- Breakaway Pop Hit: "Misunderstood", recorded for Greatest Hits, wasn't initially planned for release as a single - this only happened after it was chosen for the soundtrack to Bridget Jones' Diary: The Edge Of Reason and a video was made including clips from the movie. The movie, whilst popular in the UK, is obscure elsewhere, whereas Williams has worldwide appeal.
- Breakup Breakout: From Take That (Band).
- Colbert Bump: While "Let Me Entertain You" was already a hit, it received a big bump in 2020 thanks to Yuzuru Hanyu's figure skating short program being set to the song. YouTube comments on the original video were inundated with messages from Hanyu fans.
- Creator Backlash: He has criticised a number of his tracks in interviews, removing the single "Eternity" from his setlists merely a few months after he released it due to his dislike of it. One of the biggest cases is "Millennium", which Williams has stated "it’s one of my greatest hits but I wouldn’t play that song again if it was up to me." He has also expressed dislike of Sing When You're Winning due to Executive Meddling and his depression at the time making it ballad-heavy. Williams in fact refers to this at the start of "Monsoon" with his line "I've sung some songs that were lame".
- Creator Recovery: Robbie's music became much more upbeat and optimistic after he met Ayda Field and they began a family. He talks endlessly about how happy he is in interviews and even released a song titled "I Love My Life" to leave a reminder to his children on the importance of finding happiness.
- Creator's Oddball: Swing When You're Winning is an album of big-band covers Robbie made to show off his love of that style of music. It also includes "I Will Talk and Hollywood Will Listen," a track that had been orphaned from his previous albums because it sounded so different to his other work. He followed that up many years later with Swings Both Ways.
- Cut Song: "Jesus In A Camper Van" was on I've Been Expecting You until 2002 when it was removed from further pressings due to similarities to a song by Loudon Wainwright III. The previously non-album single "It's Only Us" was added in its place. The original version was still pressed in the UK, however.
- Robbie said that he cut "Come Take Me Over" from Sing When You're Winning due to being dissatisfied with how the song concluded. It was released as a B-side to "Supreme". In addition, "One Fine Day" was cut from Escapology against Williams' wishes; it was soon released as the B-side to "Come Undone" and he continued to play it live and included it on the American version.
- Keep Circulating the Tapes: There are several tracks he only physically released on DVDs, such as "Dance With The Devil", "Ugly Love", "Big Beef", "1974", "Chemical Devotion", "Overture For Berlin" and "Bag Full Of Silly". Prior to the deluxe edition of his In And Out Of Consciousness compilation, this also applied to "The Postcard". That compilation also included a track called "Don't Stop Talking" which was previously a 2005 download-only exclusive from his website.
- Remade for the Export:
- His US debut album was The Ego Has Landed, which was a combination of tracks from his first two albums. Whilst "Millennium" was a modestly successful hit, the album didn't do much there. It eventually became available worldwide, and became a particularly big hit in Asia.
- Three years later, Capitol still wanted to break Robbie in the US, so his album Escapology was rearranged, had some tracks substituted with others, and remixed to have more dynamic sound quality to suit American radio. Robbie collaborated with them on this. In this case, it seems to have done absolutely nothing. In recent years Robbie has become practically the poster boy for English artists who fail to break America.
- His Greatest Hits release was remade for several countries it appeared in, for instance:
- Replacing "Lazy Days" with "Better Man" on all non-European copies.
- Replacing "Supreme" with its French version on French copies.
- Adding the Spanish versions of "Angels" and "Better Man" to the Argentinian version in place of "Lazy Days" and "She's The One" (whilst retaining the English versions). The Mexican version replaces the English "Angels" with the Spanish one yet keeps the English "Better Man".
- Adding "Something Beautiful" and "Monsoon" in place of "Eternity" and "The Road To Mandalay" on the Australian edition. The inclusion of "Monsoon" is unusual as it was not released as a single anywhere.
- Adding "Win Some Lose Some" to the New Zealand edition (it was only released as a single there) in place of "Old Before I Die". This version also includes "Something Beautiful" in place of "The Road To Mandalay".
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Trivia/RobbieWilliams
FollowingTrivia / Robbie Williams
Go To
