Rating: NN
On half of his 10th solo album, British pop tart Robbie Williams welcomes back Guy Chambers – co-writer of his best albums I’ve Been Expecting You and Sing When You’re Winning. The other half is a handful of covers, making Swings Both Ways a strange hybrid of his turn-of-the-millennium pop-rock and his 2001 release of big band covers. Having a foot in both worlds, however, waters it all down. Most of the originals fail to hit their mark, and the remakes are questionable. (Does anyone need another version of The Jungle Book’s I Wan’na Be Like You?)
Williams is at his best when he’s being weird, so cheeky title track Swings Both Ways, which finds him examining his fluid sexuality with Rufus Wainwright, is good. But any fresh moments are balanced by too many unlistenable ones, like Soda Pop: add Michael Bublé to a brassy 50s bop-shoo-wop tune and you’ve got schmaltz laid on insufferably thick.
Top track: Swings Both Ways, feat. Rufus Wainwright
