Monday, November 18, 2013 1:00

 

Singer Robbie Williams swing puts his new album and laughs at himself

 

http://i41.tinypic.com/dom70z.jpg

 

 

Today marks the release for sale "Swings Both Ways". On the album the singer shows how fatherhood changed him and jokes about his addiction to food and pop star idea.

 

Just one year after his last album, "Take The Crown", Robbie Williams is back with the release of "Swings Both Ways", which on Monday reached record stores. In an interview with DPA in Berlin, the 39 year old singer talked about his return to the swing, its propensity to addictions and daughter Teddy.

 

-In his single "Go Gentle", dedicated to his daughter that Teddy, confesses his desire to protect her from the wrong men. Already have fear that reaches adolescence and have your first boyfriend?

 

-No, not really. Perhaps I fall into an illusion, but I will choose well. I assume that is smart and will do well alone. If one spends time and love to someone, and that someone feel loved, make good choices. Adolescence and the beginning of the 20 are a minefield, but they are also very fun years, liberating and exciting. I just hope it does not inherit my propensity to addictions. But that may also provide fun, some other night.

 

-Instead of wild partying, now leads a family life without interference. It has even stopped smoking. Would you is still a pleasure to fight?

 

-The food. And that will not change. With drugs is very easy: simply abandoned. But the food is different. One has to eat, and plenty of food rich. As you may know, I am prone to addictions. And always be a hardcore chocolate.

 

-One of the songs from his new album is titled "No One Likes A Fat Popstar" (nobody likes a fat pop star). Is that why you have lost a couple of kilos?

 

-No, but I was on tour this summer. In the 90s, when you got off stage, it was normal to say: "It's all good, Let us streaks!" Today questions "Where are the treats?" At the end of the tour, someone in England compared me to Elvis. Elvis before he died. And I thought, "I have to leave immediately to eat." Since then care much food, but it is extremely difficult and so boring.

 

-There is much anticipation of his new album, do you feel especially pressured?

 

-Yes, I want to make it a success. But that's completely normal. In the entertainment business is very competitive, no one wants to be second or third. And for heaven's sake, I do not want to be the fourth.

 

-In 2001 he released his first swing album "Swing When You're Winning". Why now returns to this style?

 

'Last year I published "Take the Crown" and could not throw as fast again another pop album. But I wanted to keep working. I always knew I would return to the swing, and now is the right time.

 

- Will you go on tour with this new job?

 

-Yes, the other night and I was thinking a bit on what could be the program. It will be very entertaining and I'm glad not to have to sing "Angels".

 

 

 

http://www.lacapital.com.ar/escenario/El-c...31118-0004.html

Robbie Williams, Jake Bugg, JLS Competing For 1000th UK Number 1 Album

 

Lady Gaga bagged the country's 999th chart-topper last week

 

 

Robbie Williams, JLS and Jake Bugg are in line to score the nation's milestone 1000th UK Number One album next weekend.

 

Lady Gaga's ARTPOP won the honour yesterday of being crowned the 999th chart-topper since the very first tally in 1956, and now - looking ahead to next week - it looks like Bugg's new set Shangri La could be next in line.

 

The album is currently ahead of the pack on the UK iTunes rankings, which usually give a fairly decent indication of what to expect from the Official Charts on the subsequent Sunday. Shangri La, which comes just one year after Bugg's eponymous debut, is trailing behind only the new Now That's What I Call Music! compilation, which is not eligible to chart.

 

Will Jake Bugg or Robbie Williams score the 1000th No1

 

Williams has released his Swings Both Ways LP this week, and that album could give Bugg a serious run for his money. JLS' Greatest Hits package, however, looks set to fall far short.

 

“This is a hugely significant landmark in the history of the music industry,” Official Charts Company chief executive Martin Talbot said. “While the Official Singles Chart is the fast-moving, barometer of pop music tastes, the Official Albums Chart reflects the broader tastes of British music fans and their attachment to outstanding song collections.

 

 

 

JLS and Gabrielle have released retrospective packages (Packshots)

 

“The list of albums which have topped the albums chart over the years underlines just how important it is, including iconic titles such as The Beatles’ Sgt Pepper… and Revolver, The Stones’ Exile On Main Street, David Bowie’s Aladdin Sane, Led Zepplin IV, Queen’s A Night At The Opera, Michael Jackson’s Thriller – right up to Amy Winehouse’s Back To Black, Adele’s 21 and Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories.”

 

The 900th No1 album was Oasis' Time Flies in 2010, while Norah Jones' Not Too Late was the 800th back in 2007.

 

The very first chart-topper, back in July 1956, was Frank Sinatra's Songs For Swingin' Lovers.

 

 

 

 

Read more at http://www.entertainmentwise.com

:heehee:

 

 

 

Robbie makes me laugh .... he casually mentions on the Graham Norton show that he has had a Hair transplant

 

 

Thin when your winning! Robbie Williams secret hair transplant, can you tell the difference?

