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Robbie Williams – Albums Collection 1997-2010 (13CD) [FLAC]
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 6.04 Gb (incl 5%) | Genre: Pop Rock, Contemporary Pop, Dance-Pop | Time: 15:05:35 | Scans (jpg/png) ~ 2.7/10.5 Gb
Collection includes eight studio albums, one live album and two compilations.
Out of all the members of Take That, Robbie Williams never really seemed to fit in. Roguishly handsome where his bandmates were merely cute, Williams was tougher and sexier than the rest, which made him more distinctive. He also fought regularly with the other members and their management, primarily because he was occasionally adverse to being so heavily packaged. So it didn’t come as a surprise that he was the first to leave the band, departing early in the summer of 1995 to pursue a solo career (by some accounts, he was fired from the group).
Although he was the first out of the gate, it took Williams a while to get started. For most of 1995, he attempted to boost his credibility by tagging along with Oasis, hoping that Noel Gallagher would give him a couple of songs. He never did, but all of his time with Oasis launched Williams into a world of heavy partying, drinking, and drugging. Over the course of 1996, he was only heard from in gossip columns, and every published picture indicated he had put on considerable weight. Occasionally, he was quoted as saying his new music would abandon lightweight dance-pop for traditional Brit-pop, but his first single was a cover of George Michael’s “Freedom ’90.” Released late in 1996, the single was a disaster, but his second single, 1997′s “Old Before I Die,” was more in the vein of his early pronouncements, featuring a distinct Oasis influence.
Williams finally released his first solo album, Life Thru a Lens, in 1997. The album became a big hit in Britain, prompting his second, I’ve Been Expecting You, to go multi-platinum upon its release in 1998. (The Ego Has Landed, a U.S.-only compilation designed for breaking Williams to American audiences, was released stateside in the spring of 1999.) Sing When You’re Winning followed in late 2000, gaining success with the video hit “Rock DJ,” while a big-band album of standards (Swing When You’re Winning) appeared a year later. By this point, Robbie Williams had become one of Europe’s premier pop stars, known for his headline-grabbing behavior as much as his hit-studded albums. Moreover, his solo work had sold far more copies than his work with Take That.
During 2002, Williams celebrated an enormous new contract with EMI (rumored to be upwards of 80 million dollars), but suffered the loss of his longtime production partner, Guy Chambers. Escapology, the fifth Robbie Williams album (and the last including Chambers’ input), sold millions of copies in Europe, though it failed to persuade American audiences. As a result, the 2003 concert record Live at Knebworth wasn’t released in the States. He introduced a new musical partner, Stephen Duffy, with a pair of songs from his compilation Greatest Hits, then reappeared in 2005 with Intensive Care. Although the album topped charts in Europe and helped Williams set an impressive concert record — his 2006 world tour sold over one-and-a-half-million tickets in one day — a certain creative atrophy was setting in, despite the new input of Duffy.
Within a year, he had recorded and released Rudebox, a dance album recorded with half-a-dozen outside producers, some featured guests, and several covers instead of self-penned material. Rudebox hit number one across Europe but only went double platinum in the U.K., becoming his lowest-selling studio album to date. Accordingly, Williams’ next album — the 2009 release Reality Killed the Video Star — found him returning to the sound of his older albums, with the Buggles’ Trevor Horn handling all production duties.
The following year, most news of Robbie Williams surrounded his reunion with Take That, which took the form of a new album, Progress, plus a few new songs recorded with bandmate Gary Barlow that were released on a new Williams hits collection, In and Out of Consciousness: Greatest Hits 1990-2010. Barlow also figured in the writing and production of the ninth Robbie Williams studio album, Take the Crown, released in late 2012. Produced by Williams alongside Jacknife Lee (Snow Patrol, R.E.M., Bloc Party), the album saw Williams return to the eclectic pop sound of his earlier work, with a trailer single (“Candy”) written by Williams and Barlow.
Biography by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Allmusic.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbie_Williams
Life Thru a Lens (1997) Japan 1st Press
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One of the best U.K. debuts of the ’90s, Life Thru a Lens is an uninhibited joyride through all manner of British music, from glam to alternative to soft-rock to dance-pop. Beginning with the joyous “Lazy Days,” the album continually betrays overt influences from Oasis and other Britpop stars, but triumphs nevertheless due to gorgeous production, Williams’ irresistible personality, and the overall flavor of outrageous, utterly enjoyable pop music. Whether he’s romping through aggressive burners like “Ego A Go Go” and “South of the Border,” crooning on the ballad “Angels,” or offering a slice of life — working-class style — on the title track and “Lazy Days,” Williams is a pop star through and through. For those who appreciate great pop with plenty of cheek, Life Thru a Lens is an excellent album.
