This week Radio 1 announced that Robbie Williams has been
banned from the station, stating his music is not relevant to their age range
of 15-29 year olds. It’s rather ironic,
then, that ‘Take The Crown’, his latest album since 2009’s ‘Reality Killed The
Video Star’, features a track called Shit
On The Radio when he hasn’t even made it on himself.
Everything about this album smacks of a bullish, brash
return. The title itself is a
less-than-subtle hint at a return to the heights of success. The chorus of opening track, Be A Boy, is an exclamation to his
critics: “they said it was leaving me, the magic was leaving me, I don’t think
so”. It’s far from the only track that
looks to the past, with Gospel seeing
Williams excited when he was “a little one all alone” and Shit On The Radio referencing Supergrass (“pumping on your stereo”),
whilst Different claims “this time I’ll
be different, I promise you”. In fact,
the lyrics mostly take the opening track to heart as if written by a teenage
boy: such as “and when she comes, she comes for hours” on Not Like The Others; or the utterly vacuous Hey Wow Yeah Yeah (“clap your hands if you wanna wanna”).
This is all well and good if the music lived up to these
lyrics, but ultimately the magic has gone and ‘Take The Crown’ fails to match
Williams’ promises. Just as the lyrics often
hearken back to the past, musically Williams is still living in the 90s with a
series of unimaginative and old fashioned pop songs – from the saxophone solo
on Be A Boy to the Brit-pop Not Like The Others and general reliance
on badly-sung yawn-inducing power ballads. It’s no
wonder he’s been relegated to Radio 2. True,
this may seem refreshing in a world of plastic synths and dub-step breakdowns,
but Williams’ attempts at being taken as a serious musician remain a
long-running joke.
This is no more apparent than with his vocals, which can only
be described as rough. Frequently his
voice is smothered by production, backing vocalists and choirs to hide the cracks.
Or, as on Hey Wow Yeah Yeah, he just sings through a megaphone. So why did the big note on Into The Silence (where Williams’ voice
cracks and grates horribly) not get picked up on the master? He might be aiming towards a rockier style,
but frankly it just sounds horrible. The
comparison with featured vocalist Lissie on Losers
is obvious – there’s only one loser here.
True, Williams has never been the strongest of singers and
is known more for being an overall entertainer.
But ‘Take The Crown’ quite simply doesn’t entertain. As such, current single Candy is an anomaly. It sticks out like a sore thumb as the only track on which he
has any sort of fun, as on the frivolous Let
Me Entertain You or Rock DJ –
clearly this is when he’s at his best.
2/5
Gizzle's Choice:
* Gospel
* Candy
* Reverse
Listen: 'Take The Crown' is available now.
