10 Comments

Yeah Robbie William's solo stuff (to my ears) veers between hookless 'boy band guy went solo' and hookless 'fake Oasis'. He's good with reporters and press and that'll do a lot in the UK but I've failed my attempts to appreciate his stuff multiple times - sad!

Expand full comment

Thank you. This makes me feel less crazy.

Expand full comment

Disagree. His pop hits are right bangers. But if you didn’t hear them then — and bopped to it — you can’t hear them now.

Expand full comment

I was pretty culturally challenged in the 90s but "Back For Good" was a hit in the US for a while there.

Expand full comment

Millennium was the big hit stateside that I recognize. Samples Nancy Sinatra's "You Only Live Twice"

Expand full comment

There was that brief period in the late 90s where I'd just gotten satellite tv with M2, they were actually playing videos and only videos, and for some reason were really pushing Robbie Williams (and other "significantly bigger-in-Europe" acts like Placebo and Kylie Minogue). The horror fiend in me has a soft spot for Robbie solely due to the Hellraiser-esque Rock DJ video they aired constantly for a few weeks.

Expand full comment

With Pharrell's Piece by Piece using Legos and now Better Man using a CGI monkey, are we at the beginning of a new wave of symbolic/transmuted biopics? It seems strange that both movies came out this year...kind of like Armageddon and Deep Impact, maybe? Or maybe that's a reach...

I haven't seen Piece by Piece, and I have no desire to see Better Man, so I guess the weirdness is not having its intended effect, at least for me. When I first read the title, I was confused -- wait, is this about Pearl Jam? That song was everywhere for a while.

Expand full comment

While I wasn’t a huge RW fan back in the day the nostalgia factor is enough to get all my generation (late 30s) to the cinema for better Man. He was huge here and radio had him on constant cycle.

Expand full comment

Well, this now clarifies to this American in their late 40s why we're getting something that looks like a music bio-pic starring a cgi-Chimp that people were referring to as if it were a real person. I wasn't ever into boy band music, so I guess it's not surprising I never heard of a specific British boy band member trying to break out on their own.

Expand full comment

Big year for Take That fans at the movies, between BETTER MAN and "Great Day" being used in the opening credits of ANORA (the other members probably prefer the royalty payments from the latter)

Expand full comment