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: #5407 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

ouch
boring as ever. Try Nick Worrall's debut album for a real treat and to show what good modern songwriting sounds like.

What was he thinking?
This is awful - don't buy it. Not recognisable as a Robbie Williams album at all - in parts of it he sounds bored to be making such rubbish. Complete waste of time.

Cover version's the best song
I would have given this three stars because I picked it up for £2.99 in an Amazon offer. However, when your best track on the album is a cover version and the title track the catchiest thing about it, it's strange to actually hear an artist gearing up to take a break.

Robbie/his record company should have skipped the Best-of and put "Radio" on here, placing that at the end of the album so it finished as catchily as it started.

Maybe it will grow on me with time but I'm glad I picked it up at such a good price. The only thing this does is remind me that the next album is probably better, but until Robbie sorts it out with EMI, we won't hear it for a year or so. Maybe I'll listen to this a few more times and see if it's a grower.