Robbie Williams - The arc of an entertainer

If, back in 1996, when Robbie Williams left Take That, someone had prophesied that ten years later the kid who then seemed just like any other would be playing stadiums all over the world, drawing no fewer than fifty thousand people a night, gathered there just for him, they would have been written off as a visionary. To anyone who came across his original boyband without being a fan, Robbie was seen as a likeable extra, somewhere between the useless trimmings Jason Orange and Howard Donald and the designated leaders Gary Barlow and Mark Owen. His exit at a moment when the group was at the peak of its worldwide success looked like the tantrum of a spoiled kid who'd rather play alone because, in company, it was obvious he wasn't the best. Instead, that turned out to be the first of many winning marketing moves made by Robbie, or on his behalf, because it soon emerged that there was no harmony left within the band, so the others ended up looking like people more concerned with keeping up appearances than with real relationships, while our man came across as the genuine one, who preferred to step aside rather than accept the collapse of a project that had given everyone a taste of global stardom.

The importance of talking about Robbie Williams today is more sociological than musical, because you can't overlook this artist's ability to win over crowds worldwide starting from a position that initially seemed like a handicap. And beyond both the musical choices and the surrounding strategy, which we're about to retrace, the first factor behind Robbie's success is exactly this: the ability to show that, on his own, he could hold his own far better than the dynamics of group work ever let him demonstrate — which is, in a way, everyone's dream, whether at work or in any pastime that involves being part of a team. How many times has an employee watched their boss make a decision and thought they'd have chosen differently, and obviously better? How many times has a defender on an amateur football team thought that if they'd been put up front, they certainly wouldn't have missed all those goals? And isn't it true that every football fan secretly believes that if they were the national team coach, the side would sweep to victory in every corner of the planet?

Robbie is like Moreno Torricelli, who went straight from the lower leagues to Juventus without passing go; he's the employee who hands in their resignation, starts their own business, and ends up giving the company that never valued them a run for their money. A challenge plenty of people are happy to talk about but regularly dodge in practice. Seeing someone who actually pulled it off, and so spectacularly, can't help but win you over.

As mentioned above, this singer's musical output is of relatively minor importance, and it's hard to spot any above-average talent in it. You can't find it by examining his compositions, mostly because it's never been clear, on that front, how much was really his and how much belonged to the writers credited as co-songwriters, chief among them his long-time partner Guy Chambers; nor is there any particular talent to be found in the lyrics, which come across as generic, one-size-fits-all filler, full of the kind of vagueness that makes a casual listener think he's singing about them specifically, when in fact they're designed to cover as many situations as possible; even seeing him live doesn't leave a particularly strong impression, given the countless times he's struggled, out of breath, mid-performance. Most of his records, though, are genuinely pleasant to listen to even for people who take music seriously and don't just passively consume whatever the media serves up, so it's hard to put Robbie Williams's success down to the ignorance of the masses, since his discography certainly isn't short of songs that would have come in handy for plenty of other acts who, in theory, operate on a loftier artistic plane. And it hardly matters if someone else wrote them rather than him. Of course, without the right promotional strategy they would have stayed confined to the narrow circle of Take That nostalgics, though it's worth saying that promotion matters in every field, not just mainstream pop.

Britpop influences and the consolidation of his popularity

Robbie leaves Take That and immediately releases a single, an unremarkable cover of George Michael's "Freedom", good mainly as a statement of relief at having embarked on this solo adventure. After that, his next excellent move is realizing that the first thing to do was find a way to win over the Take That fanbase, so as to build himself a solid foundation from which to launch a wide-reaching marketing project. In 1997, those same fans were a couple of years older than they'd been during the band's golden age, at a stage of life when people change radically from one year to the next: they had since moved on to listening to Oasis, and by extension britpop, and Williams released exactly the right record for that moment. Life Thru A Lens is a debut packed with all the hallmarks of britpop itself: a choice that looks obvious now, but it's easy to say that with hindsight, not least because his former bandmates certainly never had that idea. Above all, the idea is brought to life through a series of songs that are all interesting, both for a melodic inspiration that's undeniable and consistent throughout the record, and for production choices that always hit the mark.

