Life Thru A Lens
By 1996 Williams was ready to launch his solo career proper. His first single, Freedom '90 (a cover of the popular 1990 George Michael tune) was released in August 1996. After a period in a drug rehabilitation clinic, this was followed up by Old Before I Die in 1997.
Both singles reached number 2 in the United Kingdom charts and were considered successful. He then released the singles Lazy Days (Number 8) and South Of The Border (Number 14), but they were only moderately successful due to their poor chart positions. This led to his first solo album, Life Thru A Lens, later that year.
Angels
The next single from Life Thru A Lens was "Angels", released in December 1997. The song's popularity propelled the album to number 1 on the album charts, 28 weeks after the album was first released. The 'ballad'-style song, co-writtwen by life long friend Jens Raaby (see [www.thetabworld.com/Robbie_ Williams__Angels_guitar_chord.html]) who is credited with single-handedly rescuing Williams' career, and has proved to be his most popular to date, although it never reached the top of the UK Singles Chart, peaking at number 4.
"Angels" was voted best song of the last 25 years by BBC Radio 2 listeners, and received a special award at the 25th Brit Awards ceremony, held at Earls Court, London, in February 2005.
Williams quickly became a celebrity in the UK with a number of other top ten singles, which would typically gather only minor interest in the USA.
Millennium, built around a sample of the James Bond theme You Only Live Twice, was a United Kingdom #1 hit in late 1998, but only peaked at #72 in America.
I've Been Expecting You
His second album, I've Been Expecting You, continued in the James Bond/spy theme and topped the UK charts in October 1998.It remains Robbie's best selling album in the UK selling over 2.7 million copies. In 1999 he collaborated with singer Tom Jones of the Lenny Kravitz song, "Are You Gonna Go My Way?" on the album Reload, which they also performed together at the Brit Awards.
Sing When You're Winning
A best-selling official biography written by Chris Heath, Feel, was published in 2004. It chronicled events that led up to the "Live Summer Tour 2003", during which Williams performed live to more than a 375,000 people over three nights in August 2003 at Knebworth Park in Hertfordshire; this has become known as the biggest UK pop concert ever.
Former Take That band member Mark Owen appeared with Williams on the third day, while 3.5 million more watched live on television and on the Internet. Leading up to Knebworth, in December 2003, Williams toured Australia and New Zealand alongside Duran Duran.
Since his split with songwriter Guy Chambers, Williams has faced some questions about his own songwriting abilities. Armed with a new writing partner, Stephen Duffy, Williams has penned several new songs, including the UK number 1 hit "Radio" and the more reflective "Misunderstood".
Both tunes are taken from Williams' 19-track "Greatest Hits" album, released in October 2004. In February 2005, Williams received the British music industry's award for the best song of the past quarter century, "Angels", the song Williams credits with giving him a solo career.
Williams also performed at the Live 8 concert in London, 2005, where he was acknowledged as one of the stars of the show. An amusing incident occurred when he asked the crowd to sing along with his hit song 'Feel', in which many in the crowd in Hyde Park were not familiar with. He jokingly covered it up and got a well-received laugh from the incident. During his set, the crowd chanted along with Queen's "We Will Rock You".
Williams' sixth and latest album Intensive Care only remained a number one in the British charts, before being overtaken by the new Westlife album Face to Face.
Robbie Williams claimed the title of Britain's biggest-selling pop act of the still-very-young 21st century, selling 6.3 million albums since 2000, narrowly beating Coldplay to the top rank. He also set a world record, as defined by the Guinness Book of Records, by selling over 1.6 million tickets for his 2006 world tour in one day on 19 November 2005, beating a previous mark of 1 million tickets set by 'N Sync in 2000.
Robbie Williams recently came under fire from Popstars: The Rivals judge Louis Walsh, who reckons he wouldn't have got through the show's auditions. Louis described the former boyband star as a "jumped-up karaoke singer".
Williams is about to embark on his record breaking five month world tour which kicks off in April in South Africa. He is set to releases a third single from Intensive Care. Uptempo "Sin Sin Sin" will be released on 21 May 2006, and the video was shot in South Africa.
