I’m just about the right age to have justifiably enjoyed Robbie Williams around the Rock DJ years. And you know what? I kinda still like him – he’s an entertainer, and he can sing. It’s just a shame that he won’t.
To be honest, I haven’t got a clue what he’s doing at the minute. If this is an attempt to make a serious pop album, it’s crap. If it’s an attempt to take the piss, it’s still crap – it just explains the presence of Lily Allen and the beyond-terrible lyrics. I mean, can the lines “dance like you just won at the special Olympics” and “As if I’m going to take one tablet. I’m Keith Moon, dickhead.” really be the work of a sane person?
Ignoring the terrible delivery of the frankly shocking lyrics, it has to be said that even the music itself is bad. Not in the way its performed, but the structure and the very style. ‘Good Doctor’ is based around names of drugs (the prescription kind), and the subject of ‘She’s Madonna’ really is as obvious as the title might suggest. Deep songs. Deep.
Clearly, involving Lily Allen is meant to take this album from a bad Stoke boy’s attempt at rapping to an indie-pop discourse on the state of the world, Arctic Monkeys’ style. Unfortunately, it doesn’t happen. Robbie needs to learn that he cannot rap, and with an accent like his, he shouldn’t even try.
Too many of these songs are trying to be edgy, yet collaborating with the Pet Shop Boys has the opposite effect – who under 30 even cares about the Pet Shop Boys? Rob is falling into the trap that many artists panic themselves into after a few years at the top – recording what they think will be popular as opposed to what they’re good at. Instead of being cheeky, fun and a little bit arrogant, he’s trying to be ‘uber-now’, and it only serves to make him seem even more out of touch.
For more information you can visit: http://www.robbiewilliams.com
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