Robbie Williams’s Britpop is an unabashed joyride

Roisin O'Connor, The Independent

Robbie Williams has been having a very public reckoning with his past, of late. There was Better Man, the Oscar-nominated 2024 film that depicted the former Take That member as a CGI chimp (inspired by his view of himself as a performing monkey). Then came a moving four-part Netflix documentary, in which he reflected on his early taste of fame, aged 16, in one of the world’s biggest boybands, and how that led him down a dark path of drug addiction and depression. Narrated largely from the cosy safety of a goose-down duvet, Williams offered a poignant look at the bloke behind all the bravado. Yet even as he reminded us of why we fell in love with him in the first place — bellowed “Angel” choruses and all — there was an album he felt he never got to make, one he would like to have released in the immediate aftermath of his Take That departure in pursuit of solo stardom.

So, right off the back of 2025’s euphoric Oasis reunion — reminding us all of the unifying power of a bloody brilliant rock band — the irrepressible scamp comes out with Britpop, his first non-Christmas album in a decade. It’s an unabashed joyride, full to the brim of hook-laden tracks with soaring riffs and anthemic choruses. Is it the highest calibre of songwriting? Hardly, there are a few rhymes that’ll definitely make you wince. But if anyone can pull off a cheesy line with aplomb, it’s Robbie, and this record does contain some of his best tracks in aeons. There’s even a reunion with his ex-bandmate Gary Barlow, with whom he seems to have buried the hatchet over all that past hurt.

His voice is on top form here, rich and sonorous with the grit that added some much-needed danger to Take That’s otherwise squeaky-clean sound. Britpop happens to land two weeks ahead of the release of a new Netflix documentary about the Nineties boyband sensations, in which he appears only through archive footage. “All My Life” finds him at his most defiant, going down with his ship amid a rousing crash of percussion and chugging electric guitar riffs: “Masochistic but I’m always entertaining/ And I know I’ll die but I’ll never leave the stage.”

Williams teams up with Barlow on “Morrissey”, written from the perspective of a stalker infatuated with the controversial Smiths frontman. It’s an odd prospect, particularly given Morrissey’s seemingly endless string of unsavoury outbursts on everything from politics to immigration. But the obsessed fan sees past all of that. To him, Mozza is just a singer who’s “a bit eccentric... lost and lonely...” who needs “love just like you”. Williams’s suggestion, over subtly twinkling Eighties synths, that Morrissey is a man in need of a hug is surprisingly endearing. Indeed, you wish it were that simple.

“Cocky” is just so: heavily referencing Oasis with its jangly “Lyla” concoction of stomping drums, plonky pianos and shimmering tambourines. The equally obstinate “Bite Your Tongue” sounds something like Wet Leg’s “Chaise Longue” thanks to its peppy rhythm, buzzy guitar riff and bloopy synth line. Anyone searching for deep political meaning won’t find it here; the song’s punkish mood is deployed to his insistence that “I don’t condone bad things, I condone what’s nice/ And if it’s really really good then I’m condoning it twice”. Williams is at his balladeering best on “Spies”, which is Hoobastank’s “The Reason” meets his own 1997 hit “Angels”, with just a sprinkling of Elton John. “It’s OK Until the Drugs Stop Working”, meanwhile, actually riffs on “Angels” with a lyrical reference (“she offers me protection”) while reflecting on his hedonistic heyday with orchestral pomp.

Closing song “Pocket Rocket” is a nod back to the rip-roaring opener (“I just wanna be your rocket”), intended to demonstrate the growth of one of UK pop’s biggest personalities, now happy, settled and in love with his wife of 15 years, Ayda Field, with whom he shares four children. Far from that initial bolshiness, it glides in on elegant violins and Williams singing in a warm murmur. It’s a bit too tasteful — the arrangement reminds me of Netflix series Bridgerton and its incessant string quartet covers of pop hits, while the line “what a time to be alive”, tongue-in-cheek or not, grates. A record like this should go out with a bang. Instead, it’s a bit of a limp finish to an otherwise fun record from one of our most charismatic pop stars.