Review by John Bush, Allmusic.com
Tracklist:
01. Lazy Days (03:54)
02. Life Thru A Lens (03:07)
03. Ego A Go Go (03:34)
04. Angels (04:25)
05. South Of The Border (03:53)
06. Old Before I Die (03:53)
07. One Of God’s Better People (03:33)
08. Let Me Entertain You (04:22)
09. Killing Me (03:56)
10. Clean (03:55)
11. Baby Girl Window (03:17)
12. Teenage Millionaire (Bonus Track) (03:11)
13. She Makes Me High (Bonus Track) / Hello Sir (Hidden Poem) (11:51)
I’ve Been Expecting You (1998) Japan 1st Press
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A more mature, calculated album from a pop star who’s often gloried in being immature and spontaneous, I’ve Been Expecting You may suffer from comparisons to its excellent predecessor, but it also finds Robbie Williams weathering the sophomore storm quite well. While Williams’ debut was infectious and outrageous, the second is indeed a more studied album. The opener, “Strong,” begins very well, with the spot-on lyrics: “My breath smells of a thousand fags/And when I’m drunk I dance like me Dad,” and “Early morning when I wake up/I look like Kiss but without the makeup.” Many of the tracks on I’ve Been Expecting You show an undeniable growth, both in songwriting and in artistic expression; two of the highlights, “No Regrets” and “Phoenix From the Flames,” are sensitive, unapologetically emotional songs that may not be as immediately catchy as those on his debut, but pack a greater punch down the road. Williams does indulge his sense of fun occasionally, playing up James Bond during the transcontinental hand-waver “Millennium” (which samples Nancy Sinatra’s theme for You Only Live Twice), and simply roaring through “Win Some Lose Some” and “Jesus in a Camper Van.”
Review by John Bush, Allmusic.com
Tracklist:
01. Strong (04:39)
02. No Regrets (05:10)
03. Millennium (04:07)
04. Phoenix From The Flames (04:02)
05. Win Some Lose Some (04:18)
06. Grace (03:13)
07. Jesus In A Camper Van (03:39)
08. Heaven From Here (03:05)
09. Karma Killer (04:28)
10. She’s The One (04:18)
11. Man Machine (03:35)
12. These Dreams / Stand Your Ground* / Stalker’s Day Off* (*Hidden Tracks) (31:24)
Sing When You’re Winning (2000) Collectors Edition
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Label: Chrysalis Records | # 528 1250 | Time: 00:54:29 | Scans (jpg/png) ~ 302/887 Mb
Poised for global domination with his third album, Robbie Williams and producer Guy Chambers hardly dared mess with the formula of their 1998 crossover hit I’ve Been Expecting You. As such, Sing When You’re Winning has plenty of introspective balladry akin to “Angels,” and a few irresistible party time tracks in similar company to “Millennium.” The album also moves Williams farther away from the increasingly dated visions of Oasis-style Brit-pop to embrace post-millennial dance-pop, complete with the bruising beats and extroverted productions to match. And Chambers certainly knows his production playbook well, conjuring a panoply of classic British rock touchstones like psychedelia, slick country-rock, Ian Dury, the Who, Elton John, and Madchester. Despite a small drop in songwriting from its predecessor, Sing When You’re Winning ultimately succeeds, and most of the credit must go to Williams himself. Amidst a few overly familiar arrangements and lyrical themes, Williams proves the consummate entertainer, delivering powerful, engaging vocals — no matter the quality of the material — and striking the perfect balance between tongue-in-cheek, self-mocking humor (“Knutsford City Limits”) and genuine feeling (tender ballads like “Better Man” and “If It’s Hurting You”). The radio-ready single “Rock DJ” is a piece of immediately gratifying pop candy floss with a surprisingly endless shelf life, though “Kids,” a vivacious, vacuous vamp of a duet with Kylie Minogue, doesn’t even hold its own after one listen. Toss in a few beautiful album tracks (the opener “Let Love Be Your Energy,” “Love Calling Earth,” “Singing for the Lonely”), but then counter them with a few bland singalongs (“Supreme,” “Forever Texas”), and the result is a scattered, entertaining album whose real star is Robbie Williams’ personality.