 

 

 

http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news...nsplant-2837666

 

 

 

 

From

 

http://www.rte.ie/ten/news/2013/1122/48850...-allen-no-show/

 

 

Robbie Williams feared Lily Allen no-show

 

Friday 22 Nov 2013

 

Robbie Williams didn't think Lily Allen was serious about featuring on his swing album

 

Candy singer Robbie Williams thought that Lily Allen was going to back out of their duet on his new album Swings Both Ways.

 

The 39-year-old former Take That star admitted that he thought Lily wasn't serious about teaming up with him to sing the 1931 classic Dream A Little Dream.

 

Speaking to his biographer Chris Heath on Facebook, Robbie said: ''Lily thought that Guy was the piano player for the Groucho club and she said: Do you know Dream A Little Dream? He played it, she sang it and he said ' I work with Robbie, do you want to come into the studio and sing It with him?' She said yes - then you'd think that maybe she'd wake up the next day and go, 'Oh did I say yes? I meant no,' but she didn't. She came in and sang it with me.''

 

He added: ''She opened her mouth and the moment the first note came out it was a beguiling sound and I don't know, I sort of took a sigh out when she started singing. It was beautiful. She's got a great voice.''

 

Olly Murs also collaborates with Robbie on his album for I Wanna Be Like You, and Robbie revealed that the pair became close when Murs supported him on his Take The Crown stadium tour earlier this year.

 

He further pitched in: ''I had a bond with Olly right from the beginning because I recognized a lot of me in him. He's a showman, there's not many around in the industry and he's very likeable and he sings really well too.''

Robbie Williams: 'My brain turned into Swiss cheese'

 

By DAVE ROBERTS

 

Robbie Williams’ Swing When You’re Winning is his best-selling album to date. Now, nearly 13 years since its release, he’s revisiting the smoothness and style of the Rat Pack generation with new LP Swings Both Ways.

 

Released this week, currently leading the charge in the Official Midweek Sales Chart, and featuring major league collaborators such as Lily Allen, Michael Bublé and Rufus Wainwright, it marks the latest entry in a prolific period for Williams that started with 2009’s Reality Killed The Video Star, followed by 2010’s Greatest Hits package and the same year’s reformation with his Take That bandmates for the record-breaking Progress project.

 

Last year saw him release his first solo album with Universal, Take The Crown, which stormed to No.1 – making it his tenth LP to hit the UK top Spot - whilst lead single Candy became his first No.1 single in nine years. Such a flurry of creative activity is in marked contrast to the period after 2006’s Rudebox, during which Robbie, in his own words, “sat on the sofa, ate crisps, watched reality TV shows and seized up, basically”.

 

Featuring both covers and original material, Williams debuted material from Swings both Ways last Friday (November 8) at a filmed gig live at the Palladium in London.

 

When, where and how did you first hear that swing/big band sound?

 

Well it’s always been around, on TV. There used to be these glorious films that used to be on Saturday mornings, like South Pacific or Guys and Dolls, and I used to find them fascinating. Great bit of fantasy and escape.

Then when I was three, Dad left, and he left a load of records, and they were Sarah Vaughn, Ella Fitzgerald, Mel Torme, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Sammy Davis Jr, etc. So that was my library and on many a cold, dark winter afternoon I would sit there and learn these tomes, learn these words.

My father held these people in such high regard that they weren’t mortal, they were Gods, so the whole thing had me enchanted from the moment I can remember remembering.

 

How important was your Dad’s influence generally?

 

 

Like I say, Dad considered these people to be Gods. He was completely enraptured with the music and the artists of the time. He sent a dollar bill to Frank Sinatra to sign and Frank signed it and sent it back. From then on, whichever flat my Dad was in, and there were many, that Sinatra dollar bill took pride of place. So yeah, it rubbed off.

 

In another era, would you have been happy to be a big band singer or would that not have satisfied you creatively?

I honestly don’t know, it’s hard to put myself back in time. I’m just lucky that I’ve been given the opportunity to create. I don’t think everybody was given the opportunity back then, it was very set out: these are the songwriters, this is the band, you’re the voice. It wasn’t until The Beatles came around and changed all of that.

 

What prompted you to revisit the genre 12 years after Swing When You’re Winning?

 

 

I took three years off, a sort of enforced sabbatical, and my brain turned into swiss cheese; I sat on

the sofa, ate crisps, watched reality TV shows and seized up, basically.

I’d signed the biggest deal that had ever been signed [Williams’ ‘360’ deal with EMI in 2002 that saw him given a huge advance] and I made all this cash and I was just like, Who am I? What am I? And it’s also a tough world out here, in the media, and scary at times, especially when you’re not sure who you are or what you do. But after three years of getting fat I decided it was important that I went back to work and ever since then I’ve really enjoyed it. I’m having a good time. I did Reality Killed the Video Star, I did the second Greatest Hits, I did Progress with Take That, I did Take The Crown and I just wanted to keep going.

I can’t release another straight up pop record, because I’ve just done it - it would be boring for me and boring for the record buying public. And I had a good time swinging, I knew I would return to it, I always thought it would be my pension, and seeing as I’m nearly 40, it’s time to get the pension. Pop stars should start to receive their pension at 40. Dancers get theirs at 35.

