Robbie certainly seems to be trying to make a statement with this album. Just look at that cover. Royal blue background. Williams’ expressive face painted gold. You’re not likely to miss that on the shelf in HMV. The title too is beaming with confidence; Take the Crown suggests an effort to reclaim the title as King of Pop. This is Robbie’s first solo album since his Take That reunion, and it seems to be an attempt to keep the Robbie brand afloat before he became entirely subsumed by boy band. But don’t think this is a rebellion from the group. There has been collaboration with Gary Barlow in the writing and production stages for some of the songs, and in my opinion, the album is better for the steady guidance Barlow, keeping Robbie in check.
The big single track on the album, Candy, was deftly described by one Vision colleague as ‘musical crack’. You know it’s bad. You know you shouldn’t. You see the blubbering mess its victims become. But when you do give it a listen its hollow thrills have you going back for more. (n.b. this is just an analogy, I am NOT a crack addict.) It is bold. It is brassy. It has impetigo-levels of infectious. And lyrically, it is nonsense. But who cares? It will make you smile. If you have resisted it so far, just wait…
There has been controversy surrounding Radio One’s dismissal of Robbie as too old and irrelevant to a younger audience, despite ‘Candy’ reaching number one in the charts. Whether or not you agree with these executive decisions, the age is audibly taking its toll on his voice. Occasionally he sounds as if he is struggling to keep up with the relentless pace of the cheese or the high-notes of his ‘inspirational’ tunes (that are obviously aiming for the TV slow-mo monochrome market).
The only real misstep is ‘Hey Wow Yeah Yeah’. As the title may suggest, it is a random putting together of words vaguely related to partying. This is an example of someone trying far too hard to be cool. Thankfully, it is not nearly as bad as Rudebox from 2006 (I’m cringing just remembering it) but it does sound like something Ke$ha would have left off her own album for the sake of artistic integrity. ‘Clap your hands now if you wanna wanna’. Err… if I wanna, what? Robbie, you’re scaring me.
Against my better judgement, this album receives a solid 3 stars. It’s hard to fault the King of Pop for being too ‘poppy’. It is exactly the sort of chart-topping fair Robbie was making in his solo hey-day. His fans couldn’t have expected any better and there has been good reason to expect a lot worse. And despite all the bad things I could say about ‘Candy’, the number of plays it has received on my iTunes will be an eternal embarrassment to me and is to the credit of the powerful William/Barlow team. Oh, the shame! I thought I was cool.
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