Review by John Bush, Allmusic.com
Tracklist:
01. Let Love Be Your Energy (04:59)
02. Better Man (03:22)
03. Rock DJ (04:18)
04. Supreme (04:18)
05. Kids (With Kylie Minogue) (04:46)
06. If It’s Hurting You (04:10)
07. Singing For The Lonely (04:31)
08. Love Calling Earth (04:05)
09. Knutsford City Limits (04:45)
10. Forever Texas (03:37)
11. By All Means Necessary (04:45)
12. The Road To Mandalay (03:57)
13. Often (Live In Manchester) (02:49)
Swing When You’re Winning (2001) EU 1st Press
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Performance dynamo and chameleonic entertainment personality Robbie Williams made a rapid transformation — from English football hooligan to dapper saloon singer — for his fourth LP, Swing When You’re Winning. Still, Williams’ tribute to the great American songbook is a surprisingly natural fit with its intended target: ’50s trad-pop patriarchs like Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. And just like those two loveable rogues, Williams has brawled and boozed in the past, but isn’t afraid to wear his heart on his sleeve; in fact, he’s one of the few modern pop stars to fully embrace affecting balladry and nuanced singing. Williams and longtime producer Guy Chambers are also extremely careful with their product, so it shouldn’t be surprising that Swing When You’re Winning has innumerable extra-musical touches to carry it over: the cover features Williams relaxing in the studio in a period suit; his contract with EMI enabled the addition of the treasured Capitol logo at the top of the sleeve, and several tracks were even recorded at the famed Capitol tower in Hollywood.
Fortunately, Williams is no less careful with his performances. Since he lacks the authoritative air of master crooners like Sinatra and Bing Crosby (along with the rest of humanity), he instead plays up his closer connections to the world of Broadway. His readings are dynamic and emotional — sometimes a consequence of trying to put a new spin on these classics (six of the covers are Sinatra standards, three are Bobby Darin’s). He also invited, with nearly universal success, a series of duet partners: Nicole Kidman for the sublime “Somethin’ Stupid,” Jon Lovitz for the irresistibly catty “Well, Did You Evah,” Rupert Everett for “They Can’t Take That Away From Me,” longtime Sinatra accompanist Bill Miller on “One for My Baby,” even Sinatra himself for a version of “It Was a Very Good Year” on which Williams takes the first two verses (over the 1965 arrangement), then bows out as Sinatra’s original counsels him concerning the later stages of life. Though it may be an overly close tribute to a familiar original (like many of the songs here), Williams’ considerable skills with expression and interpretation largely overwhelm any close criticism. He’s definitely much better on the comedy songs, especially the hilarious “Well, Did You Evah” (originally a duet for Crosby and Sinatra in the 1956 film High Society). Lovitz’s rounded tones and faux-affected airs are a spot-on interpretation of Brother Cros, while Williams’ emulation of a boorish lug (“That’s a nice dress — think I could talk her out of it?”) is nearly perfect as well. Though arranger Steve Sidwell hasn’t done many charts (and those for the movies Moulin Rouge, Bridget Jones’ Diary, and Romeo + Juliet), he also acquits himself nicely aping classic scores for “One for My Baby” and “Beyond the Sea.” The lone Robbie Williams original is “I Will Talk and Hollywood Will Listen,” a sweeping pipe-dream fantasy of true American superstardom for Britain’s biggest pop star. It could happen, too; Pierce Brosnan surely isn’t growing any younger.
Review by John Bush, Allmusic.com
Tracklist:
01. I Will Talk And Hollywood Will Listen (03:17)
02. Mack The Knife (03:18)
03. Somethin’ Stupid (With Nicole Kidman) (02:50)
04. Do Nothin’ Till You Hear From Me (02:58)
05. It Was A Very Good Year (With Frank Sinatra) (04:28)
06. Straighten Up And Fly Right (02:36)
07. Well, Did You Evah (With Jon Lovitz) (03:50)
08. Mr. Bojangles (03:17)
09. One For My Baby (04:18)
10. Things (With Jane Horrocks) (03:22)
11. Ain’t That A Kick In The Head (02:28)
12. They Can’t Take That Away From Me (With Rupert Everett) (03:07)
13. Have You Met Miss Jones? (02:34)
14. Me And My Shadow (With Jonathan Wilkes) (03:16)
15. Beyond The Sea / Outtakes (Hidden Track) (28:14)
Escapology (2002) Japanese Edition
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Label: Chrysalis/Toshiba-EMI Ltd. | # TOCP-66132 | Time: 01:13:59 | Scans (jpg/png) ~ 446/1473 Mb
With the news that Escapology would be the last Robbie Williams album recorded with producer/songwriter phenom Guy Chambers, fans began to wonder whether one of Britain’s most durable pop forces would execute a disappearing act from the charts with a single album. Unfortunately, Escapology makes it sound as though Chambers has already left. Backed by stale songs, formulaic arrangements, and mediocre songwriting, Williams is forced to rely on his volcanic personality to bring this album across — and despite a few strong performances, he sinks into lame self-parody time and time again. It’s nearly impossible to reflect seriously on themes he’s already broached several times before, as often happens here; “Feel” and “Love Somebody” are the usual looking-for-love songs, the latter with a set of trite lyrics cribbed from 30 years of rock & roll: “Always and forever, is forever young/Your shadow on the pavement, the dark side of the sun/Gotta dream the dream all over and sleep it tight/You don’t wanna sing the blues in black and white.” The Oasis flag-waver “Something Beautiful” finds Williams trying to keep on despite being tired with the modern world, while “Monsoon” and “Handsome Man” chart the usual celebrity regrets with an odd sense of arrogance and self-deprecation that isn’t half as interesting at this point in his career as before. The highlights here are songs that barely would’ve made it onto Sing When You’re Winning (much less his first two albums), and the sound is MOR throughout. Robbie Williams has never been an innovative artist, but previously his strong delivery and sly, ironic wit — along with savvy production and songwriting — kept any glimpse of cheese at bay. Escapology shows he’s unable to avoid the trap.
