Review: Smokey Robinson

Review: Smokey Robinson

Smokey Robinson 'Being With You': Aidin Vaziri | Right up front we'll tell you that watching a man in a striped velour sweater walk around a swanky beach house touching plants and playing really bad pool isn't going to improve your day - not even the bit at the end where he wanders outside and puts on his BluBlocker sunglasses. But the video for Smokey Robinson's quiet-storm masterpiece "Being With You," originally released in 1981, had to be tame by design because the song itself is such a colossal mind-bender - a bitterly defiant love letter ("I don't care about anything else/ But being with you") set to a supremely sweet backdrop of shimmering post-disco funk guitars, oceanic harmonies and a slightly sleazy saxophone solo. We dare you not to be moved. Oh, and why are we bringing this up now? Because anything is better than talking about the new Celine Dion album.