Robbie Williams

[Deleted]

*Coldplay etc. aren't considered "pop" just regular music.

Last time I checked, pop was regular music.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand, someone mentioned the reason why RW wasn't successful here was that he didn't make "whiny" music a la John Mayer et al. I still believed he needed some sort of niche to make it here. Not playing to the teen crowd wasn't a problem. If he did something or had a controversial or "talked about" song (i.e. "I'm Too Sexy") then maybe he would've received attention from the U.S. media as well as airplay on U.S. stations.

He played it safe, thinking the U.S. market was the U.K. market and it didn't work.

[Wol]

Love him. Love the whole swing thing he did for five minutes. So cool. I think he really should campaign for a part in the Guys and Dolls movie musical, if it should ever happen.

My fave part of the referenced Cribs episode was when he looked out over acres and acres of rolling green lawns and said "Look what they've done to my beloved strip mall and Starbucks."

Slightly OT: what is the big deal with James Blunt? He's like Damien Rice without the depth.

[spider]

Last time I checked, pop was regular music.

Pop in the Robbie 'n' Kylie tongue in cheek sense isn't mainstream in the US. Pop stars like Ashlee Simpson plays the teen audience- I am pretty into music and listen to alternative and rock radio all the time and have literally never heard one of her songs, ever- and people like Kelly Clarkson are mainly well liked because they were TV personalities first. I do hear Kelly on the radio a lot but she does more rock-y, Sheryl Crow type stuff so it gets played on the Mix stations around here quite a bit. Rock DJ is not going to be played on that station. Which is really too bad because it would liven it up quite a bit.

[girlnamedcarl]

Chiming in on the RW love. I was listening to his music yesterday as I gardened, and I just couldn't stop marveling at how clever, talented and just emotionally naked he is. I burst out laughing as "Here I stand victorious/The only man to make you come" roared out of my headphones (and inhaled some topsoil for my trouble).

[stina]

wol said:

Slightly OT: what is the big deal with James Blunt? He's like Damien Rice without the depth.

Whiniest. Guy. Ever.

That "Beautiful" song is so whiny, and the video of him naked and whiny in the snow? AH! HATE!

Seriously, he sings "Goodbyyyye my lovah" and all I can think is that I know why his lovah dumped him-- he probably whined her to death!

I like Robbie a lot, but I don't actually have any of his albums. My favourite song of his is Sexed Up. I loved the video, too.

[kostgard]

The only funny Robbie Williams thing I have to add is that I checked Sing When You're Winning out of the library to see if I liked it before I bought it - as I opened the case to flip through the liner notes, I saw that someone had taken great care to stick a Post-It over every picture of Robbie's naked bum. I don't know if the library did it or if some other patron was horrified at the sight and wanted to spare the rest of us, but it totally cracked me up.

I like his music and I wish we were bigger over here in the US. But I guess "Cheeky Lad" doesn't appeal to the American music-buying public the way "American Idol" or "Baby-Dropping Idiot" does.

[londonprincess]

girlnamedcarl said:

Chiming in on the RW love. I was listening to his music yesterday as I gardened, and I just couldn't stop marveling at how clever, talented and just emotionally naked he is. I burst out laughing as "Here I stand victorious/The only man to make you come" roared out of my headphones (and inhaled some topsoil for my trouble).

When I first listened to that song, I couldn't help but smile and think "That's Robbie!". He's just so much fun. He's sexy but doesn't take himself too seriously (unlike Justin Timberlake, Usher, etc. - even though they're not sexy). I still don't know why he hasn't made his way to the US.

[Deleted]

Pop in the Robbie 'n' Kylie tongue in cheek sense isn't mainstream in the US.

I beg to differ. Kylie has had some success in spite of the 15 year passage between Top 10 songs. She's even won a Grammy. The reason why she wasn't a huge success can be described in one word: Madonna.

RW on the other hand has had no success. I respect his talent but again it comes down to marketing and how to present yourself to the public. People knocked Coldplay but they sort of came off as humble guys compared to the so-called arrogance of the Gallagher brothers in Oasis. You see the parallels of their success came about.

[ownlife]

I liked his Live8 performance and his TV special, The Robbie Williams Show.
American music execs probably don't know how to market Robbie here. He doesn't fit any of the music genres and radio is so narrow these days (all country stations, all hip hop, all hard rock, etc.), I can't imagine which type of station would play his music. It's too bad because I think his music would appeal to a broad range of fans. He's begun a huge world tour but there probably aren't any US dates. Does anyone else think that he and Carson Daly were separated at birth?

[londonprincess]

I think its hard for them to market him because all of the popular pop stars are mostly in their late teens/early twenties. He's definitly not close to being old but, for American fans, they would rather see Jesse McCartney (insert vomit here).