| Music Review of the single �Something Stupid� by Robbie Williams & Nicole Kidman The title says it all. What a way for me to kick off the first ever review of a single � have the title do it for me. It�s so easy. Those of you reading this who are genial geriatrics will suspect that it�s a cruel joke. Well, you�re not the one hearing the song. Yes, it is a cruel joke, I affirm that. It�s Robbie Williams going all Big Band Broadway on us (subtly targetting the older demographics because he knows his time is running out soon and he's turning 38 next week) and doing a remake of the Frank and Nancy Sinatra original �Something Stupid�. As if that first version wasn�t torturous enough, he has decided to rope in Nicole �Suddenly I�m the IT Girl again� Kidman, fresh from singing on �Moulin Rouge!� and flinging away the real Moulin himself, Tom Cruise. (�Moulin� in French, apart from �mill�, also stands for small devices used for grinding particular things � I�ll leave your imagination to make what you will of that.) Anyhow, one suspects that this is his attempt to break into either the American or the Australian market. Well, he�s done so for the latter I believe, but is up against a stone wall for the former. As if Nicole Kidman is going to help. Hell, as if going Broadway is going to help. America doesn�t like you because you�re all cocky Brit, Robbie. They already have a cocky, shoot-his-mouth-off person called Eminem who�s infinitely more interesting and gets into way more trouble than you ever could, so just be content with the fact that years ago, you were a nobody from a nothing place called Stoke-on-Trent. On the album cover of �Swing When You�re Winning� (yeah, the title makes no sense to me either) we see not a picture of a generic-looking playground (swing, geddit? Oops, bad joke) but of Robbie with his hair really jet-black and dressed in that Broadway tuxedo stereotype we�ve all come to know and, yeah, know. So let�s examine the song then, shall we? Invariably we shall have to compare this with the original Frank and Nancy. Back then, it was clearly Nancy trying to ride on the coat-tails of her famous father, and potentially eke herself into the music business. Well, it didn�t work, which is one of the first signs that Robbie should not have done this. Too bad he didn�t consult me first. Anyhow, the modern take isn�t too clear on its intention. Is it Robbie trying to ride on Nicole or the other way around? Get your brains out of the gutter, y�all. Is Nicole somehow trying to boost her singing cred because she already did quite enough in �Moulin Rouge!�, enough for all of us to know what a great voice Ewan McGregor actually has, and how she, um, doesn�t. Is Nicole going to go all J-Lo on us next, and start shaking her boo-tay all over her music videos? Well, she did that too in �Moulin Rouge!�. In other words, she has no reason to want to do this. Rumour has it that she did it because she heard Robbie�s �Angels� and cried, which convinced her that she had to do a duet with him. There are at least a hundred things I could say about that one, but all of which would make me cry in pain, so let�s not go that way. Now, Robbie. Is Robbie trying to get into acting, or is he trying to get into the American market, or is he just trying to get into Nicole? The answer isn�t quite clear either. Robbie will probably try to do all three, and he stands a good chance of failing spectacularly in all of them. It�s not entirely his fault, apart from the fact that he�s quite the asshole and thinks he�s really funny or witty by being crass. It�s just that the stakes are simply too high for him. He could play a cocky Brit in his movie, but we all know that�s what he is. Anything else, and I seriously doubt he could carry it off. I mean, he ain�t no J-Lo with the flo', yo. By that I do not mean he hasn�t got the boobs and the ass to show, he has the goods, just that, apart from porn, there�s only that much flesh a guy can show in a movie. And in any case, any naked shots of him will lead all critics to call it gratuitous and manipulative, so Robbie can never really win. I�ve already covered briefly the American market, but let�s just say that America already has Eminem, Kid Rock (his latest album is called �Cocky�, Robbie surely can�t beat that) and Limp Bizkit. Robbie is probably one too many. And as for getting into Nicole, let�s just say that the only thing he can gain from that is the bragging rights to doing something Tom Cruise never did. Okay, we were supposed to get into the song at some point. Robbie�s voice does not actually disappoint, he has a good voice and can carry off Broadway tunes, and he knows it. However, an entire album of Broadway tunes? More like Boredway for the teenage demographic, who are his main fan base, most of whom would not care for Broadway anyway. Moreover, an entire album of covers? Lazy, no? And Nicole sings all her parts on one note. You would think she could at least raise it or lower it a notch or two, but she doesn�t. She might just be the first ever person to have a voice characterised as �mechanical�. So there you go. �Swing When You�re Winning�? More like �Something Stupid�. R.D.'s Rating : Nearly five decades on, and we've barely recovered from Frank and Nancy, so Robbie and Nicole can go have a HOT DAWG on us. (What's a 'hot dawg'? Check out R.D.'s rating system here.) |