{"id":236115,"date":"2026-01-16T09:18:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T09:18:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/236115\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T09:18:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T09:18:07","slug":"a-love-letter-to-the-90s-and-bid-to-live-forever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/236115\/","title":{"rendered":"a love letter to the ’90s and bid to live forever"},"content":{"rendered":"

The man who once told you \u201cI hope I\u2019m old before I die\u201d now finds himself 51 and wrapped up in legacy. In the decade since Robbie Williams<\/a>\u2019 last album, 2016\u2019s \u2018The Heavy Entertainment Show<\/a>\u2019, we\u2019ve seen a tell-all Netflix doc (so intimate he\u2019s rarely out of his bed or underwear) and divisive biopic Better Man<\/a> (in which you got to see him on smack and getting wanked off as a monkey). The latter, he once told NME<\/a>, was a watershed moment to kickstart the \u201cthird act\u201d of his career. That too, will begin with Williams looking back.<\/p>\n

\u201cI set out to create the album that I wanted to write and release after I left Take That<\/a> in 1995,\u201d he said in a statement announcing 13th album \u2018Britpop\u2019. In the place of the indie-driven arena pop of his 1997 debut \u2018Life Thru Lens\u2019 \u2013 that birthed partystarter \u2018Let Me Entertain You\u2019 and Oasis<\/a>-indebted wedding basic \u2018Angels\u2019 \u2013 we are to imagine that this takes us back to a halcyon era and analogue days of Cool Britannia.<\/p>\n

Black Sabbath<\/a> icon Tony Iommi<\/a> joins in on the scuzzy pub rock belter opener \u2018Rocket\u2019, a daft but deft earworm that captures the album\u2019s mantra of looking to the past but living for now: \u201cWhat a time to be alive\u201d. Then, \u2018Spies\u2019 is a Robbie-by-numbers lighters up pre-encore ballad, in the lineage of \u2018Strong\u2019 and \u2018Come Undone\u2019 but with a lot more guitar oomph.<\/p>\n

The album\u2019s pretty equally split between bravado and ballads. \u2018Pretty Face\u2019 bursts open with Elastica<\/a> and Republica<\/a> energy before a simple but oh-so-Robbie everyman chorus. If you thought he\u2019d finished rapping with the career cringe torpedo of \u2018Rudebox\u2019, look away. Man\u2019s spitting bars for better or worse on \u2018Bite Your Tongue\u2019 and \u2018You\u2019: two old-school Kasabian<\/a> nonsense spitfires that bid you to \u201cmake Jared Leto out of Lego\u201d and deploy Super Hans politics (\u201cWham bam, ain\u2019t it a scam: Afghanistan and Vietnam\u201d).<\/p>\n

Supergrass<\/a> legend Gaz Coombes<\/a> lends a hand on \u2018Cocky\u2019, pumped by the glam-rock stomp of \u2018Blockbuster\u2019 by Sweet,<\/a> while the Disneyfied orchestral sweep of \u2018It\u2019s OK Until The Drugs Stop Working\u2019 is a ballsy Tony Christie<\/a> meets Blur sing-along delivered with a little cheek and a self-knowing wink: \u201cI have to smile when she offers me protection\u201d.<\/p>\n

Among the slower numbers, \u2018All My Life\u2019 trudges like a latter day Oasis or Liam G<\/a> solo cut albeit with words by David Brent (\u201cMy life is based on a true story: one of dreams, chaos and audacity\u201d), \u2018Human\u2019 is a countrified ode to letting it be, and \u2018Morrissey<\/a>\u2019 (co-written by and featuring former Take That<\/a> pal Gary Barlow<\/a>) is a thoroughly silly electropop 2025 rework of \u2018Stan\u2019 told by the stalker of The Smiths<\/a> misanthrope. Heaven knows it\u2019s more fun than it sounds.<\/p>\n

Closing with the bookend of the tender reprise \u2018Pocket Rocket\u2019, \u2018Britpop\u2019 ends with a little resolve: \u201cI just wanna be your rock, yeah\u201d. He\u2019s standing firm. Rather than neck a BuzzBall on a Lime Bike and do his take on \u2018Brat<\/a>\u2019, Robbie knows his game and has done a record for himself. An album to be remembered for? Probably not, but it\u2019s bold, it\u2019s a laugh, and he\u2019s done it his way. That\u2019s what makes him Robbie. For that alone, he\u2019ll live forever.<\/p>\n

Details<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Record label: Columbia
\nRelease date: January 16, 2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The man who once told you \u201cI hope I\u2019m old before I die\u201d now finds himself 51 and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":236116,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[43726,156,157,111,139,69,4913],"class_list":{"0":"post-236115","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-britpop","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-music","11":"tag-new-zealand","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz","14":"tag-pop"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}