Album Review: Reality Killed The Video Star by Robbie Williams

In 1967, the Beatles were planning a new film. In search of a suitable script, they approached Joe Orton. He handed in a dark, lavishly camp farce called Up Against It, the plot of which variously required the Fab Four to become embroiled in a plan to assassinate the prime minister, cross-dress, be caught in flagrante and commit murder. Alas, the Beatles rejected Up Against It, Paul McCartney having smartly spotted that both the script and its author were "a bit gay".

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In a muddy field in 1998, Robbie Williams won over Glastonbury festival with an energetic performance of Let Me Entertain You and a sly dig at his old band, Take That, via a mocking cover of their Back for Good. "Last time I came here, I got sacked," he said, referring to his ill-fated turn as Noel Gallagher's boozy mate. "Thank fuck for that." At this point Williams's fate as a solo artist looked to have been successfully sealed, and for the years in which he produced No 1 hit after No 1 hit, it was.

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Some people never got over their parents’ divorce. Others never recovered from the split of Morrissey and Johnny Marr. And then there are those of us who still carry a torch, hoping against hope that someday, somehow, even after all these years… Robbie Williams and Guy Chambers will get back together. Because the simple fact is that Williams hasn’t made a great album since he parted company with former songwriting partner Chambers in 2005, and Reality Killed the Video Star, his ninth studio release, is not going to change that.

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“Don’t call it a comeback, look what I invented here”. Yes, let’s look. How fitting that Williams made, as the showbiz fairytale script puts it, ‘his triumphant return’ on [b]The X Factor[/b], since he was the original ‘anyone can do this’ superstar. He was crap, but his knowing winks told audiences he knew he was crap, and allowed them in on a great old wheeze, while flatteringly suggesting stardom was in reach of the everyman.

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Considering the humiliation of having a million copies of his last effort, 2006's Rudebox, shipped to China to be used as road filler, you'd think Robbie Williams would have quit and retired to his castle. [rssbreak] But the ex-Take That popist is back. On his eighth album, he replaces his trademark cockiness and flawed electronic experimentation with safe Elton Johnesque ballads.

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