The UK artist Robbie Williams was enjoying quite a bit of success when this sophomore album arrived in 1998. In fact, he sold well over two million copies of his debut, Life Thru A Lens<\/i>, in his country, and was quickly becoming a household name in Europe. Two decades later, I\u2019ve Been Expecting You<\/i> has earned its first ever appearance on vinyl thanks to this 2021 reissue. <\/p>\n
Williams opens the listen with the warm acoustic strumming and soaring vocals of the very cozy \u201cStrong,\u201d and he continues with the introspective and soulful \u201cNo Regrets,\u201d where plenty of pop ideas are present; help from Neil Tennant (Pet Shop Boys) and Neil Hannon (The Divine Comedy) won’t go unnoticed. <\/p>\n
Further into the listen, \u201cPhoenix From The Flames\u201d enters piano balladry, and showcases a very poetic appeal where Williams\u2019 pipes show impressive range, while \u201cWin Some Lose Some\u201d illustrates a more rugged version of Williams amid thicker guitars and punchy drumming that\u2019s full of contagious sing-alongs. \u201cIt\u2019s Only Us,\u201d one of the album\u2019s best, then approaches alt-rock-like moments of buzzing energy that comes with a piano solo, acrobatic drumming and plenty of atmosphere.<\/p>\n
Making our way towards the end, \u201cKarma Killer\u201d makes the most out of a chunky riff before bursting into a rugged yet string-friendly, multi-faceted version of rock that\u2019s quite diverse and anthemic. \u201cThese Dreams\u201d then exits the listen softer, eloquent and full of soothing keys alongside a dreamy, stirring delivery. <\/p>\n
I’ve Been Expecting You <\/i>would propel Williams into the international spotlight with its wiser, more sophisticated demeanor that includes collaborations that would become some of the best work in his catalog to date. It also produced Williams’ first UK number-one hit (\u201cMillennium\u201d), would eventually go 10x Platinum and, perhaps most importantly, made for a record that has aged very well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":89,"featured_media":34468,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6562],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-46310","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-robbie-williams","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/89"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46310\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46310"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46310"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}