Article about performer Robbie Williams for Posdata magazine. (in Spanish)
From Take That to Better Man and everything in between.
A legend appeases the masses, including a 14-year-old girl, who now writes this, who still remembers with fascination having seen this spectacle of gore and pop on TV:
"NO ROBBIES WERE HARMED DURING THE MAKING OF THIS VIDEO"
Because yes. There are many Robbies. And yes. Despite the clarification, all of them have been harmed.
Boyband Robbie
I'd say Take That walked so One Direction could run, but Take That ran too. They filled stadiums, topped charts, hung out with celebrities. They shared a city with Oasis, the other big Manchester band. Robbie admired Oasis and aspired to be like them, but he was ridiculed for being in a boyband. A boyband in which they didn't like him either. He didn't belong anywhere.
Solo Robbie
It was 1997 and Robbie released his first album. Life Through a Lens, where, serious and overwhelmed, he faced the press and the spotlight. Just a month earlier, Princess Diana of Wales had died under similar lights. Her car had crashed under the Pont des Almes in Paris. Her stalkers did nothing but take photos of her final moments. It was in that same city that Robbie presented his album. Where he was reborn through the lens.
That sincerity and nakedness characterized Robbie's early albums, of course with a glaze of performed self-esteem. The figurative meaning of what we saw later in the video for "Rock DJ," part of his third album Sing When You’re Winning. On the cover, Robbie celebrates a goal on a football field. He's carried by other Robbies, also dressed as football players. He cheers himself on, celebrates his own triumphs. He has his own "army of me," to paraphrase Björk. The Robbies who weren't harmed, but were, the ones we've talked about. And the Robbies in the middle. And the Robbies in the background, criticising and threatening him at every game.
International Robbie
It was the peak of Mexican anglophilia. The soft power brought by Cool Britannia slapped us in the face with pop icons. Some as phenomenal as the Spice Girls, others more like dark horses that found more impact here, like The Verve, Blur, the aforementioned Oasis, and Robbie. Here, he was so popular that he recorded "Angels" in Spanish. Later, Yuridia recorded that same version. A classic that reinvents itself according to each audience.
By 2005, Robbie was already performing at the Estadio Azteca. He was interviewed by Omar Chaparro on Telehit, the channel where I probably saw "Rock DJ" for the first time. Robbie told Omar he liked his haircut and was going to copy it. Omar said it was patented in Mexico, but Robbie replied that he would buy the rights for England. And he did copy his hair. He'd seen it long before, when he met Gary Barlow and wondered who that wanker with a Morrissey haircut was. He shared the anecdote sporting that same haircut now. Morrissey's hair, Gary Barlow's hair, Omar Chaparro's hair. Robbie Williams' hair? Emulating his idols is a very Robbie thing, after all.
Crooner Robbie
Inspired by his love for Frank Sinatra, whom he watched on TV with his father Peter, a pub owner and former police officer who passed on his passion for entertainment to his son. And his insecurities. He recorded with Lenny Kravitz, Nicole Kidman, and Sinatra himself on legacy recordings. Behind the crooner with charisma, who would compare himself to Sean Connery on the single "Kids" from the Sing album, featuring Kylie Minogue, his need for his father's approval lingered on. If his father loved Sinatra and and he was like Sinatra now, then his father would love him. Right?
Monkey Robbie
Better Man is creative and emotional. You sing every song with tears in your eyes, whether you're a fan of the artist or not. You accompany Robbie on his cosmic journey, and his realisations smash you into pieces. You fall with him for being dumb, you get up with him for being badass. You may not have the reach, the money, or the circumstances he has, but the sensations are universal: love, abandonment, fear, joy, disconnection, forgiveness, death drive, and the will to live.
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