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A large portion of this publication’s readership probably aren’t old enough to remember the zenith of Robbie Williams’ career, which existed from around 1997-2000. Coming a long way from wearing leather chaps and slapping his arse while singing covers of disco hits for the amusement of teenage girls and middle-aged gay men in the early ‘90s, this period crystallised Williams’ mainstream success, resulting in him being one of the most successful British artists of all time. His output during that period veered wildly between earnestly saccharine (‘Angels’, ‘She’s the One’) and cheekily ‘entertaining’ (‘Millennium’, ‘Rock DJ’), each pole arguably laying the foundations for a karaoke pop culture that manifested itself in 2001’s Pop Idol, and subsequent X Factor.
The Heavy Entertainment Show sees the return of Williams’ co-writer from that era, Guy Chambers: a man so middle of the road he managed to reign in Williams’ self-obsessed doggerel tripe, which he went on to happily wallow in for years after Chamber’s departure (‘Okay then back to baseheads, dance like you just won at the Special Olympics/The R, U, D, E, B, O, X up yer jacksy, split yer kecks, sing a song of Semtex’ from 2006’s ‘Rudebox’ being one lowlight in a panoply of utter crap).
This album’s woeful lead single, ‘Party Like a Russian’, belies Chambers’ soporific influence, overstuffed as it is in a million uniquely terrible lyrical and vocal ideas, bearing all the hallmarks of Williams’ crayon. While the album has its fair share of ill-advised moments (Bruce Lee’ and its refrain of ‘Don’t you go throwing shade’ surely putting another nail in the coffin for drag’s counter-cultural credentials, while the title track’s ‘I’m about to strip and you’re my pole/It’s just the tip but no one will know’ provokes both pity and disgust), the overall effect is one of kaleidoscopic boredom. The Killers turn in an AOR Killers number, leaving one puzzled at their erstwhile popularity. Equally, some lad from Snow Patrol, Ed Sheeran, Rufus Wainwright, and Benny Blanco are all recruited in an attempt to save Williams from himself, to varying results. Nothing actually works, however. A karaoke popstar with a passable voice in an age of superhuman pop cyborgs, Williams is a relic, a ghost in the machine. One balks at the line ‘I am me’ from ‘I Love My Life’, for if there’s one thing Williams has never been able to be and seems palpably uncomfortable about in every song, it is himself. We’re all born naked and the rest is drag, eh? In some cases, it’s just really bad drag.
