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Robert Peter Williams (born February 13, 1974 in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire) is a British pop singer.
Williams' early pop career was with the hit boy band Take That that was fronted by singer-songwriter Gary Barlow. The band was formed in 1991 and proved to be highly successful, with 8 UK Number 1 singles to their credit. They lead to a succession of similar bands in the UK. However, it has since been suggested, Robbie did not seem to fit as well as the other members in the band due to his 'roguish' qualities, and he frequently battled with his fellow band mates and his management. He left the band in 1995.
After leaving Take That Williams immediately seemed to immerse himself into the rock & roll lifestyle with Britpop band Oasis. This led him into a highly publicized battle with drug and alcohol addiction during which he put on nearly 40 pounds (18 kg) and was often seen in public poorly dressed, dirty and unshaven. After a well publicised fall out with Oasis, Noel Gallagher famously refused to recognise him as anything but "That fat dancer from Take That".
The UK music media did not think that the badly behaved Williams would be a success as a musician. More credit was given to his former bandmates Gary Barlow, and to a lesser extent Mark Owen, as future successes.
By 1996 Williams was ready to launch his solo career proper. His first single "Freedom", a cover of the George Michael tune from the early 90s, was released in August 1996. After a period in a 'detoxification' clinic, this was followed up by "Old Before I Die" in 1997. Both singles were considered to be successes after reaching number 2 in the UK charts. This led to the introduction of his first solo album, Life Thru A Lens, later that year.
Life Thru A Lens contained both of his earlier singles - however the rest of the album was considered to be a disappointment, with the follow up singles "Lazy Days" and "South Of The Border" not being enthusiastically recieved.
The last song to be released, in Christmas 1997, from Life Thru A Lens was the 'ballad' "Angels", it propelled Life Thru A Lens to number 1 on the album charts (28 weeks after the album was first released). This song on its own is credited with rescuing Williams' career, and has proved to be his most popular to date, making the UK top 10 singles chart.
In 2005, Angels was selected best song of all times for the special award at the Brit's 25th anniversary.
Williams quickly became a major celebrity in the UK with a number of other top ten singles, which would typically gather only minor interest in the USA. Millennium, built around a sample of the James Bond theme You Only Live Twice was a UK #1 hit in late 1998, but only peaked at #72 in America.
His second album "I've Been Expecting You" continued in the James Bond/spy theme and topped the UK charts in October 1998. In 1999 he collaborated with singer Tom Jones for a track on the album Reload.
He had another minor hit in the United States in 2000 with the song "Rock DJ", but continued the trend of never achieving the same level of fame and success there as he had in the UK. The video for the song featured Williams in a roller disco as he stripped nude and then proceeded to 'strip off' his own flesh, muscle tissue and organs and feed them to female dancers until he was nothing but a dancing skeleton. The negative reaction to the gruesome video has been cited as temporarily ending any momentum his career had going in the US.
It is said that the frontal nudity was edited out in the US while the gore was left in, whereas the opposite was true for the UK. Even so, the video's ending was cut by many TV stations around the world and the whole video was forbidden in some countries (VH1 Europe even made their own video out of recording studio footage). Williams has built quite a reputation for appearing nude (or nearly nude) in photographs, videos and live performances.
After a smash third album with Sing When You're Winning in the summer of 2000, Williams' genuine global success was cemented in 2001 after a duet cover version of the Frank and Nancy Sinatra song "Somethin' Stupid" with Australian actress Nicole Kidman, who was fresh off of her Oscar-nominated performance in Moulin Rouge.
Also in 2001 he released a whole album of classics entitled Swing When You're Winning in which his image was tamed down and polished as he breezed through jazz, blues and pop standards from the fifties and sixties including "Ain't That A Kick In The Head" and "Mack The Knife". Williams' cover of the Bobby Darin classic "Beyond the Sea" from the album was later included on the Finding Nemo soundtrack in 2003 and helped to re-establish his appeal in the US.
In 2002 Williams stopped working with his long-term writing partner Guy Chambers. However, they reunited six months later to work on the next album, Escapology, which was released in late 2002. The first single from it, "Feel," was a massive European hit, accompanied by a stylish black & white video featuring Darryl Hannah. The intriguing cover depicts Williams dangling from a crane in bare feet, to symbolise the "escapology" theme.
The video for the next "Escapology" single, "Come Undone," was heavily censored by MTV Networks Europe for depicting a debauched (but fully-clothed) Williams having three-way sex with two women. The video also showed unsettling images of insects and reptiles. During such furores at this time, it was confirmed that Williams and Guy Chambers were to officially part ways.
In 2002, the UK public voted Williams to be on the BBC's list of the 100 Greatest Britons. He was also voted 17th in Channel 4's 100 Worst Britons poll.
A best-selling official biography written by Chris Heath "Feel", was published in 2004, and chronicled events that led up to to the "Live Summer Tour 2003", during which Williams performed live to more than a million people over three days in August at Knebworth Park in Hertfordshire; while 3.5 million more watched live on television and on the Internet. Leading up to Knebworth, in December 2003, Williams toured Australia and New Zealand alongside Duran Duran.
Since the split with Chambers, Williams has begun to set out to prove his naysayers wrong. Armed with a new songwriting partner, Stephen Duffy, Williams has penned several new songs, including the retro electro-throb of the UK #1 hit "Radio" and the more reflective "Misunderstood".
Both tunes are taken from Williams' 19-track "Greatest Hits" album, released in October 2004. In February 2005, Williams received the British music industry's award for the best song of the past quarter century, "Angels," the song Williams credits with giving him a career.
Williams' also performed at the Live 8 concert in London in 2005 where he was acknowledged as one of the stars of the show. It showed his ability to hold a large concert crowd, including the amusing incident when he acknowledged that the crowd at Hyde Park didn't all know the lyrics to 'Feel'.
Williams is currently single and now lives in Los Angeles, California. Speculation about his ambiguous sexuality and romantic life is rampant in the British media. Williams seems to encourage an image as a smooth womanizer and there are numerous widely-circulated Internet accounts allegedly written by Williams's female sexual partners extolling his considerable prowess as a lover. A regular feature of his live performances is full-on french kisses with female fans plucked from the audience.
Bearing in mind the persistent rumours about his sexuality and the appearance of so many column inches devoted to Williams's real or imagined romantic conquests, whether gay or straight, it is interesting to note that these accounts typically coincide with the release of a latest album, single, or live performance. Coincidental or not, much of what is written is utterly made up and probably attributable to a phalanx of publicity agents hired to get Williams's name in the papers when he is trying to market his new project.
Robbie Williams Discography
Album
2003 Escapology [Clean]
2003 Sing When You're Winning [France Bonus Tracks]
2003 Live: Summer 2003 [Canada]
2003 Escapology
2003 Live at Knebworth
2002 Swing When You're Winning [Expanded]
2002 Escapology [UK]
2001 Sing When You're Winning [Canada Bonus Tracks]
2001 Swing When You're Winning
2000 Sing When You're Winning
2000 Maximum Robbie
2000 Sing When You're Winning [Chrysalis]
1998 I've Been Expecting You
1997 Life Thru a Lens
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