 

Bearing in mind that …Winning is still your biggest selling album, did the record company push you in this direction as well? Or have they learned not to try and tell you what to do?

 

 

Well I’ve got pretty middle of the road tastes. I’m a commercial person. I want my records to do well. Even with RudeBox I thought it was a commercial record. I’m trying to do the best for a big career, they’re trying to do the best for my career and their bonuses, so there isn’t a lot of grumblings, rumblings or arguments.

 

In one sense there is less pressure on a Swing record, because, unlike Take The Crown, it’s not your marker in the pop world, to be measured against all the young pretenders, but in another sense, the pressure’s on, because we already know these songs are good - it’s all about your voice…

In the studio I can cobble together an appropriate version of a voice, it’s live that’s the terrifying aspect. Over the years I have conjured up an entertainer to bypass the fact that I haven’t got the strongest of voices, or at least that’s what I think. Also, to some extent at my pop shows, people are drunk, and they want to shout, and they want to scream, and they’re there for the vibe, and they want to sing along with you. At these swing gigs, they just wanna listen. And it’s terrifying [laughs].

 

Now, having said it’s not in direct competition with anyone, it is out a week before Gary Barlow’s album. How gutted would you be if you don’t sell more than him?

 

 

I really hope we both do well. In the UK, I want him to sell a million and me to sell a million and one. But, that being said, if that doesn’t come to pass, I’m still Robbie Williams. I’ve still done… this. There’s still a pedigree. All is well. Plus, Gaz has had it rough, a lot rougher than I had, and if he does do better than me, then good for him.

 

Which is indicative of a much nicer atmosphere than when you two first had competing albums out at the same time…

 

 

Yeah, it’s a very friendly, competitive rivalry, but it is a rivalry. I don’t want anyone to do better than me, let alone someone I know really well. In fact I think the only person in the world who I’d want to sell more albums than me would be my daughter, apart from that everyone else can f*** off.

 

And even then you’d probably still be grumpy for bit, right?

 

Yeah, I would, there’d be no pocket money for a week or two.

 

Let’s talk about the covers on the album and how they were selected. Is that down to you? Or is there a team involved?

 

 

No, they’re my choice. I wanted ‘personality’ songs, with an eye on live. Big songs that need a big person to front them. Minnie the Moocher, Putting on The Ritz, I Wanna Be Like You. They are three solid songs that will serve me well on stage.

And it was going to be a straight up cover version album, like last time, but then I had all these songs that were never going to find a home unless they were attached to this kind of project.

 

Important question, especially given that you’re going to have to do it live: can you sing Putting on The Ritz without thinking of the Young Frankenstein clip?

 

 

That’s where I first learned the song. It’s very, very difficult to separate the two, and I’m sure that one evening out on the road I will go [sings] ‘…why don’t you go where Harlem sits [does pretty damn good impression of the monster’s version of the song’s key line in Mel Brooks’ classic film]’.

 

What about the collaborators for the album, how do they get chosen?

 

 

I sit down and rack my brains to think up who I’d like to work with. And when I run out of ideas,

I draft in my wife, or my work wife, Josie. We’ll sit and collab about the collabs. This time round

the only person I wanted that couldn’t do it was Hugh Jackman, and I really wanted him on

this record, but maybe in the future we’ll do something. Apart from that I was lucky enough to get everyone I wanted.

 

How do you feel about putting your own compositions in amongst these standards? Is that quite nerve-wracking?

 

 

I’ve never thought of it. Maybe there’s a delusional aspect to that, or a narcissistic aspect, or a touch of both. But I’m very confident about the quality of what we’ve written, especially with Guy Chambers back on board. During the period we worked together before, the songs we wrote became part of the fabric of people’s lives, so if we can recapture a bit of that magic, which I’m sure we have, then we’ll be fine. I’m not worried about our stuff standing up next to these Amercian standards.

 

Since your reconciliation, you’ve done the odd thing with Guy Chambers, but this is your first sustained period of working together. How was the process this time around?

 

 

I can remember Guy sitting at the piano in my studio in Los Angeles and there was eighteen-and-a-half minutes of ‘Er….’ And eighteen-and-a-half minutes of nothing is a long time. Guy would go ‘Da-da-da’, and I’d go, No, not that. And he’d go ‘Da-da-dum’, and I’d go, No, not that. By the fourth one I’m thinking, This is a nightmare, this is going completely the wrong way. Oh no. And then bang, Go Gentle happens and… big sigh of relief. From then on in it was easy. We’ve got good chemistry, who knew?

 

The last time we spoke to you was just before the huge Take The Crown tour. You have famously not enjoyed previous tours that the rest of the world have perceived as amazingly successful, how did you find it this time round?

 

 

In 2006, when I’d done a world tour and ran myself into the ground… I did a lot of damage to my psyche on that tour; I lost my confidence, and it has taken years to get it back.