Review by John Bush, Allmusic.com
Tracklist:
01. How Peculiar (03:14)
02. Feel (04:24)
03. Something Beautiful (04:48)
04. Monsoon (03:46)
05. Sexed Up (04:21)
06. Love Somebody (04:10)
07. Revolution (05:44)
08. Handsome Man (03:56)
09. Come Undone (04:38)
10. Me And My Monkey (07:12)
11. Song 3 (03:51)
12. Hot Fudge (04:08)
13. Cursed (04:01)
14. Nan’s Song (15:40)
Live Summer 2003 (2003) Japanese Edition
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Label: Chrysalis/Toshiba-EMI Ltd. | # TOCP-66255 | Time: 01:12:37 | Scans (jpg/png) ~ 242/1020 Mb
From most accounts, Robbie Williams’ appearance at Knebworth over three August nights in 2003 wasn’t just the largest concert in British music history (reportedly 375,000 attended over the course of the weekend), but a display of Williams’ mastery of an audience and a confirmation that, American listeners aside, he’s one of the biggest pop stars in the world. Live at Knebworth followed just two months later, a 72-minute collection from his two-hour live extravaganza. While the audio document isn’t nearly as exciting as the live experience that made fans gush, the disc does transmit the massive amounts of energy at a Robbie Williams concert. Opening with his anthem “Let Me Entertain You” (as he always does), Williams keeps the crowd hanging on his every note, changing lyrics to fit the venue, indulging in his usual blend of faux arrogance and self-deprecation, and coaxing the audience on during every song. (“Show me love, Knebworth!”) However, what could have been an excellent look at Britain’s foremost pop entertainer in action is marred by its focus on material from his dreadful fifth album, Escapology. After a splendid beginning (including a brief flirtation with Queen’s “We Will Rock You”), Williams performs four consecutive songs from Escapology: “Monsoon,” “Come Undone,” “Me and My Monkey” (which drags on for over seven minutes), and “Hot Fudge.” The compilers found room to fit in two of his biggest songs (“Angels,” “Kids”), but apparently didn’t think superior hits like “Rock DJ,” “Millennium,” or “No Regrets” (all of which he performed at the show) needed to appear on this disc. A solid live album with the exception of the gaping hole in its midsection, Live at Knebworth is a missed opportunity, one that Chrysalis will hopefully rectify within a few years.
Review by John Bush, Allmusic.com
Tracklist:
01. Let Me Entertain You (05:55)
02. Let Love Be Your Energy (04:44)
03. We Will Rock You (01:19)
04. Monsoon (05:09)
05. Come Undone (05:34)
06. Me And My Monkey (07:21)
07. Hot Fudge (05:45)
08. Mr. Bojangles (05:25)
09. She’s The One (05:43)
10. Kids (07:21)
11. Better Man (02:11)
12. Nan’s Song (04:51)
13. Feel (05:17)
14. Angels (05:55)
Greatest Hits (2004)
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A near-perfect look at the career of Britain’s brightest singles artist during the late ’90s and early 2000s, Robbie Williams’ Greatest Hits chronologically consolidates Williams’ canon of Top Tens — 19 of them in all, as of its release in late 2004. (Not all of his Top Ten singles are present, since the disc closes with a pair of new songs.) In the late ’90s, Robbie Williams proved that a pop artist with a dodgy artistic background — witness his membership in Take That — was still capable of joining the long line of British artists (T. Rex, Madness, Pet Shop Boys, Blur) who completely embraced danceable pop music without selling their souls in the bargain. Williams’ biggest up-tempo hits, “Millennium” and “Rock DJ,” were loved by middle-aged housewives and young teens alike (slightly less so by the latter, of course). Sugary and infectious but not disposable, they were made-to-order as great radio product, an art increasingly being lost. And as shown by “Angels,” the biggest hit of his career, Williams also had a winning way with balladry. He also forged a comfortable performing personality via his excitable, self-effacing cad who takes himself far too seriously and can get intensely emotional every now and then, but is usually good for a laugh. (See “Strong” for the details.) The two new tracks introduce Stephen Duffy — an original member of Duran Duran who later made his own name in the Lilac Time — as the replacement for Guy Chambers as Williams’ new producer/songwriter/contributor (of course, the two songs, “Radio” and “Misunderstood,” can’t help but sound weak in this context). Despite pop fans being sick of his omnipresence in British pop culture, history will likely be kind to Robbie Williams. After all, would a disposable pop artist quote Latin on the back of a CD booklet? (Granted, in typical Robbie fashion the epigraph translates as, “If it has tits or wheels, it will make life difficult.”)
