Robin Thicke

Thursday night at the House of Blues in West Hollywood, Robin Thicke introduced "Dream World," a track from "Something Else" (due out Sept. 9), by telling the packed room that the song is about "an ideal world with no racism and no poverty." The tune offers a few more features of Thicke's utopia: "The ice caps wouldn't be melted," and "energy would fall down from the sky." Oh, and also -- the singer "wouldn't be so damn sensitive." Yeah, right.

When it comes to his work, Robin Thicke has a pretty strict quality-control policy in place. "Every time I write a song I'll play it for my wife," the 30-year-old R&B singer explains, smoking a cigarette earlier this week outside a Burbank recording studio. "I'll sing the first couple lines, and if I start to cry, or she starts to cry, we both know that it's a special one. It's almost like if I don't cry, it's not a keeper."