Tom Dunne: He mightn't really be Britpop, but you should still let Robbie Williams entertain you 

Robbie Williams has beaten the Beatles in terms of number one albums. Obviously, it's not a valid comparison, but the ex Take That man has made the most of his talents 

Robbie Williams at Croke Park last year. On one day in 2006 he sold 1.6 million tickets. Picture: Gareth Chaney

Robbie Williams’ new album is called Britpop. It is his 16th UK number one. He has now overtaken The Beatles. He says it’s the album he should have made in 1997, when he was, you know, Britpop. But I think if he had made this album then, The Beatles would still be safe.

The album he did make back then, the non-Britpop adjacent Life Thru a Lens, featured Angels and sold three million. It was the beginning of his ubiquitousness. It made him bigger than Britpop. But bigger than The Beatles? We didn’t see that coming.

I remember Robbie back then. Post Take That he was a star in search of a new universe, although mind you, they all were. And no one really wanted to know. Once, on radio, at an outside broadcast and stuck for guests, a researcher returned to say we’d been offered two of their ex-members.

The production tram were aghast. “You told them we have no slots didn’t you? You told them the Beth Orton interview would run long?” they pleaded.

“I’m young and inexperienced,” the researcher told us, “But I am no fool.” The sight of those boyband stars looking pleadingly into the studio haunts me still.

But you’d have taken Robbie. He was not like other Take That members. More a danger to himself than others, he was at all times box office. 

Releasing George Michael’s Freedom as his first post Take That single told you a lot. Robbie was young, free and ready to mingle.

His invitation to appear at Slane in 1998 drew a mixed response. The line-up was The Verve, The Manic Street Preachers, Finley Quaye, James, the Seahorses and Junkster. There was a lot of post Britpop royalty there. It wasn’t shoegaze, but it wasn’t ex-boyband either. No gold lamé suits here.

Although we didn’t quite realise it, The Verve had actually peaked. Bittersweet Symphony had become more of an event than a single, as unavoidable as it was joyous on radio, but things were not good. The guitarist Nick McCabe had left after a gig in Germany nursing a broken hand. Ashcroft had been seen nursing a swollen jaw.

It was onto this stage that Robbie had stepped. The audience were suspicious of his credentials. We were Indie Rock for Indie People. He was greeted respectfully until he hit The La’s There She Goes. It was the perfect song choice. The audience melted, any early Robbie reluctance simply disappeared into the ether.

But it was at the after-show party that Robbie’s subsequent elevation to rock super stardom was all but assured. He could not be restrained from singing and entertaining till the small hours. He was electrifying, magnetic, mesmerising, funny and engaging. Qualities you just didn’t see in your regulation issue Britpop star.

The Britpop lads were stars: Noel, Damon, Brett and Jarvis exuded it; but it was a different kind of star quality. It was a kind of star quality that was wedded to and inseparable from the material they performed. They were not old school entertainers. No jazz hands here.

But Robbie was. Let me Entertain You could not have been more on the money. Songs to him were not reflections on northern life. They were the things he needed to perform, to sell, to trade on. When Robbie found a writer, Guy Chambers, who could match his star appeal with really well constructed songs, the hits started coming.

Quite quickly there were five UK number ones that included Millenium, She’s The One, Rock DJ, and Something Stupid with Nicole Kidman. On one day in 2006 he sold 1.6 million tickets. In 2002 he signed a record deal with EMI for £80 million. It is still the biggest record deal in British music history.

But his relationship to Britpop was at best tangential. He may have loved it, but he was never really a part of it. He was too big a star, too saleable, too adored by too many to ever have had to put in the long songwriting hours. His talent allowed him to outsource all that. Get me songs, get me shows and let me off.

The album, God save me, has a bang of “AI: Give me a Robbie Williams album in a Britpop style” about it. The strongest review I’ve heard so far was that it was “grand". Urban Hymns and Parklife can rest easy.