The up-tempo tracks, like the singles "Lazy Days" and "Old Before I Die" and the title track, have a fizzy, far-from-plastic sound; "Let Me Entertain You" adds that touch of glam that makes everything even more catchy without ever feeling cheap; a track like "Angels" not only draws on the canons of the britpop ballad, but in some ways anticipates early Coldplay; "One Of God's Better People" is marked by a gentle, engaging sensibility.

Shortly after, the video for "Let Me Entertain You" marks the first of his winning choices on the side of image rather than music itself. Williams appears made up like Kiss and dressed in an unlikely black leather suit, and the whole thing is so well put together that it reinforces to perfection the charm offensive launched with his debut album, which, even today, many years after its release, is still a very pleasant listen. Public success is immediate and huge in Britain, but Robbie also holds his own well across the rest of Europe, both in record sales and concert attendance: for instance, the only Italian date of that tour takes place at the Rolling Stone in Milan, certainly not the city's biggest venue, but not too small a place either.

Robbie, of course, has to strike while the iron's hot, so he lets just one year go by before releasing I've Been Expecting You. In the meantime britpop has entered its decline, so the album sees the few rough edges and stripped-down touches present on the debut smoothed away, and the sound comes across as perfectly rounded, fuller and more polished. The string arrangement and pronounced choral chorus of the lead single "Millennium" immediately signal that this is a work aiming to appeal to an even broader slice of the audience. The listening experience, in fact, is even easier, and there's greater variety from one song to the next: the ballads can now be built around guitar ("Strong"), synthesizers ("No Regrets"), or piano (the cover of World Party's "She's The One"), while the more rhythmic tracks shift from a vaguely epic mood (the aforementioned "Millennium"), to a disenchanted one ("Grace", "Jesus In A Camper Van"), to an angry one ("Karma Killer", a furious tirade against Take That's manager).

The album's modest success, in any case, still rests on the same strengths as its predecessor - namely strong melodies and a sound that, while fuller and more polished as just mentioned, still manages not to come across as pretentious. There's ultimately no real step up in quality, and if anything the greater genuineness of the debut remains preferable; with no particularly memorable video or any promotional strategy that breaks from the norm, Williams doesn't win over new fans. But he doesn't lose any either, which is a good sign: just as the other former Take That members fall into sudden and prolonged obscurity, he's still selling plenty of records at home and holding his own in Europe. The first Italian date of this tour is also held at the Rolling Stone in Milan, completely packed out, and then, a few months later, Williams will face his first major Italian crowd at the Heineken Jammin' Festival in Imola.

In 1999, his record label tries to break him in America by putting together a tour and releasing a compilation of tracks from his first two albums, titled The Ego Has Landed. The operation, however, only partly succeeds, making it clear that for Robbie to become a true global star, he once again needs sharp ideas on the promotional and marketing front. First, though, a new album needs to be written and released. And so, in 2000, along comes Sing When You're Winning, which follows the path laid out by its predecessor, both stylistically and in terms of quality. Between the warm positivity of "Better Man", the more melancholy mood of “If It’s Hurting You”, the marching-beat liveliness of “Knutsford City Limits” and the serenity of “Road To Mandalay”, Williams and Chambers put together a set of songs that, once again, don't aim for any kind of revolution but are written and arranged in more than satisfying fashion - and yet these aren't actually the tracks that represent the heart of the record.