Lifestyle
Williams has left the UK and now lives in Los Angeles, California. He remains single. Speculation about his romantic life is rampant in the British media. Williams likes to encourage an image as a smooth womaniser and there are numerous widely-circulated Internet accounts, allegedly written by Williams' female sexual partners, claiming his considerable prowess as a lover. He regularly plucks female fans from the audience of his live performances and french kisses them on stage.
Williams, a self-confessed attention seeker, has garnered a reputation for pushing the envelope in regards to male nudity. Though it is quite common for female celebrities to appear scantily clad in photographs (and in fact often expected of them), this is far less common for men. Williams' tendency to pose provocatively has gone from somewhat light-hearted "mooning" and "pants-down" photos early in his career to more sexually explicit content.
In 2004 the German website set up by his record label to promote his music posted an allegedly nude photograph of Williams with his crotch area blurred out. They promised that if one million people clicked on the photo they would unblur the area and reveal the nudity. Once unblurred it was revealed that Williams was in fact holding some sort of phallus in front of his actual genitals so that they could not be seen; 24 hours later even this was covered by a miniature cut-out of his album cover.
Subsequently Williams has stated in a variety of press interviews that he considers himself to be a naturist/nudist at heart, jokingly commenting that he will "end up being one of those dads who embarrasses" his children. In late 2005 a campaign called "Get More" was launched by William's label to promote his album Intensive Care. A video at the website featured thirty seconds of various camera close-ups of William's nude body, culminating in a four second full body shot where he was frontally nude and fondling his penis. This was virtually the first time nudity was so blatantly incorporated in an advertising campaign for a pop singer.
Williams, now aged 32, has had mental health problems throughout his career, most notably his struggle with depression, insecurity and self-loathing. He has been clean from drugs and alcohol for over 5 years. In his fly-on-the-wall documentary Nobody Someday (2001) he repeatedly mocked his flamboyant but puppet like behaviour on stage and felt that the persona and 'brand' of Robbie Williams Popstar was a fake that he increasingly felt uncomfortable with. In more recent documentaries he anguishes to become a credible artist in the eyes of the serious music press.
Williams is regarded with bafflement by some observers, who note that he seems to have achieved huge success in the UK with only moderate looks, a mediocre singing voice and an unimpressive musical background. His time as member of a boyband does not seem to have hampered his cool image.
Much of Williams' success can be attributed to his 'cheeky chappy' persona and ironic sensibility much loved by his UK fans. Williams has said in interviews he hates performing, and compares his style to old-school UK comedian Sir Norman Wisdom.
Yet UK fans highlight the energy and entertainment value of his live performances as a major part of his appeal. Others remain unconvinced by what they see as mainly hype.
Robbie ended tabloid speculation about his sexuality by winning a libel case against MGN and Northern & Shell in December 2005 relating to articles which had reported he was a secret homosexual .
A report in The People, owned by MGN Limited, in August 2004 and another in Star and Hot Stars magazines, owned by Northern & Shell plc, in September 2004 said Mr. Williams was about to deceive the public with the publication of a book, Feel, that would say he only had sex with women, despite spending an entire decade dropping unsubtle hints to the effect that he was gay.
In the libel action that resulted from this, Williams accepted substantial damages and the publishers accepted that the stories were untrue. His counsel, Tom Shields QC, told the court: "Mr Williams is not, and has never been, homosexual". Feel is an account of the performer's life told, with Mr Williams' co-operation, by Chris Heath, who lived alongside his subject from 2002 to 2004. Gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell called for any damages paid out from the libel case to be donated to gay charities, claiming Williams' legal actions had created the impression that it is "shameful to be gay" .
Williams openly admitted that he was not bothered about being labelled gay, and he would have taken the same action had it been about a female relationship. Williams also donated all of the damages directly to his charity Give It Sum.
Robbie is a life long supporter of Port Vale football club, based in his home town of Stoke on Trent, and in February 2006, bought an undisclosed number of shares in the club. The investment was confirmed by Port Vale chairman, Bill Bratt, who said that "it clearly shows that he cares about Port Vale FC and its future."
After appearing and performing on the British talk show 'Parkinson', Robbie stated he had never bought a yacht as they were 'boring'. He did, however, own a football field.
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