Robbie Williams

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RobbieWilliamsalbumcover.jpg
Album cover for Williams' 2004 "Greatest Hits"

Robert Peter Williams (born February 13, 1974 in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire) is a British pop singer. Originally a member of the hit boy band Take That, he was fired from the group in 1995 and quickly launched a solo career following a highly publicized battle with drug and alcohol addiction during which he put on nearly 40 pounds (18 kg) and was often seen in public poorly dressed, dirty and unshaven.

Contents
1 Solo career
2 Discography

2.1 Studio Albums
2.2 Lives and Compilations
2.3 UK hit singles

3 Notes
4 See also
5 External links

Solo career

Williams quickly became a major celebrity in the UK with numerous top ten singles. His second album "I've Been Expecting You" continued the James Bond/spy theme and topped the UK charts in October 1998. In 1999 he collaborated with singer Tom Jones for a track on the album Reload.

He had a minor hit in the United States in 2000 with the song "Rock DJ", but has never achieved the same level of fame and success there as he did in the UK. The video for the song featured Williams in a roller disco as he stripped nude and then proceeded to 'strip off' his own flesh, muscle tissue and organs until he was a dancing skeleton.

It is said that the frontal nudity was edited out in the US while the gore was left in, whereas the opposite was true for the UK. The video's ending was cut by many TV stations around the world and the whole video was forbidden in some countries (VH1 Europe even made their own video out of recording studio footage). Williams has built quite a reputation for appearing nude (or nearly nude) in photographs, videos and live performances.

After a smash third album with "Sing When You're Winning" in the summer of 2000, Williams' genuine global success was cemented in 2001 after a duet cover version of the Frank and Nancy Sinatra song "Somethin' Stupid" with Australian actress Nicole Kidman, who was fresh off of her Oscar-nominated performance in Moulin Rouge.

Also in 2001 he released a whole album of classics entitled Swing When You're Winning in which his image was tamed down and polished as he breezed through jazz, blues and pop standards from the fifties and sixties including "Ain't That A Kick In The Head" and "Mack The Knife". Williams' cover of the Bobby Darin classic "Beyond the Sea" from the album was later included on the Finding Nemo soundtrack in 2003.

In 2002 Williams stopped working with his long-term writing partner Guy Chambers. However, they reunited six months later to work on the next album, Escapology, which was released in late 2002. The first single from it, "Feel," was a massive European hit, accompanied by a stylish black & white video featuring Darryl Hannah.

The video for the next "Escapology" single, "Come Undone," was heavily censored by MTV Networks Europe for depicting a debauched (but fully-clothed) Williams having three-way sex with two women. The video also showed unsettling images of insects and reptiles. During such furores at this time, it was confirmed that Williams and Guy Chambers were to officially part ways.

In 2002, the UK public voted Williams to be on the BBC's list of the 100 Greatest Britons.

A best-selling official biography written by Chris Heath "Feel", was published in 2004, and chronicled events that led up to to the "Live Summer Tour 2003", during which Williams performed live to more than a million people over three days in August at Knebworth Park in Hertfordshire; while 3.5 million more watched live on television and on the Internet. Leading up to Knebworth, in December 2003, Williams toured Australia and New Zealand alongside Duran Duran.

Since the split with Chambers, Williams has begun to set out to prove his naysayers wrong. Armed with a new songwriting partner, Stephen Duffy, Williams has penned several new songs, including the retro electro-throb of the UK #1 hit "Radio".

The tune is taken from Williams' 19-track "Greatest Hits" album, released in October 2004. In February 2005, Williams received the British music industry's award for the best song of the past quarter century, "Angels," the song Williams credits with giving him a career.

Williams is currently single and now lives in Los Angeles, California. Speculation about his ambiguous sexuality and romantic life is rampant in the British media. Williams seems to encourage an image as a smooth womanizer and there are numerous widely-circulated Internet accounts allegedly written by Williams's female sexual partners (e.g. [1]), extolling his considerable prowess as a lover. A regular feature of his live performances is full-on french kisses with female fans plucked from the audience.

Bearing in mind the persistent rumours about his sexuality and the appearance of so many column inches devoted to Williams's real or imagined romantic conquests, whether gay or straight, it is interesting to note that these accounts typically coincide with the release of a latest album, single, or live performance. Coincidental or not, much of what is written is utterly made up and probably attributable to a phalanx of publicity agents hired to get Williams's name in the papers when he is trying to market his new project.

Discography

Studio Albums

Lives and Compilations

UK hit singles

The highest position in the US charts was #41 for "Angels".

Notes

  1. ^  Mick St Michael (1996). Oasis. Sound and Media Limited. .

See also

External links

See also: Robbie Williams, 1974, 1995, 1999, 1 Giant Leap, 2000, 2001, Academy Award