During that time, I was convinced I couldn’t do it anymore, the spark had gone, the secret ingredient to being a pop star had deserted me. All of this was very true in my head. And that was sad, because I’d sort of come to rely on it. It meant a great deal to me and a great deal to other people - and without it, what am I? So off I went into my wilderness years, lack of confidence etc.

And then bit by bit… the Take That shows really helped… I clawed back my Smug Gitness.

It’s back to 100% now. It’s incredible, the power of the mind, because the only difference was choosing not to be scared. Because you can... indulge stuff. And I’d become addicted to indulging the fact

that I wasn’t very good anymore. And then one day I decided I wasn’t going to do that. I was going to be great instead.

 

And that’s possible, is it? To decide not to be scared?

 

 

[Joyously] Yeah! It was as simple as that. And by the time we got to Dublin I was sure we had an amazing show, I was on good form, and if the audience wasn’t going to have a good time, it wouldn’t be my fault. Because of who I am and what I do and the act that I’ve got, I kind of have to attack it with that kind of arrogance. Anyway we got to Dublin and the wife said, Just hold the possibility you might enjoy it. I said, It’ll never happen; I’ll enjoy bits, but it’ll be so overwhelming, so stressful, I’ll get no sleep and I was worried I’ll go mad again. As it happens, I went on stage and was greeted with so much love…

 

Was it the first solo tour you’ve ever enjoyed?

 

 

Fully, yeah.

 

Let’s talk about some of the specific songs. Go Gentle is obviously about your daughter, Theodora Rose. Is that the first you’ve written for her - and what’s the message in it?

 

 

It is the first one, yes, but not the last. And the message is kind of bittersweet in the verses, but then a promise of commitment in the chorus. I’m saying it’s not all plain sailing: ‘Welcome to the zoo, bitter disappointments except for one or two.’ But I’m going to shield her from those people as best I can. I’ve had a lot of experience dealing with snakes and ne’er do wells and I can put my arm round her and lead her in a different direction.

 

How has fatherhood changed you?

 

 

[Thinks for some time] There’s not a lot of great adverts for parenthood. And there’s not a lot of great adverts for marriage either, so I’ve always been terrified of both of those things. I come from a broken home, many many people do. And people that don’t come from broken homes tend to be parented by angry people. So it’s always been way, way down on my to do list. What I never knew was how much you get back.

Being a parent always looked to me like a lack of sleep miserable nightmare. What I didn’t understand is that the universe loves you back. My song [Feel], cliched and cheesy as it is, says ‘I just wanna feel real love in the home that I live in’: I’ve got it now. I’ve felt a love that I’ve never felt before and I get to experience the true range of being human. It’s a penny-drop moment: Ah, before there was no reason, and now there is, I get it. I’m a better person for her being here, I look after myself, because she deserves that. And I’m happy, I’m content, and that comes from the wife and my baby girl. They’re all I need. Plus a chef.

 

You duet with Michael Bublé on Soda Pop. How important was it to get him on this record?

 

 

I’m in his lane and I’m doffing my cap to him. He’s the real deal when it comes to this stuff. I’m a fanboy and I get giddy thinking about him. I admire him a lot because he’s a pro’s pro. He’s really good at everything he does. He’s got one of the voices of our generation, he’s good looking, he’s a great mover and he’s a fantastic entertainer. And we think the same way, which is nice, because it makes me feel less mad.

 

In the title track, Swings Both Ways, which you perform with Rufus Wainwright III, who are you teasing with those lyrics?

 

 

When I was 16 and introduced to the gay world, via my manager [Nigel Martin-Smith] at the time, who had us going to gay clubs, I learned very quickly that a lot of gay people consider everybody to be gay. I was definitely gay according to a lot of gay people, and a lot of non gay people. That’s where the song started [sings] Everybody swiiiiiings, both ways… It’s kind of not me singing it, it’s my manager singing it to me, mixed with a lot of other characters.

 

Lily Allen is on Dream a Little Dream and has said she was nervous about singing it. Did she seem nervous on the day?

 

 

I think she was nervous, yes, but then so was I. I’m always nervous when I’m the host of the party, because I have to think of things to say, and sometimes I just fill space with stuff that gets me into trouble and people look at me and go, God, you’re weird, and I go, Yeah, you’ve noticed. And also Lily’s so arch and smart, and I’m just a duffer from up North, so I was a bit intimidated in her company, but she was lovely and the moment she opened her mouth and that first note came in, there was a release in my heart, because it was so lovely.

 

No One Likes a Fat Pop Star is a funny track, but also pretty interesting with tales of more or less starvation, and a lot of pressure, does that happen? Did it happen to you?

 

 

I have probably lost and gained weight during the course of this interview. That’s what I do. I have

the potential to be excessive generally, and I’m running out of options, because I can’t do coke, I can’t do ecstasy, I can’t drink, I can’t gamble, I can’t be loose sexually… you see where I’m heading with this? There’s me and a pantry: go. That’s all I’ve got without getting a divorce, or ruining my career or ending up in rehab.