The main reason, in fact, why this record allows its performer a major rise in popularity lies in the three singles, and not just for their musical content. "Rock DJ" precedes the album's release and has a spoken verse that nods to the Mtv trend of the moment, namely that circus-like hip-hop which completely distorts the genre's original spirit; people are quickly talking about this song thanks to a video featuring scenes bordering on splatter, banned by Top Of The Pops - the classic ban that does more for the video in question than any amount of actual airplay could. Later, the duet with Kylie Minogue on "Kids" marks one of several career-relaunching moments for the Australian singer; Minogue will use this momentum to explode spectacularly a year later with the hit "Can't Get You Out Off My Head", which in turn will push "Kids" itself to a lasting chart run. "Supreme" immediately gets people talking thanks to its quote from the immortal "I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor, and above all for a particularly intriguing video, with Robbie playing a Seventies Formula 1 driver who comes out of nowhere, wins a string of races, and manages to reach the final race with a shot at the world title - only to be unable to take part because a broken toilet door lock leaves him trapped inside when he should be out on the track.

The crowds go wild, and the tour dates take place only in big arenas, skipping Italy this time around. In just a few years, thanks to his natural down-to-earth charm, his likeably cocky attitude, his skill in choosing a capable songwriter like Chambers to work alongside him, and a promotional strategy that doesn't miss a beat, Robbie Williams finds himself at the top of the world. Artistic merit for this result: some, but not a lot, as we've seen. But the way this unstoppable rise unfolds amounts to a veritable crash course in how to win over the masses so flawlessly that even hardline alternative purists don't feel the need to tear him apart, and for once simply ignore him - or at most listen to him on the sly.

The quest for artistic maturity

Unfortunately success goes to our man's head, and he decides to start presenting himself to the public no longer as a cheeky entertainer but taking himself terribly seriously. The masses are by now ready to follow him wherever he wants to go, but the quality of the following albums is nowhere near that of the first three.

It starts with the Swing When You're Winning project, an album released in 2001 made up almost entirely of covers of classic American songbook tunes. He revisits pieces by the likes of Cole Porter, Duke Ellington, Nat King Cole and George Gershwin. Needless to say, Robbie is in no way convincing in this would-be Frank Sinatra role, and the record amounts to nothing more than a pointless rehash of tired clichés.

In 2002 comes Escapology, his fourth album of all-original material, with a title echoing World Party's "Egyptology", which featured their cover of "She's The One" a few years earlier. Here Williams keeps insisting on presenting himself as a now-mature artist offering only grown-up music - a choice probably driven by thoughts about the age of his earliest fans. Bloated, needlessly pompous production and forcibly smoothed-over songwriting characterize most of the songs, and only in a handful of them does the spirit of the more believable, more interesting Robbie shine through. The case of "Sexed Up" is telling: originally used as the B-side of the "No Regrets" single in 1998, presented with just voice and acoustic guitar to enjoyable effect, the same song is included four years later on Escapology and drowned in a sea of completely out-of-place strings and choirs.

The handful of leaner, less pretentious tracks come off decidedly better: the single "Feel" has one of the most catchy melodies in his entire catalogue, and the accompanying piano chords are spot on; the funk-tinged pop-rock of “Handsome Man” and the more traditional sound of “Hot Fudge” flow nicely, and the same can be said of the melancholy semi-ballad "Me And My Monkey", in which, for once, the dusting of horns is used appropriately.

Naturally the album is a huge success, propelled by “Feel” and the other massive single “Come Undone”. On the tour supporting the album, Williams returns to perform in Italy, with two dates at the Forum in Assago. Gone are the days when the Rolling Stone was enough.

Given his growing success, a Greatest Hits release was inevitable, and sure enough it arrives in 2004. Listening to the compilation neatly sums up the evolution of Robbie's career up to this point, not least because the tracklist is arranged chronologically, letting the listener enjoy a truthful overview and a good number of enjoyable songs, before a few stumbles toward the end, as already discussed.

