Robbie Williams - Sing When You're Winning

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NME.COM feature on Robbie Williams - Sing When You're Winning album including album review, artwork, tracks, listen now, tour dates, discography and more.

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Release date: 28 August 2006

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Robbie Williams - Sing When You're Winning: Wikipedia Album Entry

Sing When You're Winning is the third British solo album (fourth overall) by English pop singer Robbie Williams, released in 2000. Following his last album, I've Been Expecting You in 1998, and in the middle of promotion and touring in 1999, Robbie found time to start the work on what would be his third studio album. The title name is a reference to a famous football chant of the same name (Williams being a fan of Port Vale football club). The album cover features Williams celebrating winning a trophy at Chelsea's stadium Stamford Bridge. The original CD release does not feature Williams' name or the album title on the front cover, nor does it feature a track listing on the back. This was changed for future releases.

The album was certified as 8x Platinum in the UK.

When the album, Sing When You're Winning was released in August 2000, it immediately became a hit in the United Kingdom, debuting at number-one and being certified 2x Platinum on its first week of release. The album also topped the charts in New Zealand, Ireland and Germany, and secured top ten placings in Argentina, Austria, Australia, Finland, Mexico, Sweden, Switzerland. The album artwork by photographer Paul M. Smith, along with Robbie's complete football strip (including a signed jockstrap), was later sold at Robbie's Bid It Sum auction to raise money for his charity, Give It Sum.

Williams toured the United Kingdom with Kylie Minogue in October and November 2000 selling-out in every venue, Robbie also toured around the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe in the summer of 2001.

The album had spent 91 weeks inside the UK Charts, going on to sell 2.4 Million copies in the UK alone being certified 8x Platinum by the BPI. The album became the best selling album of 2000 in the country and the 51st Best Selling album in UK Music History. The album went on to sell over 6 million copies Worldwide.

The album found little success in the United States, peaking at 110 in the Billboard 200.

Initial critical response to Sing When You're Winning was positive. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has received an average score of 69, based on 11 reviews.

The first single taken from the album was "Rock DJ", a song inspired by Williams' UNICEF mentor, the late Ian Dury. The video was censored by Top Of The Pops for its gore content, many other channels followed the suit and it caused a controversy in the United Kingdom and many other countries. The video showed Williams tearing chunks of skin and muscle from his body while performing a strip show in an attempt to get noticed by a group of women, the track became an instant hit around the globe, hitting number-one in the United Kingdom, becoming his third number-one single as a solo artist and exactly a year after his sell-out concert at the Slane Castle, the song also reached number-one in Ireland, New Zealand, Mexico & Argentina and hit top ten placings all over Europe, Australasia and Latin America, despite the worldwide success, the song failed to break in the United States charts, it did get some TV Airplay in channels such as MTV and VH1. The song went on to win several awards, among them, "Best Song of 2000" at the MTV Europe Music Awards, "Best Single of the Year" at the Brit Awards and an MTV Video Music Award for Best Special Effects, the single went on to sell over 600,000 copies in the UK alone, being certified Platinum by the BPI.

The second single, a collaboration with Australian pop icon Kylie Minogue, "Kids", the track was written when Minogue approached Williams to write her some songs for what would be her first album under Parlophone, Light Years, it was then, when Williams felt the chemistry and decided to include the track on his album and release it as a single, it was an instant hit when it was released in October of that year, hitting number-two in the United Kingdom and reached top 10 placings in Australia, New Zealand, Latvia, Mexico and other countries becoming one of the biggest hits of that year selling over 200,000 copies in the UK alone being certified Silver.

Further singles, such as "Supreme" (which Williams recorded in both English and French variants), "Let Love Be Your Energy" and "Better Man" (which Williams recorded in English and Spanish) became big hits reaching the top ten around the world.

"Eternity", a track that was not featured on the album, was released in the summer of 2001 backed with "The Road to Mandalay", the former was written by Williams in what he called "the most amazing summer", after years of nonstop work he took a month off and recorded this track, when it was released it became his fourth number-one single in the United Kingdom, selling over 70,000 copies in its first week in the UK alone, and also hit the top ten hit all over Europe.

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