 

In the early days though, would you and the boys be told by your management or label, Put the chocolate bar down…

 

 

When I was 16 I was told by our then manager to lose two stone. And I was in alright shape. There is a visual element to the medium and it matters, unfortunately, that’s why it’s such an arse. Because I’ve got one foot in Sport Billy land, where I’m an athlete, but I’ve got a foot-and-a-half in the land of lethargy and potatoes.

 

What’s next for you?

 

 

I’m thinking about what I’m going to do in the year that has to be fallow, which is next year. I’d put another album out straight away if I could, but it’s best for me, and my career, and the world at large, if they don’t see me for a bit. Having said that, there are a few things in the pipeline, they may or may not be musical, may or may not be a TV show, may or may not be a film. But I’ve got to so something, because I don’t want the brain turning into swiss cheese again.

 

Will you always go back to the swing genre do you think?

 

 

It depends what people want from me, but yeah.

If this is a success then I’ll return to swing at some stage. If it’s not a success then I’ll try and ruin country too.

 

 

Musicweek.com

Official Charts ‏@officialcharts 49m

.@robbiewilliams'#IveBeenExpectingYou was the UK's 600th #Number1 album. He could also be on track for the 1000th: http://goo.gl/ih6XOF

 

 

Official Charts ‏@officialcharts 1h

Although @robbiewilliams could match @ElvisPresley's chart record of 11 #Number1 albums. Find out later this evening: http://goo.gl/ih6XOF.

Robbie Williams's Swings Both Ways is 1,000th UK No 1 album

Singer's 10th solo LP sells 109,000 copies in first week to beat Jake Bugg and Eminem, and knock Lady Gaga off top spot

 

23/11/13

 

Robbie Williams, whose Swings Both Ways has become the 1,000th UK No 1 album, performing on Italian TV on Saturday.

 

 

Britain's albums chart is still swinging. It was back in 1956 that Frank Sinatra's Songs For Swingin' Lovers! became the first UK No 1 album. Now Robbie Williams's Swings Both Ways has become the 1,000th.

 

With sales of 109,000 copies in its first week, it trounced competition from Jake Bugg's second album Shangri La and the farewell greatest hits collection of talent show boyband JLS. He knocked Lady Gaga's Artpop from the summit and beat the next most popular release, Eminem's The Marshall Mathers LP 2, by 67,000 copies.

 

Pop critics have described Williams's 10th album, which revives Cab Calloway and Irving Berlin classics written more than 80 years, as swinging so much "you can almost smell the brillantine" and the work of "a karaoke kind of crooner". The Observer's chief pop critic, Kitty Empire, said it "inaugurates the present-buying season and, with it, the annual leave-taking of taste".

 

But its soaring sales means the former Take That member has now equalled Elvis Presley's 11 No 1 albums. On Sunday night he declared himself honoured to be "following Frank Sinatra who was the first person in that spot and my hero".

 

The accolade came just a few hours after the Labour leader, Ed Miliband, selected Angels, Williams's bestselling 1997 ballad, among his Desert Island Discs on Radio 4 along with Edith Piaf's Je Ne Regrette Rien. Angels has become a favourite funeral song, but Miliband said he heard Williams play it live in 2008 when he was falling in love with his wife, Justine Thornton.

 

Swings Both Ways marks Williams's return to the Sinatra-like sound of Swing When You're Winning, his 2001 No 1 album, which sold 2.3 million units in the UK alone.

 

Promoting the release last week in a Rat Pack-style tuxedo on The Graham Norton Show on BBC1, the Stoke-born 39-year old, who now lives in California, admitted that one of the effects of his millionaire lifestyle in Los Angeles had been that he wanted a hair transplant even though he didn't need one. He added he was moving back to the UK so his 13-month old daughter would grow up understanding irony.

 

While the singles chart often grabs the headlines - this week Lily Allen's Somewhere Only We Know takes the top slot - artists see the album rankings differently, according to Martin Talbot, who runs the Official Charts Company.

 

"Across the years, success in the singles chart has always been a sign that you have 'arrived'", he said. "But success in the albums chart was a sign that you could make a proper living from being a pop/rock star. To labels and managers, the albums chart has always been more important in that way - the single was viewed as a promotional necessity, with album sales being the end goal."

 

Since it was first compiled and published in Record Mirror, there have been almost 3,000 album charts. Over that period, The Beatles have scored a record 15 No 1 albums, with Madonna (12) and Elvis Presley and now Robbie Williams (both 11) in second and third place respectively. The Fabs have also spent the longest time at the summit, notching up 174 weeks compared with Elvis (63) and Abba (57). Despite their dominance, the only Beatle to have ever scored a No 1 solo album is George Harrison, with 1970's All Things Must Pass. John Lennon and Paul McCartney are with Stevie Wonder and the Beach Boys as artists never to have reached the top of the UK albums charts.

 

Bob Stanley, the author of Yeah Yeah Yeah: the Story of Modern Pop, believes the albums chart can sometimes paint a more realistic picture of the national mood than the singles: "If you look at 1980, for example, there was a string of albums – Gary Numan's Telekon, Peter Gabriel's [eponymous] third album, Kate Bush's Never for Ever – that were all quite bleak. This is when the Tories were busy wrecking the country, and it does feel like they were more reflective of the national mood than the singles chart, which remained relatively perky."

