Robbie Williams – Spies Review

We are in dangerous waters with the Robbie Williams-shaped shark. One of these songs featured on Britpop was slopped out with generative artificial intelligence. We must find the dud note. Not quite like R. J. MacReady and the rest of the Arctic explorers in The Thing, but we should at least tie Williams to a chair and see if he’s been replaced by a twisted beast from the centre of the earth. He has seemingly learned nothing from Better Man and the moments that inspired his monkey-led film. Spies is a song that is more of a call to arms. We must figure out which of these songs is the piece of filth, smuggled in by a double agent acting against the interests of independent artists. What a depressing time it is for art. When the popular acts of twenty years ago are giving in to cheap and lazy tech like this, we should simply boycott them.  

But nobody will do that. Williams’ reinvention as a heartthrob from the past who has learned from hard times is genuine, even if his songwriting, somewhere on Britpop, is not. Where the Tony Iommi featuring Rocket was as explosive as its title would suggest, Spies is a slower and inevitably reflective track. A song looking back at the days of acting like spies. Through guesswork and assumption, we can readily believe the popstars of the so-called Britpop era were behaving like James Bond. At least, Williams and his close friends were. It’s a relatively weak chorus packed full of sickly sweet string sections trying to get an emotional rise out of a listener. It’ll work for those who can no longer differentiate sincerity from stylised grief. A shame, too, since Williams sounds solid. Nasally like Liam Gallagher, but affectionate for those who have breathed life into him. If this is the generative slop song, then we should be bitterly disappointed. 

The whole project is tainted. There is no space for generative artificial intelligence in music. Just look at the slop pumped out of grifts like Anna Indiana. That is one extreme end of the new tech spectrum, but be that as it may, in politics and culture, the extremes become the centre. Artists should be fighting back against technology which reduces the weight of their efforts, and not give in to it so easily. Pathetic. Spies is plain enough and nice, too. That latter will do the heavy lifting as the song tries and fails to soar with lead wings. Those dense materials are more the instrumentals than anything else. Britpop could hardly feature more than one inspired instrumental overlap. It would have made the album a series of singles rather than a comeback album backed by a film which already outlines the story.  

We live in times where viewing film after film, listening to album after album, just to get a slightly bigger picture, is an expectation of the artist or corporation. Investment in the person making the music is now just as important as the music itself. But what a contrast Williams has made for himself. A likeable character who has offered a forgettable chorus and some loose verses of contrast. After the thrills of Rocket, it’s hard to land with a song like Spies, though the objective from Williams here appears to be putting to bed the party atmosphere he is associated with. He does that, and with it, he discards an instrumentally effective, purposeful song. Solid work overall, but not one to return to. There is a worry now that Britpop as a wider project may have the same troubles.