Robbie Williams fails to reinvent himself on Britpop but hardly tries anyway

Knowing that one of these songs has used artificial intelligence is a bit like Russian roulette, but the winner is the one who receives the bullet. Having to sift through Robbie Williams’ latest, and his first album post-monkey movie box office bomb, is a trying time. He started well enough by enlisting Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi on a personal crusade to encourage the use of a dirty word. Britpop is a vicious little word that has been rendered obsolete by those who were tagged as such. Nobody quite fit into the box it drew, and that meant was jumbled, mangled, and spat out by what quickly became an exercise in nostalgia. Where it may appear Williams is criticising this call for nostalgia, what with the blonde hair and red tracksuit on the cover, it is not the case. He has revelled in this throwback to the 1990s, when he was releasing consistent pop bangers. He is yet to do so again, if Britpop is anything to go by.  

There’s a self-effacing and self-deprecating humour to Britpop that would have landed better had Williams not so wholeheartedly endorsed what he was making fun of about himself at the time of doing it. Seasonal World Cup songs, a boy band attitude without the big or bright ideas to back it up. Nothing has changed and, in his attempt to break a record rather than accept the Taylor Swift chart-topping Monopoly, Britpop comes across as a touch cowardly. A shame, too, when Better Man profiled Williams as a humanised artist whose roots are in danger of being removed for the sake of bigger and bigger tours and budgets. But it’s easy to lose sight of the tragedy when you’ve got Velcro joggers and rose-tinted glasses. Williams appears to have both across Britpop, a pop-oriented album that would work if it weren’t so misguided. Opener Rocket sounds worse now than it did when it was released last year. What a difference six months can make. It’s no better on the songs to follow.  

One of the many problems with Britpop is that, after Williams announced one of the songs was coughed up by an artificial intelligence tool, it repurposes the perspective of all the songs. It’s not a case of trying to pick it out from the pack, but simply assuming it could be any one of the songs featured on Britpop. Nothing here is written with enough depth to note it’s not generated, and if this is all Williams’ work, then he is lacking greatly in the writing department and has found himself confused by the flashy lights of modern pop fare. Barren of real experience and such a tame, uneventful piece of work. Not one moment where you can either feel for Williams or where he may piece together some comment or criticism of the world around him. He seems settled when his listeners are not.  

Even oddities like Morrissey are not enough to keep the album together. Williams writes as though he is not as worthy as The Smiths’ frontman. Who are we to disagree with the ex-Take That member? It’s hard to offer up much goodwill to Williams with Britpop. He has tried to stay relevant by latching onto the very nostalgia he’s criticising, and he doesn’t do it all that well, either. It seems as though Williams has gotten his hands on a Madlib’s exercise book where half of the words are already filled in. Britpop rides the coattails of a movement Williams was often on the fringes of, a style of music that never quite suited him. He shuffles the deck of genres and never finds a sound that suits him. At least he tried, though his efforts on You are a tad embarrassing. He fears his own lyrics. So do we, Williams. Instrumentally dull, unnoteworthy work from a man whose entire sound has been dependent on finding a new route through the noise. It doesn’t work here.