Pharrell appears to be celebrating his 51st birthday today, April 5, with a gift to fans — a new album that’s totally free to stream and download through one specific website.
To say there aren’t many confirmable details about the 10-track project is an understatement. Based purely on the album artwork, the project appears to be called Black Yacht Rock Vol. 1: City of Limitless Access and might be credited to a group called Virginia — though, for all we know, Virginia is part of the title.
And while it’s definitely Pharrell singing on the album, his name isn’t attached anywhere to the project, not even the metadata of the Mp3s if you download the LP (it’s similarly unclear if he played all the instruments himself or brought in some collaborators). The musician hasn’t promoted the album on his website or social media.
As for the actual music, it definitely finds Pharrell dabbling in the breezy, immaculately produced vibes that defined the yacht rock — which is actually a pretty great fit for him. His sweet, signature falsetto sounds sublime in expertly layered harmonies and melds easily with crisp acoustic guitars, dulcet electric keys, buoyant bass lines, and all sorts of tasteful synth flourishes. (If we dare say so, parts of one song, “11:11,” even bear a passing melodic resemblance to Steely Dan’s “Do It Again.”)
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Black Yacht Rock Vol. 1 (if that is the official title) marks Pharrell’s first solo album (if we can actually consider this a solo album) since 2014’s Girl. He’s released two other collaborative singles this year, “Good People” with Mumford and Sons and “Doctor (Work It Out)” with Miley Cyrus.
Pharrell also has a couple of movie projects in the works. The first, announced earlier this year, will be a biopic of sorts but told entirely through Lego brick animation (it’s fittingly called Piece By Piece). The other is an as-yet-untitled collaboration with filmmaker Michel Gondry, which will be set in Virginia Beach, Virginia in 1977 (where Pharrell grew up) and feature a cast of Halle Bailey, Kelvin Harrison Jr., and Da’Vine Joy Randolph.
