HE has a massive gig at the National Stadium in Singapore on Nov 18. But there is nothing like a new album to get the masses up for it. That’s exactly what Robbie Williams has up his sleeves with his highly anticipated new album Rudebox due on Oct 23.

Rudebox, recorded during the early months of this year sees Williams collaborating with an array of musical mavericks. They include his heroes the Pet Shop Boys, king of ambient William Orbit, fellow Stoke natives Danny Spencer and Kelvin Andrews (aka Soul Mekanik), disco-house icon Joey Negro and NYC-based DJ/producer Mark Ronson, on both new original compositions and covers of some of his favourite tracks by artistes as diverse as Manu Chao, Human League, My Robot Friend, Lewis Taylor and old friend Stephen Duffy.

Through its 16 tracks, Rudebox marks out and charts his musical loves and life.

Led off by the title track and first single Rudebox, an electro-funk-pop monster, twisted around his own unique visceral lyrical stylings, the result is the sound of Williams’ jamming the electro-boogaloo on a bustling New York street corner in 1983.

There are highlights aplenty. Viva Life on Mars is the world’s country-space-funk-Technicolor-pop anthem. She’s Madonna sees Neil Tennant, Chris Lowe and Williams forming their super-group and paying lovelorn homage to the first lady of pop, they also cover their Pet Shop Boys cover of My Robot Friend’s We’re the Pet Shop Boys.

Elsewhere, Mark Ronson brings his trademark horn-infused modern soul revue to four tracks on the album. Lovelight, a spectacular cover of Lewis Taylor’s criminally unknown soul-anthem, is the one to warm the soul. King of the Bongo reinvents Manu Chao’s classic world-music original and it features the inimitable whirlwind that is Lily Allen.

Grit and reflection is also in the mix. Inspired by The Mitchell Brothers, Ian Dury and Mike Skinner and recorded into an I-book in Williams’s bedroom in Los Angeles, The 80s and The 90s, sees him documenting 15 years of his life in song.

As early press reports indicated, this record might be pre-conceived as a “Robbie’s gone dance” statement.

“They might say its dance or it’s electro but it’s just what I like! It started off as a busman’s holiday this time around, but it’s become something on which I’ve found myself. I was just doing my YTS up till now,” he noted in his press notes.

“It has become something on which I’ve found myself. This is the right direction for me personally, this is what it is. I saw the whole Robbie thing coming to a close as it was, I couldn’t make another album like the ones I’d made, and this has just opened up a thousand other doors. What I am excited about now is making more music.”

Rudebox the album is released on EMI on Oct 23. The single precedes it on Sept 4.

Source: star-ecentral.com