In 2005 comes Intensive Care, the first album on which Guy Chambers doesn't appear, having parted ways with Robbie by mutual consent for reasons that remain unclear. In his place is former Duran Duran member Stephen Duffy, but the self-seriousness of Williams's material is even more pronounced, shifting from pointless to downright irritating. In this case it's genuinely impossible to find even one or two songs worth saving. The only impression the record leaves is of an artist no longer likeable and good-humoured, but instead marked by an outsized ego that simply pushes him to overreach. For the record, the most successful singles are “Tripping”, which winks at world music, and “Advertising Space”, a ballad with as standard a melody and arrangement as you could possibly find.

Needless to say, by now not even big arenas are enough to hold all the people wanting to see Robbie live, so in the summer of 2006 comes the stadium tour, including a date at the San Siro stadium in Milan - in a particularly well-timed moment to turn the concert into a genuine celebration, given that the Italian national football team had just won the World Cup.

The return to lightness and the dip in popularity

Just when it seems impossible to imagine the artist ever realizing that the only dimension in which he can be credible is that of entertainment, he surprises everyone at the end of 2006 by releasing Rudebox, a synth pop/dance album produced by major names including William Orbit, Mark Ronson and the Pet Shop Boys. The record matters because, despite various bits of naivety - some of them pretty glaring - in both the original songwriting and the reworking of the chosen covers, it gives back to those who loved him in the Nineties the cheeky, cocky Robbie Williams of old. Naturally it doesn't escape some negative opinions from those who, on the other hand, had become convinced he really had turned into a mature artist, but, at least for this writer, this record is decidedly more enjoyable than the previous three.

Around the same time, his former bandmates decided to reunite as Take That, though Robbie did not take part. Despite the refusal of the only member who had achieved solo success, the new Take That became a worldwide phenomenon with records and tours, while Williams went through a difficult period on a personal level. The tabloids portrayed him as perennially enslaved to alcohol and various drugs, a regular at detox clinics, physically adrift and mentally weak and hallucinating (some even claimed to have seen him sitting motionless on a raft in the middle of a swimming pool, waiting for UFOs). After a while, it was he who asked the new Take That to let him rejoin the group, but naturally the other four hesitated.

Record contracts, however, must be honoured, so Robbie made peace with Guy Chambers, who returned as one of his songwriters, though no longer the sole one as in the past. Bit by bit the new album took shape, finally seeing the light of day in November 2009. The chosen title, emblematic of the difficulties Williams had faced in recent years, was Reality Killed The Video Star. It's hardly the kind of record you'd expect to be built on the lightness of his best moments, so the risk was of another bout of fake-sentimental whining.

Robbie, however, surprises once again, managing to come out with dignity from a confrontation that, from 2001 onward, had always seen him lose on an artistic level: that with the intimate, melancholy song. It's not that this record reaches great heights, but at least the frustration the artist feels is finally expressed in a credible and genuine way. The lean production, free of apparent redundancy, is a welcome touch, bringing out the best in the core of the songs, which are always rooted in sincere spontaneity.

The album sells enormously, like all the others, more by default than through any real appreciation from the public, and interest in Robbie Williams now seems to have waned, to the point that the tour supporting the record will be decidedly lower-key than the ones immediately preceding it. A shame, because those who packed stadiums for his 2006 shows would have done well to feel the same passion for this latest work that had led them to embrace mediocre records like the ones from 2001-2005: they might have grasped the difference between something contrived and something genuine. But, as we know, the mechanics of the music business aren't based on the quality of the songs, and we've seen how Williams himself got far more than he deserved from a simple critical analysis of his albums.

