As the dawn of Reality Killed The Video Star breaks, the initial woozy harmonicas and swooning strings of Morning Sun slump out of the once-hollow shell that was at times to
Robbie Williams’ career itself like a hefty yolk. It’s become, dishearteningly, painstakingly evident that Britain’s fave pun-addled, glossed-up crooner’s taken the straight-and-narrow. Musically, at least; following the poor sales and even poorer quality electro nonsense of previous car-crash outing Rude Box, Robbie’s entertaining the baying masses of 40-something Take That obsessives willing to put their idols’ differences in the dark and let seduction seep into overload. Unfortunately, these days Robbie’s about as smug as Simon Cowell balancing a dictionary on his repulsively meticulous hair-do, juggling an apple and a banana whilst professing his omnipotence within the British mainstream. In reality, a couple of dilated pupils, a barrel of nerves and a Jedward-infatuated X Factor audience were seemingly culpable for the death of this particular ‘Video Star’ this time around, as the incomprehensible Arabian wails of Bodies fell flat, allowing the likes of Lloyd Daniels and Stacey Solomon to flourish scintillatingly. No mean feat. Lamentably however, Bodies is nigh on the crowning moment of a mire of pseudo-Pet Shop Boys off-cuts (Last Days of Disco), dingy ballads (You Know Me) and hideous guitar pomp stomp last seen lining the walls of Hard Rock Café and the wallets of the likes of Lenny Kravitz and Justin Hawkins (Do You Mind?). The inspirationally-titled Difficult For Weirdos unashamedly features rowdy terrace chants imported from ’98, alongside camp-as-cabaret lazy synth swagger, whilst Starstruck retells the difficulties of the celeb highlife, complete with samples of flashing camera apertures. And that’s about as edgy as it gets here. The nightmarish cliché that has become Mr. Williams in this instance is littered with more confusing wordplay than a Times cryptic crossword (see the grotesque ignorance at the heart of Blasphemy) and lyrically, the cracks show. Where once Robbie entertained, he now flounders haphazardly in a record as stodgy as 12-month old Christmas pudding, had he obviously not wolfed it down prior to his grandiose return. At least it makes Angels out to be the heart-stopper it’s been exclaimed as for the past decade...
