OK then - back to basics

Continuing my trip back through the 2006 album charts.

5/11/06 : Rudebox - Robbie Williams

This is my second visit with Robbie and last time I was told that, under no circumstances, should I EVER listen to Rudebox.  But it doesn't come close to any criteria which would allow me to reject it - so them's the breaks and off we go.

Oh dear indeed.  But, surprisingly - it's not universally dreadful (and I say this as someone who takes every opportunity to be rude about Robbie that he can).

So, let's start with the bad - it's really rather bad indeed.  The title and opening track is teenage rapping at best - you can imagine the teacher rolling her eyes when he talks about Durex.  "Bongo Bong and Je ne t'aime plus", "Good Doctor", "The 80s", "The 90s" (complete with some really rubbish digs at Gary) and "Dickhead" (which is really very tiresome) are also in the same vein and are really pretty dreadful - whoever told Robbie he could rap really needs to go away and think about what they've done.

But, I really didn't mind "She's Madonna" and "We're The Pet Shop Boys", both of which have Robbie's excessive tendencies dialled down by - go on, guess who?  (no, it's not Madonna).  I also thought "Louise" had a real Human League feel to it - and so wasn't overly surprised to see that it was written by three members of the band.  I was also surprised to see "Kiss Me" on there - I like the original version as an underappreciated 80s gem and whilst Robbie's version adds absolutely nothing to that, fortunately it doesn't destroy it either.  

I can't say an 80s sounding track with Robbie doing some actual singing on it is particularly my bag, but if he'd concentrated on that then there would have been enough an album here to keep at least some people happy.  And given that there's 75 minutes of Rudebox he probably could have made a bearable 40 minute album out of what he already had.  But, hey - he didn't.  Part of me is "glad" I listened to it - I can at least now say "it's as bad as I'd heard it was".  Or worse, in places...

We're at #2 in the charts this week on its second week of a 14 week run, having debuted at #1 - it did continuously drop down the chart on its journey, but not as quickly as it probably deserved.  The rest of the top five were Girls Aloud (a new entry), Amy Winehouse (a new entry, which is currently celebrating its 476th week in the charts), Meat Loaf and My Chemical Romance.  There's one more new entry in the top ten, a somewhat surprising entry from The Who - their (currently) penultimate album.

Wikipedia doesn't have an awful lot on the album, and what is there is surprisingly positive about it - particularly in the critical reception section (I suspect Robbie's management maintain a tight control over the entry).  The commercial performance does mention that it wasn't as well received as was hoped for - particularly because it was massively outsold by Beautiful World later this month.  It still got to #1 in a lot of countries and was the 36th best selling album of the year in the UK - people really did buy some odd things in 2006.

"Customers also listened to" Take That, Gary Barlow (his best mate), Pet Shop Boys, Matt Goss (there's a solo album?!?) and Sophie Ellis-Bextor.  I don't particularly like Robbie or his music, but like to think I can at least admit that he does some stuff well.  Unfortunately, approximately half of this album is done very badly indeed.

29/10/06 - All a bit of an unnecessary mess
12/11/06 - Falling short of its predecessor