Review by John Bush, Allmusic.com
Tracklist:
01. Old Before I Die (03:53)
02. Angels (04:27)
03. Let Me Entertain You (04:22)
04. Millennium (03:46)
05. No Regrets (04:43)
06. Strong (04:19)
07. She’s The One (04:19)
08. Rock DJ (04:16)
09. Kids (04:19)
10. Supreme (04:15)
11. Let Love Be Your Energy (04:06)
12. Eternity (05:00)
13. The Road To Mandalay (03:18)
14. Feel (03:43)
15. Come Undone (03:54)
16. Something Beautiful (04:01)
17. Sexed Up (04:10)
18. Radio (03:51)
19. Misunderstood (04:01)
Intensive Care (2005)
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The press playback of Robbie Williams’ eighth solo album was nothing if not a unique event. It was one of the great teeth-grinding, face-behind-a-cushion disasters of recent rock history, easily eclipsing Pete Doherty at Live 8, harking back to the great musical embarrassments of the 1980s: All About Eve forgetting to mime on Top of the Pops and the kid on Going Live! asking Five Star why they were “so fucking shit”.
Williams had spent the previous evening printing out old reviews we had written and going through the bits he didn’t like with a highlighter pen. He remonstrated about misinterpreted lyrics and accusations of singing flat. The hacks argued back, one on the not-unreasonable grounds that he hadn’t actually written the article Williams kept berating him for, the rest because they couldn’t understand how a man who has sold 35m albums, has Britain’s biggest-ever record deal and lives a life of unimaginable luxury and wall-to-wall shagging could possibly care that someone got the wrong end of the stick about the words of Hot Fudge.
But the evening confirmed two things about Britain’s biggest pop star. Firstly, Williams is now so successful no one is either able or willing to tell him what to do. Someone within his organisation must have realised the confrontational playback was a bad idea, but it still went ahead. Secondly, he clearly really cares what people think about him, to the point of seeming slightly crackers.
The former might give his record company pause at a critical juncture in his career. Intensive Care is his first album without longstanding co-writer Guy Chambers, and Williams’ choice of replacement can hardly have quelled their anxieties. Stephen Duffy is a fantastic songwriter, but his career is not one of untrammelled commercial triumph. He abandoned mid-1980s pop stardom to form a critically-revered, low-selling folk-rock band, the Lilac Time. Initially, it seemed that reckless spirit had rubbed off. Intensive Care’s first single, Tripping, is pretty skewed by mainstream standards, a melange of choppy ska guitars, falsetto vocals and Bollywood strings. The rest of Intensive Care, however, suggests that Williams’ need to be loved has overridden any desire to venture further leftfield.
Instead, he and Duffy have crafted a beautifully-turned pop-rock album that pricks the myth about Guy Chambers’ dominant role in Williams’ success. Make Me Pure and The Trouble With Me are every bit as beguiling and inclusive as Supreme or Feel. The ballad Advertising Space is so effective that they may as well cordon off the Christmas Number One spot now. Given that Duffy’s songwriting speciality is understated and affecting rather than brash and populist, it seems that Williams may have had more to do with the tracks that made him famous than was previously assumed. The lovely, lambent melodies of Advertising Space and The King of Bloke and Bird may well be Duffy, the Smiths-like guitar of Spread Your Wings and the autoharp on Please Don’t Die definitely is, but their epic qualities seem to stem entirely from Williams.
Intensive Care also reins in Williams’ worst excesses. If his talents as a lyricist have been overlooked, it may be because for every example of his facility with words – Strong, for example – he has written something trite and smug, like the horrible Handsome Man or Me and My Monkey. The latter category of lyric is noticeable by its absence from Intensive Care. Instead, there’s Spread Your Wings’ affecting eye for period detail: it remembers watching a teenage crush “jack her body to the sound of Oran ‘Juice’ Jones”.
