Jump to content

Robbie Williams

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Liamgazza (talk | contribs) at 13:44, 23 October 2006. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

For the footballers, see Robbie Williams (footballer).
For the comedian, see Robin Williams.

Template:Infobox musical artist 2 Robbie Williams (born Robert Peter Williams on February 13, 1974 in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire) is an English pop singer/songwriter. He became a member of pop boyband Take That in 1990 and left in 1995. He became one of the most successful male solo artists in British history with album sales standing over 45 million worldwide. He has also sold approximately 15 million singles around the world including nearly 5.5 in the UK alone, bringing his total sales to over 60 million records worlwide. Elton John recently decribed Williams as "the #1 star in the world right now". He is also the best-selling international act in Latin America.

Biography

Main article: Take That

Williams' early pop career started with the hit boy band Take That. The band was formed in 1990 and had nine United Kingdom Number 1 singles. Their popularity led to a succession of similar bands in the United Kingdom.

Williams' roguish qualities meant that he did not fit into the band[1], and he frequently battled with his fellow band members and his management. After leaving the band in 1995, the final Take That album Nobody Else was re-issued in some markets excluding songs where Robbie Williams was the lead vocalist. The final Take That single "How Deep Is Your Love" is the only one that didn't feature Williams.

In November 2005, ITV1 screened a documentary on Take That, including the reasons behind Williams' departure, including interviews with Williams and his former fellow band members. Williams declined the offer to reunite with the band, but spoke to them via a pre-recorded video message.

Take That, who had reformed without Williams and toured in 2006, have extended an open invitation for Williams to join them on stage if he wishes. Williams has apparently given the reformation his blessing. During a concert in Leeds in September 2006, he observed that while the invitation had "pulled on the heartstrings", he then realised that he'd sold three million concert tickets on his own. He said he was on good terms with his former bandmates, and sang "Back For Good", dedicating it to Gary, Howard, Jason and Mark.

Recent career

In 2002, the UK public voted Williams at number 77 on the BBC's list of the 100 Greatest Britons. He was also voted 17th in Channel 4's 100 Worst Britons poll.

File:Chris Heath Feel cover.jpg
Cover of Feel, a biography by Chris Heath.

A best-selling official biography written by Chris Heath, Feel, was published in 2004. It chronicled events that led up to the "Live Summer Tour 2003", during which Williams performed live to more than a 375,000 people over three nights in August 2003 at Knebworth Park in Hertfordshire; this has become known as the biggest UK pop concert ever.

Former Take That band member Mark Owen appeared with Williams on the third day, 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.

In 2002 Williams appeared on the track 'My Culture' on the 1 Giant Leap album, alongside Maxi Jazz.

Since his split with songwriter Guy Chambers, Williams has faced some questions about his own songwriting abilities. Armed with a new writing partner, Stephen Duffy, Williams has penned several new songs, including the UK number 1 hit "Radio" and the more reflective "Misunderstood".

Both tunes are 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 solo career. It was released Stateside as an import title.

In 2004, he performed the song "It's De-Lovely" by Cole Porter in the biopic De-Lovely and recorded the song on the soundtrack.

Williams also performed at the London Live 8 concert in 2005 where he was acknowledged as one of the stars of the show. An amusing incident occurred when he asked the crowd to sing along with his hit song "Feel", which many in the crowd in Hyde Park were not familiar with. He jokingly covered it up and got a well-received laugh from the incident. During his set, the crowd chanted along with Queen's "We Will Rock You" and 'duetted' with Williams on "Angels" (as has become traditional at his live performances).

Williams' sixth album Intensive Care was a number one in the British charts, before being overtaken by the Westlife album Face to Face.

Robbie Williams claimed the title of Britain's biggest-selling pop act of the 21st century, selling 6.3 million albums since 2000, narrowly beating Coldplay to the top rank. He also set a world record, as defined by the Guinness Book of Records, by selling over 1.6 million tickets for his 2006 world tour in one day on 19 November, 2005, beating a previous mark of 1 million tickets set by 'N Sync in 2000. [1]

In the UK version of the 2005 movie The Magic Roundabout, Williams voiced the dog "Dougal."

There were rumours that Williams was about to launch a dance album and 'Swinging II' which would fulfil his commitment to the EMI contract. He released a third single from Intensive Care, "Sin Sin Sin," on 21 May, 2006.

