melodies, decided that Thicke, having no previous radio hits, could procure a hit but could not make an impact through pop radio. Instead, the management took a different approach to the the market: the viral music video.
The music video was released with two versions. The first features Thicke, Pharrell, and T.I. standing around awkwardly while three models pose as #BLURREDLINES flashes on screen. The other is, well, basically the same except that the models are topless.
The video’s director Diane Martel has admitted to wanting to draw negative press, and indeed it did. Through outrage and ogling, the video has racked up almost 600 million views. The video was removed from YouTube after only a week of being released. This would not be the last controversy regarding the track.
The song, boosted from the attention of the video controversy, entered the Hot 100 at #93. After weeks of steady rise, the song was #6, and on June 22, “Blurred Lines” rose to #1 after 8 weeks of being on the chart. With this rise, “Blurred Lines” broke many other records. It remained at #1 for 12 weeks total, solidifying its title as song of the summer. It was the best-selling song of all of 2013, selling nearly 15 million copies, making it at the time the 4th best-selling digital single (and the 10th best-selling still today).
All of these things considered, “Blurred Lines” marks multiple big moments in pop history. The song had a big impact
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I'm not implying that's bad, just took me a bit by surprise. I clicked on it and he tweeted just a couple hours before he died.
Gave me chills kind of, made me call my dad :-/
"Because rudolph the red knows rain, dear"
