Быть лучше: История Робби Уильямса

(Mauro Lanari) The new Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin, an operetta crooner choreographed in stadiums for world tours, a maudit playboy résumé, a Beverly Hills underdog: the kitsch musical suits him. He anticipates criticism to neutralise it, but that doesn't make it any less true. He started with "Life thru a Lens" ('97), a heterogeneous melting pot of tracks not due to eclecticism but rather because, after Take That and as a debut album, he hadn't defined his own musical style and was still searching for a solo identity, trying to intercept disparate trends without a clear vision; now he has ended up duetting with Laura Pausini. Of Britpop, he only recorded "Lazy Days," a track composed for him by Guy Chambers and Beatlesque to the core with the distorted, gritty tones of a Wurlitzer 200A electric piano almost similar to the Hammond with a Leslie rotor that was all the rage in the Madchester sound (and indeed, no one from that scene had as much success, nor is the song included in the biopic). Also excellent is the minimalism of the piano played by Jon Douglas in "Feel," ruined by the swaggering, histrionic video with Daryl Hannah. The mainstream popstar, beyond Elton John's glam and with demons he's monetizing heavily, feels he is a monkey, a mask over a mask all made of plastic (or CGI), far removed from Abrahamson's "Frank" (2014). A reference to DEVO or to Burroughs and drug addiction? A well-deserved box-office flop, were it not for the fact that the soundtrack had already reached its 15th UK number-one album, tying the Fab Four's record.