Work on the dance album surfaced in the form of first single "Rudebox", also known as "Rudebox '74", a sparse electronic production nostalgic of early 80's hip-hop. The project had been kept tightly under wraps in order to gauge public opinion but when the single was first broadcast anonymously on the Pete Tong show, Williams' signature voice was easy to spot in the final seconds of the track. Even the album the single is on was not released Stateside, "Rudebox" has been popping up on dance music stations in the country, gaining airplay. The next single has been announced to fan club members as "Lovelight", and the accompanying video was made available to them, and is now accessible on the website YouTube. It follows the dance style evident on "Rudebox", though the vocals are notably higher, prompting comparisons to George Michael, an artist greatly respected by Williams.

April 2006 saw Williams embark on a five month world tour which kicked off in South Africa. The tour will conclude in Melbourne, Australia, where Williams says he will begin a hiatus from touring in the near future. [2] During the tour, he performed for the first time in the Middle east. On May, 2006 he played at a sell out concert in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The performance was held at the world famous Millennium race course. Williams also played a record 5 nights at Milton Keynes Bowl and he managed to raise the highest viewing figures on Sky since 2002 when his Leeds gig was broadcast in high definition.

According to the German magazine "Der Spiegel"[fact], Williams is not going to renew his current contract with EMI, claiming he's sick and tired of the music business, and he wants to sing and play music independently of the music industry.

Williams' lyrics emphasize the philosophic concepts of objective reality, reason, rational egoism, and laissez-faire capitalism, while attacking what he sees as the irrationality and immorality of altruism, collectivism, and communism. He believes that people must choose their values and actions by reason; that the individual has a right to exist for his or her own sake, neither sacrificing self to others nor others to self; and that no one has the right to take what belongs to others by physical force or fraud, or impose their moral code on others by physical force. Williams' politics have been described as minarchism and libertarianism, though he never uses the first term and detests the second. However, taking into account the often frivolous and impetuous nature of their creation (eg. one of his best known hits Rock DJ had its lyrics created in fifteen minutes simply to fit the music, and means very little), one should not look too deeply into them.

Lifestyle and love life

Williams kissing a fan during a performance

Williams has left the UK and now lives in Los Angeles, California. He remains single. Speculation about his romantic life is rampant in the British media. Williams likes to encourage an image as a smooth womaniser and there are numerous widely-circulated Internet accounts, allegedly written by Williams's female sexual partners, claiming his considerable prowess as a lover. He regularly plucks female fans from the audience of his live performances and french kisses them on stage.

Williams, a self-confessed attention seeker, has garnered a reputation for pushing the envelope in regards to male nudity. Williams' tendency to pose provocatively has gone from somewhat light-hearted "mooning" and "pants-down" photos early in his career to more sexually explicit content.

In 2004 the German website set up by his record label to promote his music posted an allegedly nude photograph of Williams with his crotch area blurred out. They promised that if one million people clicked on the photo they would unblur the area and reveal the nudity. Once unblurred it was revealed that Williams was in fact holding some sort of phallus in front of his actual genitals so that they could not be seen; 24 hours later even this was covered by a miniature cut-out of his album cover.

Subsequently Williams has stated in a variety of press interviews that he considers himself to be a naturist/nudist at heart, jokingly commenting that he will "end up being one of those dads who embarrasses" his children. In late 2005 a campaign called "Get More" was launched by Williams's label to promote his album Intensive Care. A video at the website featured thirty seconds of various camera close-ups of Williams' nude body, culminating in a four-second full body shot where he was frontally nude and fondling his penis [3]. This was virtually the first time nudity was so blatantly incorporated in an advertising campaign for a pop singer.

Williams, now aged 32, has had mental health problems throughout his career, most notably his struggle with depression, insecurity and self-loathing. He has been clean from drugs and alcohol for over 5 years. In his fly-on-the-wall documentary Nobody Someday (2001) he repeatedly mocked his flamboyant but puppet like behaviour on stage and felt that the persona and 'brand' of Robbie Williams Popstar was a fake that he increasingly felt uncomfortable with. In more recent documentaries he yearns to become a credible artist in the eyes of the serious music press.

His time as a member of a boyband does not seem to have hampered his cool image. Much of Williams’ success can be attributed to his 'cheeky chappy' persona and ironic sensibility much loved by his UK fans. Williams has said in interviews he hates performing, and compares his style to old-school UK comedian Sir Norman Wisdom. In fact, it doesn't take much of a stretch of the imagination to see Robbie as the heir to British Vaudeville, an end-of-the-pier crowd pleaser. Yet UK fans highlight the energy and entertainment value of his live performances as a major part of his appeal.

Williams has always had tabloid speculation about his sexuality, tabloid rumours have existed for years about whether or not he is homosexual. These aren't helped by the fact that he has been embraced by many in the gay community as a gay icon. He has repeatedly denied the rumours, though they still persist. Williams himself has added fuel because of his seemingly 'show-off' behaviour with women, behaviour which has led many to speculate that he has something to hide. He questions his own sexuality in two well known songs including his raunchy duet with Kylie Minogue 'Kids' where he can be heard saying: '...Press be askin do I care for sodomy...I dunno yeah probably' He won a libel case against MGN and Northern & Shell in December 2005 relating to articles which had reported he was a secret homosexual [4]. In the libel action that resulted from this, Williams accepted substantial damages and the publishers accepted that the stories were untrue. His counsel, Tom Shields QC, told the court: "Mr Williams is not, and has never been, homosexual". Feel is an account of the performer's life told, with Mr Williams’s co-operation, by Chris Heath, who lived alongside his subject from 2002 to 2004. Gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell called for any damages paid out from the libel case to be donated to gay charities, claiming Williams' legal actions had created the impression that it is "shameful to be gay" [5]. Williams openly admitted that he was not bothered about being labelled gay, and he would have taken the same action had it been about a female relationship. Williams also donated all of the damages directly to his charity Give It Sum.

Williams is a life long supporter of Port Vale F.C., based in his home town of Stoke-on-Trent. In February 2006 he bought £240,000 worth of shares in the club.[6]

According to The Sun, he spent £8 million on a 115ft Athena cruiser from Italy's leading boat company, Riva.

Williams with the help of his best friend Jonathan Wilkes recently organized a charity football match in an attempt to raise funds in Africa. This match was played in May 2006 at Old Trafford, Manchester. The participants were an England team full of both legends and celebrities against the rest of the world of the same content. It was a very successful event raising over a million pounds for the charity aid.

Williams owns a Ducati 999S, 1973 Jaguar E-Type Convertible, and a Jaguar XKR convertible (1st gen).

Williams is about to release his much anticipated dance/electro album "Rudebox" on October 23rd. The first single "Rudebox" which reached #4 in the UK Singles chart was hailed a flop by the Mirror yet managed to have the same chart peak as Robbie's two most famous songs "Angels & Feel". It was also a worlwide smash, reaching #1 in various countries around the world including Chile, Germany, Italy among others. It was the second best selling single in Europe for a number of weeks and was also the fifth best selling single in the World according to the United World Chart.

The second single "Lovelight" is released on November 16th and the video was shot in Vienna.

Williams recently said in an interview that he does'nt intend to continue his relationship with record company EMI after his contract is up. Williams famously signed the Biggest recording contract in British music history in 2002 reportedly worth £80 million.

2006 Close Encounters Tour

Williams is currently on his Close Encounters World Tour which sees him playing to more than 3 million people around the globe. He broke the World Record for selling 1.6 million tickets in a single day. He kicked off the tour in South Africa and so far has played over 40 shows. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/5326756.stm BBC Probe] & [http://www.robbiewilliamssucks.co.uk Fans Protest. Orson and Basement Jaxx are the support acts for his European dates.

Discography

Further information: Robbie Williams discography
  1. 1997 - Life Thru A Lens
  2. 1998 - I've Been Expecting You
  3. 1999 - The Ego Has Landed
  4. 2000 - Sing When You're Winning
  5. 2001 - Swing When You're Winning
  6. 2002 - Escapology
  7. 2003 - Live At Knebworth
  8. 2004 - Greatest Hits
  9. 2005 - Intensive Care
  10. 2006 - Rudebox

References


  1. ^ Agence France-Presse (2005). [9] Robbie sets ticket sales record. Retrieved 27 November 2005.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Robbie_Williams&oldid=83203242"