reviewed by Walter Evans

A delightful collection of melodies making you want more would best describe British singer-songwriter Robbie Williams’ eighth studio album Reality Killed the Video Star. The album produced by Trevor Horn, co-writer of the 1981 smash hit song “Video Killed the Radio Star” by The Buggles, was released to markets in November 2009. Williams’ album has a progression from the soft enchanting ballads such as “Morning Sun” at the beginning of this collection displaying the talent of this artist to tracks such as “Starstruck” and “Difficult for Weirdos” near the end that are more techie -pop in nature. Reality contains a 13-track ensemble, 11 of which would be considered full length songs, making it one of his shorter pieces of work at roughly 50 minutes. This is unfortunate since it has been three years since his last studio album, Rudebox, which performed poorly sales-wise compared to his earlier material. So far there have been three singles released. The first being

“Bodies” contains the religious and sexual wordplay enjoyed by many within his music and is full of energy and quite an upbeat song. Second coming out was “You Know Me,” a more old fashion love song which provides some balance to the more sexually laced songs heard later on the album. The most recent single “Morning Sun,” is such a rich ballad filled with an orchestra playing in the background about not reaching one’s goal and feeling no longer loved was released this March.  It was speculated the song was a tribute to the late King of Pop, Michael Jackson. Nonetheless, Williams announced on his website that the song was actually about himself. If that is the case, it would appear that Williams might not be enjoying his life as a musician or is just within a self-loathing spin. The truth about Reality is that Williams and Horn should have worked in a couple more songs to provide something more substantial for fans due to the wait, but if you need our Williams fix now, you better hit it now since it might be awhile before classic “Angels” or “Feel” Robbie Williams returns.

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