You're giving Pharrell way too much credit. Of course, Pharrell brokered the deal with Interscope and signed him to Star Trak, but Thicke didn't exactly catch a buzz off The Neptunes sound. You even contradict this by saying Wayne's "Shooter" doesn't get made if not for Pharrell, then state Wayne added a verse to "Oh Shooter", which came out before Pharrell 'discovered' Robin. Before the Pharrell connection, Thicke was writing and producing and even has a credit on Usher's Confessions.
I never said that he blew up off the Neptunes sound. If you go back you'll see that my very first sentence in the post you replied to was that Robin Thicke largely produces his own shyt.
Robin Thicke produced that, as he does a lot of his shyt. However, that song never gets made or comes out without Pharrell liking his first album, signing him to Star Trak, and Executive Producing the album that "Lost Without U" came from. Pharrell produced "Wanna Love You Girl" before that, which got enough buzz for him to get a release date, and the rest is history.
Pharrell liked his previous shyt and told Jimmy Iovine to let him work with him on Star Trak. Before that, Thicke was about to get dropped because he wasn't selling and they said he didn't know what his sound was trying to be. His image was also way different. Breh had long hair and was riding bicycles in his videos instead of working with Wayne and Busta Rhymes.
Everything in that post mentions opportunity, packaging, direction, and getting him a release date. I never said anything about Pharrell making him musically or blowing up off the Neptunes sound.
I'm aware that Thicke has had writing credits in the industry since he was a teenager, that his pops was famous, and all that. But it's documented that his first album was panned and not moving units, he was about to get dropped, and couldn't get a release date or funding for an album during the time period I'm talking about. And again, was so distraught about this that he was considering suicide.
If you don't think the Star Trak deal and repackaging played as significant a role as I'm saying, that's cool -- but the idea that Pharrell laced him with a "Cry Me a River" or something out the gate is a point that I never made.
Thicke is a talented artist that already had the musical ability to be successful (Pharrell didn't even want to make "Wanna Love You Girl" because he thought the music that Robin was cooking up on his own for the new album was strong enough), but we can only go off the chronology of the way things actually played out. So I give Pharrell credit for digging that man out the trash and telling Jimmy Iovine he could make it work with him.
Robin was able to seamlessly capitalize on Wayne boosting Shooter because he had a situation in place and was sitting on an album that was ready to go.
There's no contradiction there and I'm not giving Pharrell more credit than that, but I'm also not going to give him less credit than that either