 

Talbot agrees and says that the album charts provide "a really fascinating reflection of the tastes of British music fans – albeit, perhaps, less pop orientated and more focussed on song collections." He points out that soundtracks dominated throughout the 1950s, with South Pacific holding the top spot for the entirety of 1959. The album chart crown is passed along much quicker now. There were only 56 number one albums throughout the whole of the 1960s, whereas by the 2000s that number had increased to 269. Elvis Presley became the 1,000th artist to have a UK No 1 single back in 2005 when One Night reached the top spot for the second time, the first being when it was originally released with I Got Stung back in January 1959.

 

 

The Guradian.uk

he is such an icon and music force. sad to see him at #2 in ireland, but #1 in germany, austria and switzerland should come in soo.

What's the No1 album in Oirland?

 

Is it Wee Daniel?? :w00t: :w00t: :w00t: :w00t:

From

 

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/entertai...n-29781039.html

 

 

 

Barlow: I want Williams for reunion

 

 

http://cdn1.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/entertainment/music/news/article29781038.ece/ALTERNATES/h342/PANews%20BT_02f25488-08b4-40c7-9252-3f5316606fd0_I1.jpg

 

 

Gary Barlow revealed Robbie Williams may rejoin Take That to record their new album.

25 NOVEMBER 2013

 

Robbie Williams may rejoin Take That to record their new album next year, Gary Barlow has revealed.

 

 

The former front man and X Factor judge told Jonathan Ross it was his "dream" to reunite all five members of the band.

 

He claimed he was in touch with Williams "all the time, nearly every day" and that the band would sit down in January to decide whether he would record with them.

 

He said: "I'm hoping for five. I mean, it's usually diaries and stuff, but I'm hoping to have Rob with us.

 

"Rob's a big emailer. He loves emailing, block capitals. I hear from him a lot. He's a dad. He's in London at the moment, promoting his new record. He's in a great place.

 

"I always say to people, that Rob I didn't know for 10 years. I didn't know him because I was just reading things through the press. But I know a really good Rob right now. So I've got a good end of the deal.

 

"For us, that's always the dream, to have five."

 

Williams helped with the band's sixth studio album, Progress, in 2010 - the first time he sang with them since being asked to leave in 1995.

 

Barlow, 42, also recalled recording his duet with Williams's friend Elton John for his upcoming solo album Since I Saw You Last.

 

He said: "It was so sweet to see him reach in his bag and pull out his iPad and start showing us all pictures of the kids, and he was so proud."

 

"It just goes to show, no matter who it is, kids change people. And he was besotted by his children. It's beautiful."

 

The singer recently played a gig for troops in Camp Bastion in Helmand, Afghanistan, saying he "didn't feel endanger at all" - even after the first half was cancelled by a sandstorm and a security alert.

 

He told Ross: "Once I was there I felt completely safe, and the morale on the camp is amazing. The gig was incredible."

Robbie & Ayda at the RVP last night in London

 

 

 

 

 

http://i44.tinypic.com/2d7de3a.jpg

 

 

 

Some further pics in the link

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/artic...s-Jessie-J.html

And guess what's the new single!

 

http://www.robbiewilliams.com/news-blogs/d...d-15th-december

 

15 december release date!

 

Ι love "Dream a little dream" :cheer:

That video looks really funny. A good choice for a Christmas single although I'm guessing X Factor single will be released that week too?

 

But where is Lily? :unsure:

From

 

http://www.express.co.uk/news/showbiz/4458...ast-drug-demons

 

 

Robbie Williams smokes weed despite past drug demons

 

ROBBIE WILLIAMS still smokes marijuana, despite his past battles with drug addiction.

 

Published: Fri, November 29, 2013

 

 

The Angels hitmaker has checked into rehab on several occasions to tackle alcoholism and substance abuse issues, but turned his life around after moving to Los Angeles and meeting his wife, Ayda Field, whom he married in 2010.

 

Williams even quit his 60-a-day cigarette habit, but has now revealed he still smokes marijuana on rare occasions.

 

However, the pop star insists he is careful not to lose control due to his responsibility to his young daughter, Theodora.

 

He tells the Daily Mirror, "The last time I got high was two days ago. Since the birth of Theo I've become less reckless.

 

"I last drank 13 years ago, the last time I got high was two days ago. No big drug sessions, mind, just a small amount, purely to relax.

 

"I'm allowed to go crazy once in a while, just as long as I don't lose control. I have to be there to take care of my daughter, right? That is the good thing - by putting responsibility on my shoulders she is also taking care of me."

 

-_-

Robbie Williams on his sexuality: 'I am 49 per cent homosexual'

 

HE RECENTLY admitted that he is a straight man pretending to be gay, and now Robbie Williams has revealed that he believes he is "49 per cent gay."

 

By: Kelby McNally

Published: Thu, November 28, 2013

 

 

 

The former Take That star, who has also previously revealed that he wished he'd had a fling with a man in his youth, has claimed that he identifies with gay men and would love to go into musical theatre.

