Robbie Williams - Britpop

Bringing the promo. Bringing the video. MTV may have retired the video but Robbie is keeping the video alive and this MUST be nominated for a MTV VMA. Even though they don't do videos anymore. For best video. Not played on MTV.
 
Shame we can’t move this to pop toilet as I guess technically he just has a record breaking 16th number one album

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Album falls to #36 this week. Which in fairness could have been worse.

All My Life got 809,000 streams in its first week.
 
I know some criticise Kylie for being quite conservative with her setlists, but I think she's in a not dissimilar position.

When I saw her last year, yes Padam and Tension went off, but it was really noticable how much the energy dropped when she performed other tracks from the Tension albums.

Whereas when I saw Robyn last night, the new stuff went over just as well as the 'hits', but then she's much more of a fanbase-only artist and she had struggled to fill the Arena-sized venues she'd booked because she just doesn't have the same kind of broad appeal.

It's the double-edged sword of being that kind of entertainer I guess.
 
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I think the length of that response is fine - it articulates his mindset very well.
 
It's an odd position to be in when you're essentially a heritage act (in terms of not getting hit singles or traction on your new material), but are still capable of selling out arenas, full of people who largely demand the hits.

I'd imagine in that respect Kylie may be slightly better served by new material as her fanbase has a large gay, unhinged element which does at least follow her new material. I'd imagine Robbie's fans skews more to people who will be all over buying tickets but couldn't necessarily name a song he's recorded in the last decade plus.
 
I think it's fair enough, he wants his shows to go off and he knows what will make them go off - what I might say though is if he feels in advance basically there is next to nothing on the new album that will do that then maybe just maybe it needed more work on it - because if he isn't prepared to back himself than nobody else is going to.
 
I do think there's a difference between an act like Kylie or Robbie playing something like Glastonbury or a festival rather than their own tour.

I've no idea what type of gig it was that Robbie is responding to the criticism of there, but I don't think Kylie IS particularly conservative in her setlists away from things like Glastonbury or Radio 2 In The Park, is she?

At least in terms of playing the new material, rather than relying on the same old hits and encores.
 
I've just looked at his streaming stats on Spotify and he's nowhere near as solid a performer on streaming as I expected. Aside from their respective top 3 tracks I think Kylie generally streams better than him.
 
He's on 1.417m streams daily, 4.791bn total.

She's at 2.297m daily, 4.183bn total.
 
He's on 1.417m streams daily, 4.791bn total.

She's at 2.297m daily, 4.183bn total.
Oh I didn't notice that total. Actually I've just realised that I had the songs listed by daily totals. Ignore my previous message then.

Also who knew that Something Stupid was almost 7 times more popular than Kids!
 
Oh I didn't notice that total. Actually I've just realised that I had the songs listed by daily totals. Ignore my previous message then.

Also who knew that Something Stupid was almost 7 times more popular than Kids!
I still think it's interesting in that although he has a higher total than her accumulated, she's performing over 50% better than him daily. She's lost a little since the peak of the Netflix boost, but even before that was managing just under 2m daily.
 
Could it be that the difference lies in the genre of material? Robbie's brand of very British MOR rock-pop is less likely to reach out to a newer and younger audience than Euro dance-pop.
 
I've just looked at his streaming stats on Spotify and he's nowhere near as solid a performer on streaming as I expected. Aside from their respective top 3 tracks I think Kylie generally streams better than him.
I did a bit of charity shop CD buying the other weekend and about 80% of the CDs that weren't people from X Factor (and there were A LOT of those) were Robbie Williams ones from all periods of his career - I think he's maybe just a bit marooned as a 'past' thing now for a lot of people.
 
Rolling my eye (the good one) at Rob thinking he's got a few "do you believe in life after love?" moments in him, but his fan base (consisting of mainly people who wouldn't dream of buying anything new) will be relieved.

I wanted more slides of the Taylor Swift exchange.
 
I'd also wager a bigger proportion of his fanbase were always casuals. Kylie has diehard gays who will stick with her until she's still discoing at the age of 90. Robbie had some fanaticals from the Take That days, but much of his sales came from being a braindead "mum" or teen girl gift. Those mums moved on as soon as he stopped doing MOR ballads and started singing about banging Madonna. Meanwhile the teen girls grew up to be Facebook huns who still squeal when "She's The One" comes on, but otherwise don't actively select music and just tell Alexa to play the top 40. If they do buy music or build playlists, it's Lewis Capaldi and Ed Sheeran now.
 
You don't get as massive as he was at his height without picking up people who on the whole aren't massively interested in music for the most part.

When he did those few concerts at the Royal Crescent in Bath last year, I was amazed at the number of my female friends who got tickets. I'd be amazed if any of them could hum a single thing post Candy.
 

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