Of course, whatever Williams’ songs purport to be about – everything from gangsters to the Human League’s 1986 hit Louise – they end up being about Robbie Williams. On Advertising Space, he can’t depict Elvis’s twilight years without making a priapic cameo appearance, lusting after Lisa Marie. He writes about a relative’s death from cancer, but his primary concern is “what on earth becomes of me?” From anyone else, this would count as solipsism. Taking into account the British public’s unending fascination with every aspect of Williams’ life, it seems a smart move.
It also means that the songs on Intensive Care avoid the usual pitfall encountered by artists who want to reach the back of immense sports arenas: the temptation to deal in lyrical platitudes, the kind of windy generalities that bedevilled Coldplay’s X and Y. It ends up that most unusual of things, a stadium rock album with a personality of its own.
Review by Alexis Petridis, Guardian
Tracklist:
01. Ghosts (03:42)
02. Tripping (04:36)
03. Make Me Pure (04:33)
04. Spread Your Wings (03:51)
05. Advertising Space (04:37)
06. Please Don’t Die (04:47)
07. Your Gay Friend (03:21)
08. Sin Sin Sin (04:09)
09. Random Acts Of Kindness (04:15)
10. The Trouble With Me (04:20)
11. A Place To Crash (04:34)
12. King Of Bloke And Bird (06:13)
Rudebox (2006)
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The careers of most music celebrities are like passenger ships, able to steam along nearly indefinitely without the least chance of modifying course. With his work of the 21st century, Robbie Williams appeared to have set himself on a course that was guaranteed to keep him working for decades, remaining important to thousands of fans, but never varying from the type of adult alternative singer/songwriter material expected of him. Then came Rudebox, which proves he’s not that simple — or at least, not that satisfied with himself. It may be a good album because it says little about his inner life and emotional troubles, which are unceremoniously dropped in favor of hyper-sexualized or sarcastic dance music and ironic laugh-getters (“Make your body shake like you stood on a land mine,” “Dance like you just won at the Special Olympics”). It may be a good album because it has some of the best productions of his career, usually amped-up electro-disco from the duo Soul Mekanik or goofy hip-hop soul from Mark Ronson (which makes him come across as Justin Timberlake at some points and Gnarls Barkley at others). It’s certainly a good record in comparison to its two predecessors, which suffered from a lack of vitality. (For example, while 2005′s Intensive Care desultorily attempted to rewrite the Human League’s “Louise,” Rudebox simply covers the song, with much more feeling.) Compared to Escapology and Intensive Care, Rudebox is not only loose and fun but, for the first time in Williams’ career, receptive to outside help; aside from the producers, Lily Allen and the Pet Shop Boys make appearances, and Robbie covers songs from Manu Chao, Lewis Taylor, Stephen Duffy, and the indie band My Robot Friend. Not that the record is perfect; in fact, it has a few of the most embarrassing moments in Williams’ career. The lyrics occasionally devolve into hip-hop nonsense (“Got no strings, but I think with my ding-a-ling/Wu-Tang with the bling-bling, sing a song of Sing Sing”). “The 80s” is even worse, a nostalgic but monotone rap that oddly balances adolescent trauma and pop culture (“Auntie Jo died of cancer/God didn’t have an answer/Rhythm was a dancer”). Still, the next track after “The 80s” is “The 90s,” a surprisingly bewitching chronicle of his boy-band years from 1990 to 1995. The fact remains that every track here is better and more interesting than anything from the previous two LPs, despite the occasional embarrassing couplet or misguided musical idea.
Review by John Bush, Allmusic.com
Tracklist:
01. Rudebox (04:45)
02. Viva Life On Mars (04:50)
03. Lovelight (04:02)
04. Bongo Bong And Je Ne T’aime Plus (04:48)
05. She’s Madonna (04:16)
06. Keep On (04:18)
07. Good Doctor (03:16)
08. The Actor (04:06)
09. Never Touch That Switch (02:46)
10. Louise (04:46)
11. We’re The Pet Shop Boys (04:56)
12. Burslem Normals (03:50)
13. Kiss Me (03:16)
14. The 80′s (04:17)
15. The 90′s (05:33)
16. Summertime (05:42)
17. Lonestar Rising / Dickhead (Japan Bonus Track) (09:04)
Reality Killed The Video Star (2009) Japanese Edition
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 402 Mb (incl 5%)
Label: EMI Music Japan Inc. | # TOCP-66915 | Time: 00:57:03 | Scans (jpg/png) ~ 245/842 Mb
In 1967, the Beatles were planning a new film. In search of a suitable script, they approached Joe Orton. He handed in a dark, lavishly camp farce called Up Against It, the plot of which variously required the Fab Four to become embroiled in a plan to assassinate the prime minister, cross-dress, be caught in flagrante and commit murder. Alas, the Beatles rejected Up Against It, Paul McCartney having smartly spotted that both the script and its author were “a bit gay”. “We didn’t do it because it was gay,” he explained. “We weren’t gay. Brian Epstein was gay. He and the gay crowd could appreciate it. It wasn’t that we were anti-gay,” he added. “It’s just that we, the Beatles, weren’t gay.”
