\u2022 Robbie Williams at Dingwalls review \u2014 a therapy session with 400 fans<\/a><\/p>\n Instead Williams released Britpop without warning on January 16, explaining on Instagram that \u201cit\u2019s been long enough. I\u2019ve decided that I want to go now.\u201d That his biggest chart rivals this week are Sleaford Mods \u2014 the only other act on the schedules who have hit the UK Top Five before \u2014 may have played into his heroic push over the top.<\/p>\n Where does this hunger come from? Williams has been very open about his personal and professional insecurities and the sources of them. In the 2023 Netflix documentary Robbie Williams he admitted to being \u201cvengeful\u201d over his treatment at the hands of Gary Barlow during his years as Take That\u2019s youngest member in the 1990s<\/a> \u2014 pushed to the sidelines, creatively dismissed and resented for fronting their first Top Five hit, Could It Be Magic, in Barlow\u2019s place. A new documentary, Take That, released on Netflix on Tuesday, further explores the rivalry.<\/p>\n Williams in Take That in 1992<\/p>\n GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t realise that you\u2019re a backing dancer until a few years in\u2026 I didn\u2019t sign up for that,\u201d Williams says, detailing his descent into depression and alcoholism during his final years in the band.<\/p>\n \u201cThe most insecure and emotional person in the band was Robbie and I feel quite guilty now for not recognising that,\u201d Barlow admits.<\/p>\n And in the post-split Robbie versus Gary chart battles, a beast of ambition was born. \u201cI wanted to make him pay,\u201d Williams confessed in 2023, \u201cby having the career that he was supposed to have.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2022 The best new music to listen to this week<\/a><\/p>\n To which end, the solo Williams swiftly became an ego-stoking numbers man. When his stalling 1997 solo debut, Life Thru a Lens, finally went multi-platinum in the wake of the success of Angels, he appeared on the Channel 4 show TFI Friday to crow down the camera to his former bandmates about hitting a million sales. He became a solo phenomenon with further multi-platinum records such as I\u2019ve Been Expecting You (1998) and Sing When You\u2019re Winning (2000), almost doubling Take That\u2019s mere 45 million album sales (their No 1 albums total is nine). In 2002 he landed the biggest record deal ever offered to a British artist \u2014 \u00a380 million from EMI. At the press conference to announce it he famously yelled, \u201cI\u2019m rich beyond my wildest dreams!\u201d<\/p>\n In 2003, when his rivalry with Oasis<\/a> was at its peak, he made much of playing a record-breaking three nights at Knebworth to lord it over the Gallaghers\u2019 two in 1996. To mark the event Williams sent a pair of tap shoes to Noel Gallagher, in reference to the Oasis guitarist dismissing him as a \u201cfat dancer\u201d: \u201cDear Mr N Gallagher. You said two nights at Knebworth is history. Well, I guess three is just greedy,\u201d read the note, which also offered Oasis the support slot. All conveniently ignoring the fact that, if all 2.5 million people who applied for tickets to see Oasis there had got one, they could have played 20 shows.<\/p>\n After that, though, began a commercial slide through relative flops such as Rudebox (2006) and Reality Killed the Video Star (2009) towards a wilderness decade. During the 2010s he was most successful as a crooner covers act on Swings Both Ways (2013) and resorted to dressing as a Dickensian gent on the cover of the stocking filler The Christmas Present in 2019. So you can\u2019t begrudge him a spot of satisfaction at being back among history\u2019s musical big boys again.<\/p>\n On stage at Knebworth in 2003<\/p>\n JON FURNISS\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n There\u2019s also a dollop of delusion at play. Breaking the record is historic but to imagine that it makes him in any way bigger than the Beatles is a fallacy. His 75 million worldwide album sales make him one of Britain\u2019s most successful solo artists but a relative Henman compared to the Beatles\u2019 Federer. With sales records spotty in the Sixties, their figures vary from a documented 296 million record sales to a claimed 600 million, with more fanciful guesstimates, including streaming-equivalent sales, topping a billion. Any way you dice it, they\u2019re the bestselling music act of all time.<\/p>\n With albums now selling a tiny fraction of their pre-streaming totals, Williams will never surpass the Beatles sales-wise. And neither, most likely, will anybody else. Likewise, the Beatles\u2019 creative accomplishments are unlikely to be matched. The fact that this supremely talented group were working within a Sixties industry framework that expected at least one new studio album per year, had the global media spotlight on them from the off and were able to stop touring within three years to concentrate on musical innovation meant they could entirely reinvent pop culture inside seven years.<\/p>\n \u2022 Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney and the art of plagiarism<\/a><\/p>\n Still, Williams\u2019s record is all but secured, but how hollow does the victory ring? By not taking on Swift directly, is this a scoundrel\u2019s triumph? And all for an accolade that\u2019s becoming increasingly meaningless?<\/p>\n With Liam Gallagher in 1995<\/p>\n EMPICS ENTERTAINMENT\/ALAMY<\/p>\n When the Beatles scored their No 1 albums they were selling hundreds of thousands of copies in the first week alone. Today 60,000 is a very strong showing for a chart-topping record, with albums regularly reaching No 1 with just 17,000 sales, particularly in the post-Christmas lull. In recent years several little-known bands with strong local followings \u2014 the K\u2019s, the Reytons and so forth \u2014 have managed to become chart-topping superstars for a week.<\/p>\n \u2022 Read more music reviews, interviews and guides on what to listen to next<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Portrait](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/\/d8e2c6eb-2747-4548-9be1-71d0a35d2803.jpg\")
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