 

"I would really like to have a crack at it," he told the Daily Star.

 

"I love musical theatre and a lot of other things that are often associated with gays.

 

 

"I am 49 per cent homosexual and sometimes as far as 50 per cent. However, that would imply that I enjoy having a particular sort of fun, which i don't."

 

The Candy Man singer also revealed that he would be interested in developing a stage production about his life and career, but would have to play the lead himself.

 

''I don't know who they could get to play me in the musical, so it would have to be me," he said.

 

"If anyone has ideas I am up for writing new songs. But when I say anyone, I actually mean directors of massive films.''

 

 

 

Robbie recently described himself as a straight man pretending to be gay.

 

Speaking to Australia's Sydney Telegraph, he said: "There is a history of gay people pretending to be straight.

 

"I want to balance the sides. I'm a straight person pretending to be gay. I've had a lot of people to imitate. It's easy when you're British, we're camp by nature anyway."

 

:rolleyes:

We're not encouraging people to pay for music', says Robbie manager

 

Tim Ingham by Tim Ingham

 

 

'We're not encouraging people to pay for music', says Robbie manager

 

The industry’s leading streaming platforms are too expensive for a potentially huge and valuable demographic, according to Tim Clark, co-founder of IE Music and manager of Robbie Williams.

 

The likes of Spotify and Deezer currently charge customers around £10 per month for a full subscription, which includes the ability to stream and play ad-free music offline on their mobile devices.

 

Both platforms also heavily promote a cost-free tier, which allows consumers to listen to music on a desktop device for nothing, so long as they’re willing to put up with advertising.

 

“I wonder whether cheaper streaming subscription [services] might not encourage people to pay for music,” Clark told Music Week. “I’m nervous about streaming services that allow people to think that music is free. It’s a problem.”

 

Clark is an adviser to Bloom.fm, the streaming platform which charges consumers just £1 per month to access ad-free and offline music, but via a limited 20-track ‘wallet’ on their phones. Bloom users can then upgrade to a £5 model, which allows them to cache more songs in their ‘wallet’, or a £10 tier which is unlimited.

 

“£5 a month is a lot of money for most people,” said Clark. “People are fond of saying to me: if you do a £1 a month a subscription it’s just a dive to the bottom. Well, hang on folks, we’re already at the bottom: if statistics are to be believed, 70%-plus of all music is downloaded illegally for free.

 

"How do we climb out? Frankly, it’s by making a great service available at a price that people will find attractive. If you get them at that price, you an always upsell – Rupert Murdoch has worked that model brilliantly.”

 

Bloom.fm is currently licensed by Sony, Universal, Beggars Group and [PIAS], but not by Warner Music. The major is understood to be unconvinced by the value of the £1-per-month model.

 

Clark said: “The argument you hear is that we will lose the people that are prepared to pay £10 [if you stagger streaming prices like Bloom]. Well, we won’t. Fans - real fans - want everything an artist produces. To that extent, we’re really two industries: we’re a low volume, high margin business, which gives the industry its bedrock. But we’re also a high, volume/low margin business.

 

“It seems to me we’re avoiding the high volume/low margin at the expense of our industry. We should be going hell for leather for the high volume/low margin consumer. I can’t understand why people are ignoring the vast numbers of people that probably only ever bought a couple of CDs a year.

 

“Right now, they’re listening to streaming services and not paying anything at all. We’re not encouraging people to pay for music. You need to start somewhere. Anything less than a pound is absurd.“

 

Clark also hit out at those labels and publishers who require large advances from digital music companies before agreeing to license their catalogue.

 

“We have not been encouraging digital start-ups,” he said. “The industry - not just labels but publishers too – have been grabbing as much money as they possibly can, and of course taking equity in these companies… often at the expense of the [start-ups] being able to spend anything on marketing.

 

“It’s just wrong. We shouldn’t be looking to extract vast sums of upfront money at the expense of these start-ups’ health or their ability to expand. We should be actively encouraging them.

 

“It makes my blood boil when we hear the BPI say there’s so many digital companies out there now [licensed by music rights-holders] – it’s just not true. Most of them are defunct for the very reason I’ve stated: they’ve been asked for too much money and too much equity up front, and it cripples them.”

 

Tim Clark founded IE Music with David Enthoven. It represents acts and writers such as Robbie Williams, Passenger and Sia.

 

Read the latest edition of Music Week for a full interview with Tim Clark on why he believes artists should hold onto as many of their rights as possible, and then handpick outside companies for services such as marketing, promotion and distribution.

 

 

Musicweek.com

From

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/enterta...ow/26799823.cms

 

 

Robbie Williams buys Michael Winner's house

 

 

Singer Robbie Williams has bought late filmmaker Michael Winner's plush London pad for USD 17.5 million.

 

The 'Candy' hitmaker reportedly snapped up the late film director's grade II listed Woodland House in Holland Park, west London, in order to give his daughter Theodora 'Teddy' Rose a quintessentially English home, reported Contactmusic.

 

The 39-year-old star and his wife Ayda Field have been searching for a London pad for over a year while living in Los Angeles.

