(EMI)
Herald rating: * * *
Review: Russell Baillie
While most pop stars are only as good as their last hit, Robbie Williams is in a different league. He's only as good as his last headline.
But his headlines are always really good, especially the ones from his recent promotional sojourn down this way.
He arrived, dropped his trousers on telly, had sex with someone from Hamilton, sang half a dozen songs, got a new tattoo and left. Endearing behaviour, especially in an age where pop stars come with the manufacturer's six-month guarantee.
Boy-band survivor Williams is now up to his third solo album (though his first two were combined for mass local consumption) and this time it's supposedly personal.
Well, there's one song, If It's Hurting You, which the publicity tells us is about his breakup with All Saint Nicole Appleton. Aww.
It's a nice song, too, one of two fitting that description among the 12. The other is a ballad, Better Man, nice but not as good as the Pearl Jam song of the same name and sentiment, or the Verve song Lucky Man from which it is possibly blueprinted. But that's about it for personal.
Unless you count Williams singing about what it's like to be the Robbie Williams, supercelebrity for whom life is one tabloid terror after another - "everybody wants to know how I'm hung ... " he sings in the Rod Stewart-ish rocker Forever Texas. Or it's, "Press be asking do I care for sodomy ... I don't know yeah probably" he raps at the end of Kylie-duet Kids.
And guess what? Apparently it's lonely at the top. Aww.
Yes, Sing if You're Winning is about as personal as a press conference. It is, however, quite a good pop album. Though by those standards you have to wonder if there's anything with the sing-in-the-shower appeal of his earlier hits such as Strong, Angels, Millennium or Let Me Entertain You.
But the album has its moments - Kids, which will be on Minogue's album, too, is fun until the dopey comedy rap at the end; If It's Hurting You does more with fewer words and a decent tune than most of the rest ; Supreme is clever, with its smirking lift of Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive over a Pet Shop Boys-like electropop backing; and first single Rock DJ has a bit of Ian Drury about it.
There's quite a bit of rubbish in between and not just because of Williams' urges to loudly wink, "It's me!" at every opportunity.
All of which probably won't matter to the many who think he's sex on a stick (Quick someone, offer the stick 10 grand for an exclusive), or those who consider - like Williams does himself, probably - that he's just a star who just happens to be in the pop business.
<i>Robbie Williams:</i> Sing When You're Winning
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