Artistic decline and the return to success

His contract with EMI expires and Williams finds himself having to start from scratch, as in 1996, albeit with a certainly larger fanbase. There's curiosity, then, about how he'll navigate a world in which, as we've seen, the wind can change quickly. In the meantime a greatest hits arrives, always handy for keeping one's name warm, then in 2010 the long-awaited reunion with Take That materialises. The quintet makes a new album, titled “Progress”, and naturally sales figures are through the roof, as is the success of the tour. Robbie, however, hasn't forgotten his solo career, and in 2011 a contract with Island arrives. Another year passes and Williams forgoes performing with the other Take That members at the closing ceremony of the London Olympics to stay close to his wife, who was about to give birth, effectively marking a fresh split from his original band. Two months later comes the release of a new single and the album Take The Crown. At first glance, it might look as though Robbie exploited the other four to relaunch himself and then dropped them at the first opportunity, but on closer inspection, the single that precedes the album, “Candy”, is credited as co-written with Gary Barlow. Guy Chambers has once again vanished, and among the songwriters are the two Australian songwriters Flynn Francis and Tim Metcalfe, alongside Barlow and the album's producer, Jacknife Lee.

The record is as useful for winning back favour as it is dreadful from a quality standpoint. It's clear on listening that Robbie approached it with the same mindset that characterised the early moments of his career: trying to please as much as possible the audience segment that could guarantee him the biggest returns. In 1996 it was Take That fans who'd moved on to listening to Oasis; in 2012 it's simply the distracted masses who love listening to easy songs on the radio. So Take The Crown slavishly follows every standard of the genre and is so steeped in cliché that it becomes irritating for anyone who pays even the slightest attention when listening to music. Nursery-rhyme melodies, cheap string, keyboard and horn arrangements, a sound that's full-bodied but never structured, a reassuring vocal timbre: it really has everything needed to please the big radio and TV networks and all those people who get in their car to drive to and from work and just want background noise that won't bother them. The only thing that breaks from the standard is the fact that the track “Into The Silence” contains about four minutes of silence, a gimmick that's probably meant to be amusing but which, on listening, comes across as decidedly ill-conceived. The comparison between Take The Crown and Life Thru A Lens clearly shows that the same kind of intentions can produce wildly different results in terms of quality.

Naturally the record is a resounding success and Robbie goes back to performing in stadiums, filming the tour to produce a commemorative DVD. Meanwhile, a statement written on his own blog debunking the past sparks debate: responding to an interview with Brett Anderson, in which he claimed the record industry manufactures modern pop bands from scratch, such as One Direction, Robbie argues that even in the Nineties any britpop band, however mediocre, with barely three chords to their name, landed record deals because the industry had decreed that trend. To back up his opinion, he names a number of bands from that era, whose reactions are not long in coming. Rick Witter of Shed Seven wonders what went so wrong, given that whenever they met in person everything was fine; Johnny Dean of Menswear fires back with “well, how many chords are there in 'Angels'?”; and Leon Meya of Northern Uproar reveals that back in 1996 Williams used to turn up at all their gigs, it was all rock'n'roll, and he'd done everything he could to join the band. In the eyes of britpop fans, our man certainly doesn't come off well, but in reality his current fanbase shows not the slightest interest in this whole affair.

Still following the rule that a name must be kept warm while it's working, in 2013 Robbie once again dons the crooner's guise with Swing Both Ways, on which Chambers reappears as main co-writer.

Unlike its 2001 counterpart, this record includes several original compositions alongside the covers. The same verdict applies here as for both the previous covers collection and the album before it: there's nothing of interest, and the whole thing sounds standardised and soulless. The most recent release to date is a 2014 collection of B-sides, demos and assorted rarities.

During this period, the only reason a music fan might still take an interest in Robbie Williams lay in his concerts, as shown by our report on his Rome show in July 2015. But if one looked at the quality of the songs, the decline now seemed definitive. This artist's story seemed to show, once again, that when independence of ideas and genuineness of intent are lacking, sooner or later one surrenders to the clichés of the record industry, which may well be in crisis but is still perfectly capable of moving serious numbers when it wants to.

The spectacle of heavy entertainment

The proclamation that followed the signing of a contract with Sony in May 2016 (“I'm inspired and more ready than ever”) had all the hallmarks of the usual PR platitudes. Instead, listening to The Heavy Entertainment Show, released in November of that same year, gives us back a credible entertainer.

