Product Description

The follow-up to 2005's 'Intensive Care', 'Rudebox' is Robbie's seventh studio album, and is sure to add to his album sales which already top 45 million worldwide. Moving away from his usual ballads and uptempo pop songs, Williams experiments with a fresher, hip hop sound, with suprisingly successful results. Robbie has also recruited a team of production superstars to help him hone this new sound, including Mark Ronson, William Orbit and the Pet Shop Boys. Includes the single 'Rudebox'.

Track Listing

1. Rudebox
2. Viva Life On Mars
3. Lovelight
4. King Of The Bongo
5. She's Madonna
6. Keep On
7. Good Doctor
8. The Actor
9. Never Touch That Switch
10. Louise
11. We’re The Pet Shop Boys
12. Burslem Normals
13. Kiss Me
14. The '80s
15. The '90s
16. Summertime
17. Dickhead

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #45 in Music
• Released on: 2006-10-23
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Enhanced, Explicit Lyrics

Amazon.co.uk Review
With the help of producer/songwriters William Orbit, Mark Ronson, Jerry Meehan, Joey Negro and Soul Mekanik (plus guests as diverse as The Pet Shop Boys and Lily Allen), Robbie Williams has achieved a most radical transformation. Gone is the slick, pop-rogue of yesteryear: in his place is a new Robbie that raps, embraces club beats and (mostly) favours personal indulgence over cheesy, universal pop. Recent single "Rudebox", all electronic riddims and slack-rap vocal delivery, was just the start of this transition. The rest of Rudebox completes the remarkable overhaul with several eclectic covers - from Manu Chau's "Bongo Bong" and Lewis Taylor's underground classic "Lovelight," to subversive takes on The Human League ("Louise"), My Robot Friend ("We're The Pet Shop Boys") and Stephen Duffy ("Kiss Me") - and tracks such as "Keep On", "Good Doctor" and "Dickhead", which confirm his quite bewildering quest to becoming a comedic, Staffs-accented version of The Streets.

Slightly more serious are his attempts at what he describes as 'wonky pop'. Songs like "Viva Life On Mars", his odd ode to Madonna ("She's Madonna"), the dark "The Actor" and catchy club-hit-in-waiting "Never Touch That Switch" all feature innovative production and interesting arrangements. Toward the end, we get "The 80s" and "The 90s", two more amusing "rap"-tracks that cover the singer's adolescence and his Take That years respectively; these underline the nostalgic, end-of-an-era feel of the LP. Audaciously eclectic and admirably upfront, Rudebox is overtly a form of personal catharsis. Not all the experiments work, but they're better than you might think, and now they're off his chest it'll be interesting to see where the new Robbie Williams heads to next.--Paul Sullivan

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Customer Reviews

Mature
This album shows us an older, more mature, more worldly Rob. Very interesting songs, people than do not know the true character will laugh but this is a more intellectual work. Forget the ballads of his previous work, this album does not yield the big chorus ballads that Williams and Chambers came up with. However, Lovelight is sheer bliss, love The 80's - like so much of Rob's work it's autobiographical, sad but dead funny at the same time. A brilliant piece of work from the most beautiful man on earth.

Enjoyable!
I think this is a much better album than some people give it credit for. Particularly good tracks being, Rudebox, Lovelight, King Of The Bongo and Good Doctor. Not up there with his previous couple of albums though- but then I thought that they were extraordinarily good, so that was a tough ask. The weakest tracks on the album are generally those NOT penned / co-penned by Robbie which I guess says something about the quality of his own song writing. Far better than most of the trash out there and only a little disappointing when compared to the standards RW has set himself.

Aural Garbage
Yet more pitiful tunes from this master of bed-wetter music. Bland, featureless dross that is the aural equivalent of the colour beige.