Having established fairly thoroughly that they weren’t gay, the Beatles went on to make Yellow Submarine instead: not bad, but, no insurrectionist transvestite humping-and-murder-fest. Up Against It joined the pantheon of tantalising rock what-ifs, alongside the Rolling Stones’ film version of A Clockwork Orange, the acid house album Shane McGowan lobbied the Pogues to make, and Paddy MacAloon’s concept album about Michael Jackson.
To that illustrious list, we can now add the improbable name of Robbie Williams. In 2007, he apparently recorded an album he later described as “career suicide” and “Robbie’s gone mad music”, presumably a sonic expression of the period in which he grew a beard, put on weight, searched the California desert for aliens and helpfully began dressing as a pop star who’d gone crackers. It sounds fascinating, but instead, Williams opted to make his comeback with Reality Killed the Video Star, a Trevor Horn-produced album that, he notes, “ticks all the boxes”.
It certainly does. Williams and his songwriting team have recovered their ability to write ruthlessly effective radio-friendly songs. The album bulges with fantastic melodies and undemanding pop references: the opening Morning Sun nods to I Am the Walrus, You Know Me boasts a string arrangement based on John Barry’s Theme From Midnight Cowboy. Alas, Williams’s less lovable traits are also present and correct, among them his apparently irrepressible desire to release jokey novelty tracks – here represented by an entirely ghastly bit of cod cock-rock called Do You Mind? – and his penchant for groan-inducing wordplay, most of which doesn’t even count as punning, because puns are supposed to make sense. You listen to him singing “you would never be my trouble and strife, if I made you my Swiss army wife”, groan, then think: what’s that actually supposed to mean? Perhaps she’s good at getting stones out of horses’ hooves.
You might expect an album this musically surefooted to be triumphalist in tone, but Reality Killed the Video Star is more complicated and interesting than that. The lyrics tremble with uncertainty about Williams’s return. Morning Sun worries about reviews and star ratings. “Don’t call it a comeback,” pleads Last Days of Disco. A lovely, languid sigh of a song called Deceptacons touches on the beardy UFO-hunting years – it carries a definite hint of Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft – and their effect on perceptions of his sanity: “Well, he’s never been right.” On Starstruck and the brilliant electro-wriggle Difficult for Weirdoes, he aligns himself with society’s outsiders, including make-up-wearing teenage boys and, a little bafflingly, the Futurists.
You might reasonably suggest that the precise similarity between Robbie Williams and Filippo Marinetti is a trifle difficult to work out. You might also reasonably suggest that pop music has come to a pretty pass when Robbie Williams can present himself as some kind of leftfield artist. Nevertheless, he has a point. The pop stars that have emerged during his absence have tended to cleave to the US model: bland, orthodontically perfect, deprived of their personality via the complex surgical process known as media training. By contrast, Williams belongs to a grand, possibly dying, British tradition of flawed, wonky pop stars, people whose appeal rests at least partially on the fact that they appear to have ended up at the top of the charts almost despite themselves. In that light, Reality Killed the Video Star’s neurotic self-obsession seems not merely like honesty, but a rather canny move. Anyone can hire Trevor Horn and some crack writers and knock out an album of polished pop-rock, but perhaps only Robbie Williams would release an album of polished pop-rock consumed with angst, self-doubt and songs justifying his interest in extraterrestrial life forms. If it’s not as daring and confounding as the tantalising what-if of his abandoned career-suicide comeback album, it’s still a pretty unusual ploy given the current climate. Under the circumstances, it would seem churlish not to welcome him back.
