Album review: The Heavy Entertainment Show, Robbie Williams

Although The Heavy Entertainment Show is Robbie Williams’ eleventh studio album, the now 42-year-old pop star recently claimed that he personally views it as his sixth – the one that should rightly have followed 2002’s Escapology. If you disregard 2013’s Swings Both Ways, that mega-selling release was his last serious creative collaboration with multi-award-winning songwriter Guy Chambers, with whom Williams had worked from the very beginning of his solo career post-Take That.

Ultimately they had a very public falling out. Now, several lukewarm albums later, that rift is well-healed, and Chambers has co-written and produced the bulk of this new release. Williams has had lyrical and vocal assistance from other notable heavyweights as well – including Ed Sheeran, Brandon Flowers, Rufus Wainwright, John Grant and Stuart Price. He’s even had help from beyond the grave, with the late Sergei Prokofiev and Serge Gainsbourg also credited.

The title is obviously a play on ‘light entertainment’, and these songs seek to redefine the parameters of what exactly constitutes ‘light’. Williams has stated that his intention is to “have a shared experience with millions of people through the medium of light entertainment... but on steroids.”

He has totally succeeded with these eleven songs (the deluxe version offers five more, including the John Grant duet). It kicks off with the hugely energetic title song – in which he blatantly sets out his stall – and doesn’t really stop thereafter. “Good evening children of cultural abandon/ You searched for a saviour, well here I am/ And all the best ones are dying off so quickly/ While I’m still here, enjoy me while you can.”

Later he sings. “Welcome to The Heavy Entertainment Show/ Where the more you see, the less you know/ Welcome to The Heavy Entertainment Show/ Where Eminem meets Barry Manilow.”

The Eminem influence is obvious on ‘Motherfucker’, a ridiculously catchy song written for his son, Charlton Valentine – but, unfortunately, most likely destined to be banned from the airwaves. “One day soon you’ll be old enough/ To go out on your own and stuff/ If you start losing hope and love/ It’s because your uncle sells drugs/ Your cousin is a cutter/ Your grandma is a fluffer/ Your granddad’s in the gutter/ Your mother is a nutter/ Your mother is a nutter/ We’re all bad motherfuckers/ You’re a bad motherfucker.”

While the overall musical feel is pulsing hi-energy pop, there are some slower, more poignant moments. Also addressed to his children, the gorgeous ‘Love My Life’ is a lot more tender: “Tether your soul to me/ I will never let go completely/ One day your hands will be/ Strong enough to hold me/ I might not be there for all your battles/ But you’ll win them eventually.”

Always one of the cheekiest characters in pop, he goes totally OTT on ‘Party Like A Russian’ (with a little military musical help from the aforementioned Prokofiev): “I got Stolly and Bolly and Molly so I’m jolly/ And I’m always off my trolley so I never say sorry/ There’s a doll inside a doll inside a doll inside a dolly/ (Hello dolly)/ I put a bank inside a car inside a plane inside a boat/ It takes half the western world just to keep the ship afloat/ And I never ever smile unless there’s something to promote/ I just won’t emote.” It’ll be interesting to see the audience reaction if he plays a Moscow gig on the upcoming tour. Throw in some great numbers penned by Ed Sheeran (‘Pretty Woman’) and Brandon Flowers (‘Mixed Signals’), and fine duets with Rufus Wainwright (‘Hotel Crazy’) and John Grant (‘I Don’t Want To Hurt You’), and the result is Robbie Williams’ finest album in well over a decade. I don’t know about heavy, but it’s certainly entertaining. Take that, Take That!!