Star Image:Tracing Star Development through Music Video

The Star im going to analyse is Robbie Williams. I'm going to look at the begining of his career, the changes, and what he is up to now. Starting out as a young lad from Stoke-on-Trent, to joining Pop band Take That and launching a Solo career, Robbie has sold more albums in the UK than any other British solo artist in history and has won more BRIT Awards than any other artist to date.

Robbie's first solo hit after leaving take that, was a cover version of George Michael's "Freedom" in 1996. In Video Robbie expresses his happiness to be "free" from from the manufactured Boyband. He is clearly celebrating his seperation and is acting like a young mischievious boy. The song managed to reach no#2 in the UK single charts, twenty-six places higher than George Michael's original version.

Robbie's debut alubm "Life thru a Lens" held the singles "Old Before I die," "Lazy Days," and "South of the Border" made it onto the UK charts but struggled to make an impact on International charts. It was his fourth single "Angels" that skyrocketed Robbie's career and sales of the Album. Without knowing of the sucess it would bring, "Angels" became the biggest single in the UK so far, being certified 2x Platinum by the BPI and becoming one of his most well-known songs.The album eventually managed to sell over three million copies in Europe alone. This achieved success helped push Robbie through his battle with paranoia, schizophrenia, alcoholism, and drug addiction.
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the video for "Let me Entertain You" become an iconic one for Robbie. The video is filmed in black and white and features Robbie dressed as a member from the band KISS with the extreme face make up and a tight costume, dancing wildly on stage with a band and pole dancers.


Robbie continued to work with Guy Chambers who worked with him on his first album. The first single "Millenium"(1998) was inspired by James Bond music and the video references the Bond Films and aspects of Bond as a character. For example Robbie plays in a casino in a tux which later cuts to him driving a speed boat with an attractive woman.


By this time Robbie has become an established worldwide popstar and began working on his third album.His first single was"Rock DJ" which was released in 1999 and the video became of of his most controvercial. The content involved Robbie stripping...all the way down to his bones. He rips and tears of his flesh and muscles and flings them at the dancers around him. It's known for Robbie to be a cheeky chappy but for some channels such as Top Of The Pops it went to far and had to be censored. i remember having to wait up till 12 to be able to watch the video. It was a little gore, but ultimatly i admired it for the special effects and i was hooked on the beat of the song.

In Robbie collaborted with pop princess Kylie Minogue for single "Kids."

"Love Supreme" video, titled "Gentlemen racers" as seen in its opening credits, is a tribute to British Formula One driver Jackie Stewart. Williams portrays the fictitious character Bob Williams, a rival driver competing for the 1970s F1 World Championship. The video includes footage of Robbie digitally inserted in many scenes with Stewart, pursuing the championship title. The split-screen technique is used throughout,which is often seen in movies from the 1960s and 70s, and the scenes with Robbie were given a grainy texture to match the faded look of the original footage with Jackie Stewart. Also during the video fake newspaper headlines are shown of the race and characters to help narrate the story.