Sing When You're Winning: Robbie Williams

The pop stylings of British singer Robbie Williams make entertaining listening and his collaborations with composer Guy Chambers feature musical influences spanning from classic James Bond themes and seventies disco hits to dance-oriented pop tunes and soulful ballads. The 2001 album Swing When You're Winning for instance contains mainly pop standard song covers common to the Great American Songbook, and features several duets performed with actors of the likes of Rupert Everett, Nicole Kidman, Jon Lovitz, Jane Horrocks and Jonathan Wilkes. The track "It Was a Very Good Year" even features a surprising "duet" with the great man himself, Ol' Blue Eyes Frank Sinatra. Williams sings the first two verses and the third and fourth verses, performed by Sinatra, are realised through a recording granted by the permission of Sinatra's family.

In terms of the solo work of Robbie Williams, many regard the song "Angels" as being pivotal to the artist's career and current standing as the best-selling British solo artist in history, winner of more BRIT Awards than any other artist to date, and with album sales that stand at over 55 million worldwide. Williams was even entered into The Guinness Book of World Records after the sale of 1.6 million Robbie Williams concert tickets in a single day following the announcement of his 2006 World Tour. Yet "Angels" can be regarded as the primary song that kick-started (or saved, as some may argue) his solo singing career. While the track was originally written by Williams and Irish singer Ray Heffernan, Heffernan was given £7,500 for his efforts and then subsequently not credited as a writer. The composition was finished and fine-tuned by Guy Chambers, and the track features scoring for Piano/Vocal/Guitar in E Major. A regular fixture in "100 all-time favourite songs" lists, "Angels" was voted "best song" by the British public at the 2005 BRIT Awards.

Other tracks that are of interest to fans and musicians are: "She's the One", "Eternity", "Feel", "Experience", "Come Undone" and "Only Us". There's also a lot of fun to be had with Williams and co-writer Guy Chambers' cool arpeggio riffs in the track "Supreme", plus the song's chord progressions and string solo comes from Gloria Gaynor's iconic disco classic "I Will Survive".

The track "Millennium" prompted a flutter of interest on its release with speculation in the British press that the singer may have had aspirations to switch over and enter the world of acting as the replacement for Pierce Brosnan as a future James Bond. The opening of the track is taken from the James Bond theme "You Only Live Twice", and it's particularly effective as the melody is granted a haunting appeal largely through the supporting harmony. The trick is the use of the minor key instead of the major chord that would usually accompany as the dominant, or 5th degree of the scale, in the key of C major.

Will Williams be able to top his 2006 ticket sales record on his forthcoming European tour? Events ticketing companies and agencies that sell tickets are certainly hoping so! Scheduled to take place in 2010, the upcoming Robbie Williams tour is an eagerly anticipated event and is bound to be just as big as his crowd-pleasing Close Encounters tour.