 

The plush abode is fitted with a cinema room, swimming pool, and its own editing suite.

 

According to reports, flamboyant filmmaker Winner, who died at the house earlier this year aged 77, once complained there were more than 3,400 electric bulbs in the spacious property. :blink:

 

Andrew Langton, chairman of Aylesford estate agents, said, "The most important thing is that Woodland House has gone to a family and not a developer, which is really what Winner wanted. That was an absolute priority so everyone is happy. I'm sure Michael will be looking down with a smile." AYM GVS

Edited December 3, 201311 yr by Jupiter9

From

 

http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celeb...8-1226773821421

 

 

Robbie Williams admits taking heroin

DECEMBER 03, 2013 5:02AM

 

 

ROBBIE Williams has admitted he took heroin during the height of his drug addiction.

Speaking to Q magazine, Williams said he resorted to trying the drug after running out of cocaine during a drunken night in 1997.

"I tried it but only because we ran out of coke. It was like, 'Yeah, alright then, I’ll have a go.'

"It was horrible. It just made me throw up. That particular opiate didn’t suit me that day. Thank God."

Williams has revealed that he used cocaine to overcome his shyness in social situations.

He said: "It did give me a lot of confidence. I haven’t got a lot to say in social situations.

"Sometimes I can be on great form and have lots to say and interact well. But most of the time, even with good friends, I’m like 'Hmm... don’t know what to say now.'

"Coke used to help fill in those blanks."

Williams - who has 14-month-old daughter Teddy with wife Ayda Field - stopped drinking 13 years ago and entered rehab for addiction to prescription pills in 2007 but is now clean.

Williams also admitted that at the height of his addiction he didn’t care whether he lived or died.

He said: "I’d given up, which is the scariest thing. I just didn’t care.

"I don’t think you are mentally sound when you are in the deepest depths of compulsion and addiction. You’re not thinking with a sound head.

"But I just got into a place where I was like, 'It might be tonight and I don’t care'. I care now. A lot."

 

VIDEO: Woman from Swindon lands a part in Robbie Williams' new vid

 

5:30am Wednesday 11th December 2013 in News By Dominic Gilbert

 

http://i42.tinypic.com/16jklxx.jpg

 

 

Swindon Advertiser: A shot from the video for the new Robbie Williams Christmas single. Sandy is fourth from the right, in the red dress; Robbie is in the centre of the picture

 

A shot from the video for the new Robbie Williams Christmas single. Sandy is fourth from the right, in the red dress; Robbie is in the centre of the picture

A former nurse has had the opportunity of a lifetime after she was chosen to star in the video for a new Christmas single by Robbie Williams.

 

Sandy Slade, 48, from Stratton St Margaret, has lived in Swindon all her life, and trained as a nurse before working at the old Princess Margaret Hospital.

 

But she left medicine when the building was pulled down, and soon happened upon a career in film.

 

“I have only been acting for a couple of years,” she said.

 

“It began completely by accident. I was an avid reader and was desperate to meet one particular author. I had read all of his books, but he made the move from writing to being a movie producer.

 

 

“I thought the only way I could meet him was to audition. I had to go through various processes to get to him.”

 

After working on a number of films, primarily horror flicks with titles such as Dead Walkers: Rise Of The 4th Reich and Wasteland, Sandy decided to take a chance on a music video casting session.

 

“I didn’t know anything about it at the time, or who it was with,” she said.

 

“All it said was it needed ladies of a certain age. I was fortunate. There was only a small group, and I got pulled out for a major feature part.

 

 

“It is all very cheesy and slightly tongue in cheek. It is set up as a kind of Dean Martin Christmas show, all about family values and very wholesome.

 

“I think now he is a dad he has changed, and this is a real departure from what he has done before. It is all swing music and sentimental stuff. He has definitely matured.

 

“The briefing was that Robbie had invited some of his friends over for Christmas. I had to play a seriously swooning fan at the front of the audience when he comes in. The rest is all of us gathered around his tree.

 

“Before he arrived we did a lot of background shots. Then he walked in from behind and said “Hi, I’m Rob,” which I found hilarious because who would not recognise him?

 

“Sometimes you do not want to meet your idol, because you might find they let you down. But he was easy to work with and a joy to be around. He is nice and honest, and in this industry that is quite rare.”

 

Sandy is only too aware of how precarious a career in acting can be, and has recently completed an NVQ to be a teaching assistant.

 

“I just really enjoy the job, and I have been really blessed to be given the opportunity,” she said.

 

“I wanted to go into as many genres as I could to find out what I was good at. I have often ended up being cast as the angsty victim.

 

“I have been through quite a lot of life experiences myself so it is easy to translate that into acting. This was just a bit of a jolly, because I am used to poring over scripts and standing around on film sets.

 

“It was just a bit of light relief, but it was the chance of a lifetime.”

 

The single, Dream a Little Dream, is officially released on December 15, and has attracted more than 100,000 views on YouTube.

 

 

Swindon Advertiser

It was released yesterday then? :unsure:

 

X-Factor week.... <_<