Time Flies When You're Having Fun

With absolutely no strain, Smokey Robinson can be both timeless and contemporary. Time Flies When You’re Having Fun alters nothing from Robinson’s classic formula, and yet it sounds totally fresh. Part of this comes from Smokey’s insistence on creative control. Rather than hook up with a younger producer — as many singers do in the latter stage of their career — Robinson wrote, produced and arranged Time Flies himself. His longstanding standards of quality are evident on “Time Flies,” “Please Don’t Take Your Love From Me,” “That Place” and “Satisfy You,” which are as warm and naturalistic and sensuous as anything from 1975’s A Quiet Storm. It’s not uncommon for a singer of his age to turn maudlin and sexless, but instead Smokey gives us “Whatcha Gonna Do,” a throbbing, simmering slow jam that should give pause to male singers half his age. After 50 astonishing years Smokey’s immortal falsetto is undiminished, and it still has the power to unnerve and entice a listener. To hear him interpret “Don’t Know Why”— which was played nearly to death after Norah Jones recorded it — is to hear the song for the first time.