After a really tumultuous time within the boy band Take That, Robbie left the group, recorded an album and went in to rehab. Robbie’s drug drawback and ego drawback was an excessive amount of for Take That. He was uninterested in his artistic enter being ignored and was able to department out on his personal. And department out he did. His first album, ‘Life Via a Lens’ was launched on September 29, 1997 and although it began off gradual, it could go on to nice heights hitting #1 on the UK charts and promoting over 3 million copies in Europe.
Now, we peasants right here within the States, knew nothing about Robbie and sadly that may proceed all through most of his profession. He had some reasonable success with a number of songs, however for essentially the most half, the U.S. missed on on a massively proficient man. I’m glad to say, I didn’t miss out. I found him a number of years later with the songs “Millennium” and “Rock DJ” and I used to be hooked. However we aren’t right here to speak in regards to the albums these songs have been on. Nope. We’re right here to speak in regards to the twenty fifth Anniversary Version of his debut album, ‘Life Via a Lens’ and what a field set he put collectively.
The field set is available in a tough cardboard case with brilliant, vivid photos all over the place. The Field Set accommodates 4 CDs and a booklet. What’s cool in regards to the CDs is that they’re housed in a tri-fold cardboard sleeve which has these large panoramic photos in addition to the observe itemizing. There are 2 CDs per sleeve so we get 2 tri-fold sleeves. You possibly can see all the things on the backside. We get 62 Tracks and a 32 web page booklet. And a kind of CDs is a stay present. That is the way you do it.
Disc 1 : ‘Life Via A Lens’
Clearly, the primary disc is the debut album ‘Life Via a Lens’ and there are such a lot of nice songs on right here. Whereas Take That was just about ballads, Robbie was all Britpop! And he does it fairly fucking effectively. Not solely do you will have the 5 nice singles of “Outdated Earlier than I Die” (written with Desmond Youngster and The Hooter’s personal Eric Bazillian), “Lazy Days”, “South of the Border”, the gorgeous ballad”Angels” in addition to the Queen-esque “Let Me Entertain You”. All incredible songs, however the very best tune on right here wasn’t even a single it’s the offended, funtastic tune “Ego A Go Go”. The CD even nonetheless has the hidden observe “Whats up Sir” which is a Robbie reciting a poem telling of an previous trainer who informed him he wouldn’t quantity to something…boy was he mistaken. Some day I’ll do a correct evaluation of it.
Disc 2: ‘Life on the Flipside: Bonus Tracks & B-Sides
The true gem of this field set are the subsequent two discs. First, Disc 2 is a group of all of the B-Sides and Bonus Tracks. The two Japanese Bonus Tracks are right here with “Teenage Millionaire” (which is best than lots of tracks on the album that are all actually good to start with) and “She Would possibly Be Excessive”. It additionally accommodates the primary single Robbie put out which didn’t find yourself on the album and that’s the cowl of George Michael’s tune “Freedom”. This was a shout out to him being free from Take That. The remainder are all B-Sides. Every single he launched had 3-4 B-Sides on it so ultimately we’ve got 20 tracks on this disc alone. So cool. And it additionally has a fantastic medley of songs with Robbie and Tom Jones stay from the Brit Awards and it’s superior!! Now, with all this you don’t have to purchase each Single or Maxi-Single. It’s all proper right here.
Disc 3: ‘Work in Progress: The Making of Life Via a Lens’
The third disc can also be fairly fascinating because it is stuffed with remixes, demos and rehearsal outtakes. “Freedom” will get a pair remixes together with an 11 minute Dub Combine which is definitely actually fascinating. You get demos of songs on the album from Axis Studios, Tower Studios, Crescent Moon Studios and Westside studios. Man, he recorded at lots of studios. After which there are the rehearsal takes of a bunch of songs from the Spring of 1997. All-in-all, some actually nice stuff to plow by means of and we one other 15 tracks right here.
Disc 4: ‘Life on the Stage: Dwell on the Discussion board, London 3 June 1998’
And on Disc 4 we get what each Anniversary Version or Tremendous Deluxe Version ought to have and that could be a stay present from the period of the album. This one was recorded Dwell on the Discussion board in London on June 3, 1988. We get the total present with all of Robbie’s cockiness and cheekiness. There’s one factor Robbie doesn’t lake on stage and that’s ego and also you need that in a entrance man or a solo artist. He performs mainly the entire album and even among the B-Sides so good to have stay variations of all of the songs. His stay model of “Teenage Millionaire” is totally excessive and epic! He does a canopy of The La’s “There She Goes” one other plus and to cap off the evening he covers Take That’s tune “Again For Extra” which you would possibly know because it was a fairly large hit. Robbie brings all of the vitality and pleasure to a stay present and also you don’t go away upset. I’d like to see him stay some day.
The Booklet:
The booklet is fairly first rate as it’s 32 pages of images and lyrics in addition to credit for each tune within the field set. It’s lacking an essay or one thing speaking about Robbie and this era. There are a ton of images and most appear to be from all of the promotional pictures taken for the album. It could’ve been cool with some candid pictures and pictures from occasions throughout that interval, however it’s nonetheless a fantastic booklet. May’ve been extra although, however I’m not likely grading the field set based mostly on the booklet, it’s all in regards to the music.
I can’t consider it has been 25 years already, man does time fly. It is a nice strategy to rejoice the album by giving us all the things he did for the album and I couldn’t be happier. Robbie’s B-Sides are as thrilling and good because the songs from the album, heck some are even higher. The standard of labor is unbelievable and the work is immense. The stay present is the right finish to the set and I feel Robbie did it proper. My Total Rating is a 5.0 out of 5.0 Stars even with a booklet that missed a possibility as a result of ultimately I’m solely right here to hearken to the music. In case you are a Robbie Williams fan, you will have this for the boatload of songs.
Right here is all the things you get…
