The man who once told you “I hope I’m old before I die” now finds himself 51 and wrapped up in legacy. In the decade since Robbie Williams’ last album, 2016’s ‘The Heavy Entertainment Show’, we’ve seen a tell-all Netflix doc (so intimate he’s rarely out of his bed or underwear) and divisive biopic Better Man (in which you got to see him on smack and getting wanked off as a monkey). The latter, he once told NME, was a watershed moment to kickstart the “third act” of his career. That too, will begin with Williams looking back.
“I set out to create the album that I wanted to write and release after I left Take That in 1995,” he said in a statement announcing 13th album ‘Britpop’. In the place of the indie-driven arena pop of his 1997 debut ‘Life Thru Lens’ – that birthed partystarter ‘Let Me Entertain You’ and Oasis-indebted wedding basic ‘Angels’ – we are to imagine that this takes us back to a halcyon era and analogue days of Cool Britannia.
Black Sabbath icon Tony Iommi joins in on the scuzzy pub rock belter opener ‘Rocket’, a daft but deft earworm that captures the album’s mantra of looking to the past but living for now: “What a time to be alive”. Then, ‘Spies’ is a Robbie-by-numbers lighters up pre-encore ballad, in the lineage of ‘Strong’ and ‘Come Undone’ but with a lot more guitar oomph.
The album’s pretty equally split between bravado and ballads. ‘Pretty Face’ bursts open with Elastica and Republica energy before a simple but oh-so-Robbie everyman chorus. If you thought he’d finished rapping with the career cringe torpedo of ‘Rudebox’, look away. Man’s spitting bars for better or worse on ‘Bite Your Tongue’ and ‘You’: two old-school Kasabian nonsense spitfires that bid you to “make Jared Leto out of Lego” and deploy Super Hans politics (“Wham bam, ain’t it a scam: Afghanistan and Vietnam”).
Supergrass legend Gaz Coombes lends a hand on ‘Cocky’, pumped by the glam-rock stomp of ‘Blockbuster’ by Sweet, while the Disneyfied orchestral sweep of ‘It’s OK Until The Drugs Stop Working’ is a ballsy Tony Christie meets Blur sing-along delivered with a little cheek and a self-knowing wink: “I have to smile when she offers me protection”.
Among the slower numbers, ‘All My Life’ trudges like a latter day Oasis or Liam G solo cut albeit with words by David Brent (“My life is based on a true story: one of dreams, chaos and audacity”), ‘Human’ is a countrified ode to letting it be, and ‘Morrissey’ (co-written by and featuring former Take That pal Gary Barlow) is a thoroughly silly electropop 2025 rework of ‘Stan’ told by the stalker of The Smiths misanthrope. Heaven knows it’s more fun than it sounds.
Closing with the bookend of the tender reprise ‘Pocket Rocket’, ‘Britpop’ ends with a little resolve: “I just wanna be your rock, yeah”. He’s standing firm. Rather than neck a BuzzBall on a Lime Bike and do his take on ‘Brat’, Robbie knows his game and has done a record for himself. An album to be remembered for? Probably not, but it’s bold, it’s a laugh, and he’s done it his way. That’s what makes him Robbie. For that alone, he’ll live forever.
