Posted February 23, 201015 yr http://www.musicweek.com/Pictures/web/f/s/t/Robbie_Williams.jpg Robbie Williams: win when you're singing Music Week 16:32 | Monday February 22, 2010 With eight chart-topping albums and multi-million units shifted in his name, it is hard to think of a more worthy recipient of the Outstanding Contribution Brit award than Robbie Williams. We look back at the ex-Take That man’s remarkable career which shows little sign of abating What a difference a year makes. Just 12 months ago, Robbie Williams was being written off by the nation’s critics. Fast forward a year and he has been honoured with an Outstanding Contribution to British Music Award at the Brits. Last April, the massed music critics of the country seemed supremely sure of their facts. After all, they pointed out, Williams’ last album, Rudebox had flunked miserably, while his old bandmates Take That were now dominating the albums chart with The Circus. A closer look at the statistics, however, suggests that Williams was suffering from Jacko syndrome; a curious affliction whose symptoms can make a conspicuously successful artist look like an abject failure if he does not maintain his own previously huge levels of success. Robbie has sold more concert tickets in a single day (1.6m, for his 2006 world tour), won more Brit Awards (15) and sold more albums in the UK than any other British solo performer. Jacko Syndrome, however, means that Rudebox was rated a flop despite having debuted at number one in the UK albums chart, having become Europe’s fastest platinum-selling album of 2006 and having reached number one in 14 countries. It was a flop for being only the 18th best-selling album worldwide. That is the kind of failure most artists would give their eye teeth for. Since then, of course, he has released another album, the Trevor Horn-produced Reality Killed The Video Star which, EMI UK Ireland president Andria Vidler points out, “is well on the way to being triple-platinum within a couple of months of release and has already sold more than 1.3m albums overseas.” So maybe that Outstanding Contribution award is not a Brit too far after all. BPI chairman Tony Wadsworth says, “I’ve heard people ask why someone so young is getting an outstanding contribution award. Yes, he’s only 36, but Robbie has been a superstar for 15 years, which is remarkable by any standards”. Williams’ decade-and-a-half on top has been all the more remarkable because his achievements have always been subjected to intense scrutiny, much of it unflattering and some of it, even he would admit, self-inflicted. The boy from Stoke-on-Trent first tasted fame with Take That, helping them sell more than 20m records between 1991 and 1996. His well-publicised and acrimonious departure from the fold in July 1995 was followed by a period of relative inactivity because, although he was quickly courted by EMI, a clause in his former contract prohibited him from recording as a solo performer until Take That were officially dissolved. One vital step was to find a management team that would take him seriously, which he did in November 1996. “He came to our offices,” remembers his co-manager David Enthoven of IE Music. “We had a good long chat and recognised straight away that there was something very special about him. He really did have the aura and charisma of a star.” Enthoven’s partner Tim Clark, adds, “At our second meeting, he played us some rough demos which were great, but what really caught our attention was when he recited his poetry. We knew then that he had the makings of an amazing songwriter.” It was at this point that EMI A&R Chris Briggs first encountered Williams and realised almost immediately that he was dealing with much more than a pretty face. “He was living in a basement flat in Maida Vale,” remembers Briggs, “I went round there and he immediately started playing me music he loved. He jumped from Nat ‘King’ Cole to Neil Young to Dr. Dre, a fantastically varied range of styles, so right away I realised that he didn’t think in genres. He just thinks about what he loves. “He showed me an exercise book crammed full of lyrics. I opened it up and starting reading a couple and they were like ready-made songs." It transpired that much of Williams’ dissatisfaction in Take That had stemmed from the impossibility of having his musical ideas taken seriously in a band whose fortunes rested so solidly on Gary Barlow’s songwriting gifts. When Take That split in February 1996, Williams was free to start his own recording career but there were other problems that would surface from time to time throughout his solo career. In the first few months of his relationship with EMI, he spent time in rehab, recovering from addiction problems. “It’s on the record that he went into rehab,” acknowledges Briggs, “and that he had to be given permission to come out to make the video for Lazy Days.” There was debate within EMI about whether he had been a wise signing, but Briggs had already seen encouraging signs of his potential as a songwriter. “He had disappeared that Christmas,” reveals Briggs. “He was not happy. He’d