Robbie Williams: The Ego Has Landed : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Every boy group has one bad apple: The New Kids had Donnie, the Backstreeters have A.J., and 'N Sync have that dude who seems to be wearing a poodle with rickets on his head. Robbie Williams served his time as the bad-apple boy in Take That, the U.K. teen screams who had a hit here with "Back for Good." But Robbie's U.S. solo debut, The Ego Has Landed, proves that he's one teen idol who knows how to make a lovably lurid showbiz spectacle of himself -- as Mama once said to Rerun on What's Happening!!, he looks like somebody spilled Liberace all over him. The Ego Has Landed is easily the kickiest Elton John-style pop album anyone has made since George Michael's Faith, packed with disco beats, Vegas flash, rock energy and hipster wit. This kid is a Seventies variety show looking for a place to happen.

Robbie has obviously spent his youth studying Elton's Greatest Hits Volume II with the devotion of a Talmudic scholar, and there are worse ways to spend a childhood. Thank God he goes for "The Bitch Is Back"-like rock glitz instead of "Levon"-style solemnity -- "Levon" was a great tune, of course, but getting serious isn't Robbie's pair of shades. His anthem is "Let Me Entertain You," scamming on a title from Natalie Wood in Gypsy by way of Freddie Mercury. Just when you think the song can't get any more ridiculous, Robbie ups the ante: metal guitars, a horn section, candelabra piano everywhere. "She's the One" is a top-notch puppy-love ballad, while "Strong" and "Win Some Lose Some" go for slick Raspberries-like guitar pop with tiger-beat production. Williams even answers the Who in "Old Before I Die," a doozy of a youth manifesto: "I hope I'm old before I die/I hope I live to see the day the pope gets high."Robbie has the sweet voice you'd expect from a dumber guy, trilling like George Michael in the ballads and braying like Oasis' Liam Gallagher on the rockers. There's even a taste of Rick Astley in his low register, and while no sane person would ever admit to being influenced by Rick Astley, one of the most appealing things about The Ego Has Landed is that Robbie and sanity are barely on speaking terms. He comes on brighter and funnier than he has any right to be, as in the fabulous "Strong," in which he broods over his fate as a maturing pop tart: "Early morning when I wake up/I look like Kiss but without the makeup." (Your move, Courtney.) The teen-pop competition should listen hard to Robbie Williams and take notes: The Ego Has Landed is smartly crafted, hormonally charged, utterly content-free boy-preen that even grown-ups can flip for. Hello, yellow brick road. (RS 813)

ROB SHEFFIELD