Review by Alexis Petridis, Guardian
Tracklist:
01. Morning Sun (04:07)
02. Bodies (04:03)
03. You Know Me (04:21)
04. Blasphemy (04:19)
05. Do You Mind (04:06)
06. Last Days Of Disco (04:50)
07. Somewhere (01:02)
08. Deceptacon (05:01)
09. Starstruck (05:21)
10. Difficult For Weirdos (04:29)
11. Superblind (04:46)
12. Won’t Do That (03:38)
13. Morning Sun Reprise (01:24)
14. Arizona (Japan Bonus Track) (05:30)
In And Out Of Consciousness (2010) 3CD Deluxe Edition
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 1.63 Gb (incl 5%)
Label: Virgin | # 5099990784521 | Time: 03:49:48 | Scans (jpg/png) ~ 132/703 Mb
A two-disc set that is expanded even further in accompanying CD/DVD editions, In and Out of Consciousness: Greatest Hits 1990-2010 presents, even in its most basic edition, no less than 39 examples of what made Robbie Williams a fascinating millennial superstar. Seemingly all things to all pop fans — ambitious and self-deprecating, sensitive and boorish, dynamic and introverted — Williams never lacked for people with a strong opinion of his work (although the number and force of the detractors seem at least equal to that of the supporters). Unlike his previous compilation, Greatest Hits, which was six years old in 2010, In and Out of Consciousness: Greatest Hits 1990-2010 presents a much richer picture of Williams’ discography. All the hits are here plus, for the first time, a wealth of album tracks capable of supplementing any casual fan’s understanding of what made Williams occasionally great, sometimes infuriating, and nearly always worth hearing. The collection proceeds from newest to oldest, beginning with a pair of new songs (both of which are Gary Barlow co-compositions; the two were famously at odds during their Take That days) and ending over two hours later with tracks from his debut album plus the Take That single “Everything Changes” from 1994. (The very unhappy Williams was invited to leave the group one year later, although Take That management contracts prevented him from releasing solo material for nearly two years.) The compilers have chosen well, taking slightly fewer songs from infamous duds like Escapology and Intensive Care (although those tracks appear on the first disc) and spending more time on his precocious, entertaining ’90s albums I’ve Been Expecting You and Life Thru a Lens (plus the non-album single “Freedom,” a George Michael cover that out-performed the original on the British charts). The compilation even finds time for four tracks from Swing When You’re Winning, his standards side project, and the new track from his previous Greatest Hits, “Eternity.” In the end, whether listeners want Greatest Hits or In and Out of Consciousness: Greatest Hits 1990-2010 (or the original albums themselves) will depend mostly on the amount of time and money they’re willing to spend, but In and Out of Consciousness certainly offers a full portrait of Robbie Williams, the greatest pop star of the ’90s and 2000s that few people appeared to respect but everyone enjoyed.
Review by John Bush, Allmusic.com
Tracklist:
CD1:
01. Shame (04:00)
02. Heart And I (04:41)
03. Morning Sun (04:06)
04. You Know Me (04:20)
05. Bodies (04:02)
06. She’s Madonna (04:00)
07. Lovelight (04:02)
08. Rudebox (03:47)
09. Sin Sin Sin (04:03)
10. Advertising Space (04:38)
11. Make Me Pure (03:48)
12. Tripping (04:03)
13. Misunderstood (04:00)
14. Radio (03:51)
15. Sexed Up (04:10)
16. Something Beautiful (04:01)
17. Come Undone (03:54)
18. Feel (03:41)
19. Mr Bojangles (03:20)
CD2:
01. I Will Talk And Hollywood Will Listen (03:15)
02. Somethin’ Stupid (02:51)
03. The Road To Mandalay (03:18)
04. Eternity (05:00)
05. Let Love Be Your Energy (04:04)
06. Supreme (04:15)
07. Kids (04:19)
08. Rock DJ (04:17)
09. It’s Only Us (02:51)
10. She’s The One (04:19)
11. Strong (04:19)
12. No Regrets (04:44)
13. Millennium (03:45)
14. Let Me Entertain You (04:23)
15. Angels (04:27)
16. South Of The Border (03:54)
17. Lazy Days (03:54)
18. Old Before I Die (03:53)
19. Freedom (04:18)
20. Everything Changes (03:35)
CD3:
01. Often (02:47)
02. Karaoke Star (04:07)
03. Toxic (03:48)
04. 1 Giant Leap feat. Robbie Williams & Maxi Jazz / My Culture (05:38)
05. Nobody Someday (02:53)
06. Get A Little High (03:54)
07. One Fine Day (03:35)
08. Coffee, Tea And Sympathy (04:35)
09. Do Me Now (03:17)
10. The Postcard (03:11)
11. Meet The Stars (04:27)
12. Don’t Stop Talking (04:46)
13. Don’t Say No (04:24)
14. Lonestar Rising (03:52)
15. Lola (04:11)
16. Mark Ronson feat. Robbie Williams / The Only One I Know (03:57)
17. Elastik (04:36)
18. Long Walk Home (05:12)
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