fallen out with his girlfriend and just needed to get away. He called me from Dublin one night, quite drunk, and over the phone he sang me what he was then calling Angels Instead. The line that became the chorus hook was in there, but it was the middle eight.” Their spectacularly felicitous collaboration went on to spawn five number one albums, with Guy Chambers co-writing some of Williams’ signature smashes, including Rock DJ, Feel, Millennium, Let Me Entertain You, Angels, Supreme, No Regrets and Eternity. “From a retail perspective, he’s been one of our most significant artists in terms of sales during the past 15 years,” observes HMV head of music Rudy Osorio. “Many of us occasionally forget just how many fantastic albums Robbie has delivered since he embarked on his solo career – generating tens of millions in revenue for our industry – here in the UK and internationally." But back in 1996 it was not quite so clear cut. His first single was a cover of George Michael’s Freedom, chosen because it represented what he was going through. “Robbie didn’t care for it,” admits Briggs, “because it wasn’t one of his own songs.” Although Freedom provided that essential first solo hit, the next two singles were clunkers. Despite Briggs’ certainty that Angels was the biggest hit on the album, it had been held back. Tony Wadsworth, who had just taken over as chairman and CEO of EMI, explains why. “Robbie still wasn’t in the healthiest of states, as far as things like having the stamina to take on America.” Angels, finally released in December 1997, turned everything around, provided him his first Brit, going on to be voted the best song of the past 25 years by the British public and creating the foundation on which his multi-platinum career has been built. But even the success of Angels was tinged with emotional distress for Williams. “It pees me off,” he declared later, “because everyone thinks Guy penned Let Me Entertain You and Angels, but they’re my songs.” Chambers is the first to concede that, for all his own invaluable input to the process, Williams is a remarkably driven songwriter. “He’s very intense about his songwriting,” he says. “We would write constantly, on tour buses, in TV stations, wherever the inspiration came to him. Me And My Monkey on Escapology, for example, was written literally five minutes before we went on stage in Taiwan. He’ll go through a whole pack of cigarettes before we finish a song.” There is no denying that Williams works on instinct and that often, these instincts can set him on a collision course with those around him. For example, just after signing his massive new deal with EMI in 2002, he blithely stated that he had no intention of cracking the US; he announced onstage in France that he and Guy were gay lovers; and who can forget him inviting Liam Gallagher to join him in a boxing ring? “It’s his unpredictability that makes him so exciting,” laughs Wadsworth. “He’s an extraordinarily charismatic star but he also knows it’s all an illusion. He sees it for what it is. Besides, he’s still young and I believe he can still make it in America. Of course, he’d have to want to.” “There’s no denying that Rob is sensitive to criticism, and he is very ambitious,” reckons Briggs. “I think Rudebox underperforming definitely knocked him back a bit, so he’s genuinely very chuffed that Reality Killed The Video Star has been so well-received. And I think that goes back to the first thing I realised about him, which is that it’s all intuitive. It’s about his personal taste. If he’s not into a song he can’t do it with any conviction. As with most artists, he’s really pleasing himself first and foremost, and that’s when he’s at his best.” http://www.musicweek.com/story.asp?section...1040153&c=2 Thanks to Gata at TRWS
February 23, 201015 yr Author A closer look at the statistics, however, suggests that Williams was suffering from Jacko syndrome; a curious affliction whose symptoms can make a conspicuously successful artist look like an abject failure if he does not maintain his own previously huge levels of success. Robbie has sold more concert tickets in a single day (1.6m, for his 2006 world tour), won more Brit Awards (15) and sold more albums in the UK than any other British solo performer. Jacko Syndrome, however, means that Rudebox was rated a flop despite having debuted at number one in the UK albums chart, having become Europe’s fastest platinum-selling album of 2006 and having reached number one in 14 countries. It was a flop for being only the 18th best-selling album worldwide. That is the kind of failure most artists would give their eye teeth for. Since then, of course, he has released another album, the Trevor Horn-produced Reality Killed The Video Star which, EMI UK Ireland president Andria Vidler points out, “is well on the way to being triple-platinum within a couple of months of release and has already sold more than 1.3m albums overseas.” I love this part. Finally some bloody facts regarding Rudebox being printed by such a credible source like Music Week. I loved the whole article - such a well written piece. :dance:
