Boy bands are inherently ephemeral creations. Some Svengali-like figure will assemble an identikit group from a crowd of young hopefuls, give them a carefully crafted selection of songs aimed with laser guided precision at the tween age demographic and then move on to the next pop sensation after a year or two. What happens to the young men involved when the hits dry up and their first cohort of fans grow up?
I would be hard pressed to name a single hit by Take That, or pick most of them out of a police line up for that matter, but for some reason Robbie Williams broke the mould. He was the cheeky one out of the group, and in the recent biopic A Better Man he was shown as an anthropomorphic chimpanzee character, and not really expected to do anything other than dance in support of the better looking boys at the front of the lineup.
His first solo album combines a bit of jaunty Brit-pop, some mawkish and surprising affecting ballads (Angels is one of the top songs played at funerals in the UK) and at least one genuine banger. OK, so a lot of songs are about how tough it is to date posh girls whilst being showered with drugs and booze, but something about this record rings true.
If you listen right to the end there’s a hidden track called ‘Hello Sir’ addressed to a cruel teacher who once told a young boy that he’d never amount to much, and should give up his dreams and join the army. I wonder if that teacher ever changed his ways?
Chimp-tastic!
https://album.link/gb/i/727505795
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