This record is something of a circus, starting with the sheer number of people who worked on it. Worth mentioning is the presence of the Killers in full, John Grant (on the deluxe edition), Rufus Wainwright and once again Guy Chambers. In this multifarious team, no one worked on the whole album; instead, everyone contributed one or more pieces, with the final result being, inevitably, a collage of styles.

“Mixed Signals”, for instance, is the song written and played by the Killers, and it really shows; the same goes for Rufus Wainwright's contribution on “Hotel Crazy”. “Sensitive” has a relaxed dance-floor atmosphere and a vocal timbre reminiscent of certain George Michael tracks; “David's Song” is a soft piano ballad accompanied by strings, a type of song certainly no stranger to Williams's repertoire. The two singles deserve a mention too: “Love My Life” is a classic example of radio-friendly pop, with the sound and vocal timbre straining to come across as full, rounded and smooth at the same time, while the garish “Party Like A Russian”, placed second right after the equally bombastic title track, really does seem intent on conjuring up the image of a circus caravan.

An album that ultimately suffers from excessive unevenness, but one that nonetheless boasts writing and production that's always on point, even in its most over-the-top moments (and rightly so, given the names involved), and above all makes for an enjoyable, at times even intriguing, listen. Letting Robbie Williams entertain you in 2016, it turns out, is still possible.

Ten Years Later, or Twenty Years Back

It's a snowy January Saturday here in Madrid, the year is 1996, and what I'm about to review is the debut album from the most rebellious of the ex-Take That members, Robbie Williams. It's called Britpop. And what else could it possibly be called?

Robbie Williams deserves thanks just for the feelings that precede listening to this, his thirteenth album. Beyond its musical content, which we'll get to shortly, it's engineered as a time machine fuelled by nostalgia, a contraption that even lets us imagine an alternate reality. It's no secret: this is precisely the album Robbie would have wanted to make right after leaving the famous boy band, had there not been overbearing producers standing in the way.

Setting aside the 2019 Christmas album, it had been a full ten years (since 2016's The Heavy Entertainment Show) since we'd last had a Robbie Williams record in our hands. After seeing the much-maligned "Better Man" (actually a curious, brave and original biopic), there was nonetheless a strong sense that something was brewing.

Let's dispel any doubt right away. Could this Britpop really pass for a 1996 album? Absolutely. For one thing, it genuinely sounds like it was conceived back then - and according to its author, it was. But there's more to it. In reality, the eleven tracks that make up the album were written between 2024 and 2025, yet the English pop star takes his nostalgic game so far that each song feels like it was designed as the embryo of one of his future hits - future, that is, if we really were in 1996. Alongside a hazy "Human" and a "Spies" that echo the likes of "Feel" and "Come Undone", the more rock-oriented tracks, such as "Rocket" (which even boasts Tony Iommi on guitar!) and "Pretty Face", wink at Oasis just as they did back when their author was obsessed with Knebworth. The prize for the most Gallagher-esque vocal delivery of all, though, goes to "All My Life", while on "Bite Your Tongue" Robbie recalls the electronic urges of "Rock Dj". There's also room for a swing/crooner infatuation, with the amusing "It's OK Until The Drugs Stop Working". The most interesting track of all is a kind of synthpop standard - a fairly unprecedented formula for Williams - titled "Morrissey". A sprightly, caressing pop gem in which the singer addresses his youthful idol, torn between admiration and friendly compassion.

The writer of this review considers Robbie Williams the last (or one of the last) great British pop stars, as well as a formidable songwriter and performer in a mould that's no longer being made. That said, does Britpop hold up against its creator's great classics? Decidedly not. But who expected it to? No one. Just as it was hard to expect such a nostalgic and enjoyable game as this one in the first place.

Contributions by Michele Corrado ("Britpop")

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