For
its first ten or so years, Robbie Williams' solo career was a whirlwind that never
stopped. Its triumphs are hinted at by the statistics: over 55 million albums
sold (of 'Life Thru a Lens', 1997; 'I've Been Expecting You', 1998; 'Sing When
You're Winning', 2000; 'Swing When You're Winning', 2001; 'Escapology', 2002;
'Live At Knebworth', 2003; 'Greatest Hits', 2004; 'Intensive Care', 2005 and 'Rudebox',
2006), more Brit awards than any other act in history (15), the three nights at
Knebworth in 2003 in front of 375,000 people; the most tickets ever sold in one
day (1.6 million, for his 2006 Close Encounters tour), and on and on and on. But
the impact he has made - through his songs, and his singing, and his performances,
and his personality - is far beyond that.
That impact endures, and grows,
but for a while it has done so without Robbie Williams' active participation.
After the Close Encounters tour finished in December 2006, he made the decision
that it was time to disappear for while. "I had to have a rest," he
says. He had barely paused for breath since joining Take That as an impish 15-year-old
from Stoke-on-Trent in 1989: "I was very fortunate to get my breakthrough
when I was really young - a lot of people don't get that breakthrough until they're
27, 28, maybe 30. I hammered it for year after year: making music…promoting…touring…making
music…promoting…touring. It was time for me to take stock and look at
who I am without all of that." But it was only the public world of being
a pop star he had decided to sidestep for a while, not music. Even as he grew
a beard, stayed home and retired from sober evenings out at bars and nightclubs
("those places never appealed to me - I was just finding someone to stay
in with"), he never stopped working on new songs.
For the most part,
'Reality Killed The Video Star' was written in Robbie's home studio in Los Angeles
and recorded in London. Amongst those who have collaborated on the songwriting,
in a variety of ways, are Soul Mekanik, Brandon Christy, Richard Scott and Scott
Ralph, Chaz Jankel, Guy Chambers, Fil Eisler. The album is produced by the legendary
Trevor Horn. "He's added something to the record that I haven't had on previous
records - his genius," Robbie says. "I just think it sounds big - track
after track after track."
Its stylistic range is broad and exuberant,
as Robbie Williams' albums have been from the very first. "I have a wide
range of tastes," he says. "I wasn't aware that you couldn't do that,
or that you might not be able to. And with every case there's an exception to
the rule, and I seem to have been that for a while. And I quite like being an
exception to the rule - to any rule going." The songs' tone and topics veer
widely as well, from the apocalyptic conspiracy-laced first single "Bodies"
("it's the modern middle ages," he sings) to a hymn for one fallen ("Morning
Sun"); from today's fame epidemic ("Starstruck") to, in "Won't
Do That To You", the most traditional subject of all: "my very first
love song." Some he's still working out for himself - "a load of songs
that I sing happen to me in the future," he observes - and some come from
finally having a little time to reflect: "Spending a bit of time on the planet,
and notching up a few years between the start of my career and now, it's kind
of me looking back and going, 'Fucking hell. Where did all that time go? What
happened?' I still feel 23. Nothing's changed. Everything's changed."
On
November 9, 2009, the results of all this, his first album for three years, will
be released, and he's ready. "I want to do it now," he says. "What
it means to me is that I'm at a turning point in my career. This next record decides
my path. There's been a few great songs here and there, along the way. But you
just forget. You forget what you've done. It's all in the past. I'm a bit scared,
because I haven't done anything for three years, but then again I'm always scared
when an album comes out - that's just me. I'm looking forward to going and singing
it at people and seeing what their reaction is. I want them to feel elated, I
want them to dance, I want them to forget about who they are and where they are
for fifty minutes - and, within those fifty minutes of them forgetting who they
are, I also want them to relate. You can never be sure what it is to people until
it comes out, but I believe that it's magic. I do think that is an amazing album.
It's a record that I'm very fond of, very proud of - I think it's fucking brilliant
and I want a lot of people to agree with me. I want it to be the record that,
if they think of Robbie Williams, they go, 'Yeah, Reality Killed The Video Star'."
'Reality Killed The Video Star' is available now.
