Single Review: Pharrell Williams – ‘Come Get It Bae’
2 min read
Pharrell Williams could give birth to the second coming of Christ whilst riding a unicycle across a tightrope suspended above the pits of hell and he would still forever be known as ‘that guy that sang Happy’. The record breaking song of seemingly every summer since the birth of recorded music is surely an incredibly weighty albatross around even the strongest of necks. As such, the second single from Williams’ album G I R L, Marilyn Monroe, snuck by everybody largely unnoticed. The third single, Come Get It Bae, does nothing in the way of attempting to ape Happy, but does owe its tightly stripped back production style to that other huge, albatross shaped hit, Blurred Lines, on which Pharrell was featured.
In practice this is actually no bad thing. The objectionable content in Blurred Lines was never its minimal bass line, its fluttering beats, or its falsetto swooning, all of which are present and correct here. Pharrell adds some 70s soul guitar chugging, a cheeky riff, and fortunately does not feel the need to thrust his crotch suggestively, leer at women, or romantically scream at them that they are ‘the hottest bitch in the place’. He even gets away with a vocal cameo from Miley Cyrus.
What is lacking here is anything that is memorable. Listen to this song ten times in a row and then try to sing it back to yourself. It cannot be done. It is difficult to understand how the same person responsible for one of the catchiest songs in the last decade is the creator of this fairly imaginative, but utterly forgetful single.
