Intensive Care [Explicit Lyrics]

Stoke's favourite son's sixth studio album marks a new stage in the career of Mr Robert Peter Williams, Britain's favourite popular entertainer. Severed from his former right hand man, songwriter Guy Chambers, Intensive Care sees him forging a new partnership with former Lilac Time stalwart Stephen Duffy. The result is his most complete album to date, free from the gimmicky fillers--like "Me and My Monkey" and "Jesus In A Camper Van"--that tended to drag previous efforts down.Never short of cocksure bravado, Robbie starts proceedings off with a modest declaration—"Here I stand victorious, the only man who made you come", but for once he's got the tunes to back up the posturing. There're plenty of classic Robbie tracks, from the ballad-tastic "Advertising Space"--which should see "Angels" relegated to the backbenches--to the public confessional of "The Trouble With Me"; plus some daring departures in between, from the '80s pop fun of "Sin Sin Sin" to the Rolling Stones-a-like "A Place To Crash", via the Oasis-lite of "Make Me Pure" and the Smiths-esque guitars on "Your Gay Friend". You can't help but feel that Mr Williams has a point to make with this album, to all the people who said he'd be nothing without Guy Chambers; if that is the case, he couldn't have gone about it a better way than by serving up the best album of his career to date. --Melanie Wilkin

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Intensive Care opens with Robbie shouting, cocksure and desperate, "Here I stand victorious, the only man to make you come". The sixth album from Williams is overwhelming in its pureness of personality. It couldn't come from anyone else, dysfunctional, showy, telling stories about women he doesn't understand, relationships he can't function in, paranoia and isolation, all with a strangely positive and exciting spin.

Williams is putting more self reflection and understanding in his music than ever before, and he's a rich seam of material. As you would expect, he's not short of the hi-budget surrounding support of cellos, gospel choirs, and brass. But it would be unwise not to mention his writing partner in the unlikely and credible shape of Stephen Duffy: surely the reason behind the new honesty and eloquence, and more interesting and inventive songs that convincingly capture about 50 different genres. Gloriously imperfect, the personality makes the album, and it's his best yet: almost worth the 80 million. --Lucy Davies

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"I'm a huge fan of The Lilac Time, so I thought I'd spend a couple of days writing some folk songs with Stephen Duffy, just for a change."

Two years of continuous writing and recording later, Robbie Williams returns with a brand new album Intensive Care. "Tripping" is the first single which Robbie describes as "something like a mini-gangster Opera

"I'm a huge fan of The Lilac Time, so I thought I'd spend a couple of days writing some folk songs with Stephen Duffy, just for a change."

Two years of continuous writing and recording later, Robbie Williams returns with a brand new album Intensive Care. "Tripping" is the first single which Robbie describes as "something like a mini-gangster Opera

ROBBIE WILLIAMS Intensive Care (2005 Thailand issue 12-track CD album in which Robbie returns with one of the most spectacular reinventions in pop history includes the brilliant and undeniably idiosyncratic single Tripping)