Pharrell is like a dirty pleasure for hip-hop fans. You know the one, the artist you bring up to friends saying; “hey, you check that new Pharrell track? Errr, my girl bought it, and yeah it’s dope”. So it was with equal parts trepidation and anticipation, that I sat down to listen to the debut from a brilliant musician.

Pharrell, like Madonna or Beyonce in that we all know him by one name, cut his teeth writing eternal club favourite Rump Shaker. His star skyrocketed with projects as varied as Snoop, Brittany, Justin Timberlake, The Clipse and pretty much any successful hip-hop artist of the last five years. Pushed back a number of times so it was exactly how he wanted it, In My Mind is pop music the way it should be made. Fun rhymes that you don’t need to think about and well put together R&B tracks.

The album kicks off in the club, his minimal style of production really shining on Can I Have It Like That, How Does It Feel? and Raspy Shit. Sure his rhymes are simplistic and focused on his money, but like I said, it’s a guilty pleasure you can’t stop bobbing your head to. Next up are a couple of personal cuts in Best Friend and You Can Do It Too, nice if totally not what I was expecting. From the mid section on the rhyming is put away except for guests like Jay-Z and (*shudder*) Nelly, Pharrell puts on that well honed falsetto, smooths out his production to pure pop/soul lines and sings for the ladies.

Tracks like Young Girl, Take It Off, Angel and Stay With Me are exactly what you would expect from the titles, a very rich music mogul, flossing on wax for the finer members of the opposite sex. Rounding out the package nicely is a track which is sure to chart massively worldwide, Number One featuring Kanye West, those two names alone guarantee a radio hammering.

This is the album I expected, it’s not rocket science, it’s just good fun, buy it for your… umm, girl.