Sometimes I wonder why I don't have time to sleep. So I did some investigating. It turns out that this article is this site's tenth review of a Robbie Williams single. Tenth! Stoke's most famous product seems to release an album every year. 2006 will see another, and Rudebox is the lead single from it.
So is this tenth opus any different to the radio-friendly but collectively borderline naff nine that went before? And what the hell is a Rudebox anyway?
Yes, it is different. He's gone electro. Sly & Robbie's funky Boops (Here To Go) sample provides the wall-shaking bass on which the rest of the piece hangs. And that's just as well - over the top of it we're treated to Robbie's lazy rapping. He sounds like a disinterested, stoned Shaun Ryder welded to a vocoder.
This release is really about the various club mixes by the likes of Chicken Lips and Soul Mekanik. They're fun. The lyrics aren't. "TK Maxx costs less, Jackson looks a mess..." we are informed. Such stream of consciousness rambles might have worked for Virginia Woolf, and Alison Goldfrapp has somehow got away with nonsensical lyrics for years, but Robbie doesn't for a moment cut it. And what's with the Gorillazesque cover art, complete with graffiti? There's nothing like trying, I suppose.
share: 
