Special thanks to ThisDayinMusic.com.
On this day in 2005, a young British pop star named Robbie Williams won the top spot in a U.K. national survey to be named best live solo artist of all time. Among those he pipped at the post were Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix and David Bowie.
The Carling poll named the following as their Top 10 Live Solo Artists:
1. Robbie Williams
2. David Bowie
3. Morrissey
4. Elvis Presley
5. Elton John
6. Jimi Hendrix
7. Paul Weller
8. Madonna
9. Michael Jackson
10. Bob Dylan
For those outside of the U.K., wondering if a poll in which Robbie Williams beat Elvis could possibly be accurate, in 2004 he was inducted into the U.K. Music Hall of Fame after being voted as the “Greatest Artist of the 1990s.”
He’s sold over 57 million albums around the globe and is easily the best-selling solo act in the U.K. On top of that, six of Williams’ albums have made the Top 100 biggest selling albums list. He’s also picked up a cool 17 BRIT Awards (the U.K.’s version of a GRAMMY).
Williams started out as a boy band star, only 16 when he joined British boy band Take That, who then ruled the U.K. charts in the ‘90s with 27 Top 40 singles and 11 of them going to #1 (there were six #1 albums as well!). But the cocky Williams was was the band’s bad boy and tried to the push Take That in a less-poppy direction. Naturally, divisions within the band grew, and as a result Williams quit in 1995, preferring do his own thing and conduct a very public friendship with Oasis.
His solo career surprised most onlookers. His debut solo single, a cover of George Michael’s “Freedom,” went to #2. His solo career was buoyed by the fact that he wrote his own material with help from friend Guy Chambers.
A dramatic ballad, “Angels,” from his Life thru a Lens album established Williams as a bona fide pop star. He had critical respect, lingering boy band worship and a newly found more mature pop audience. Put all that together and the album quickly sold some 3 million copies in Europe.
Since then, he’s been the biggest star in England and Europe by several miles (and kilometers). In 2002, Robbie had secured a record-breaking deal with EMI worth in excess of ?80 million. In 2003, he set the attendance record at Knebworth with three shows drawing over 375,000 fans.
In 2009, he announced he was re-uniting for a tour with his old chums in Take That. It was the fastest-selling tour in U.K. history with phone lines and websites crashing from the sheer volume of requests for tickets. And if that wasn’t enough, the reunited Take That’s new album, Progress, sold 235,000 copies the day it was released – making it the fastest-selling album of the century in the U.K.
In 2010, Williams was honored by the BRITs with the prestigious Outstanding Contribution to British Music Award. He’s currently breaking all records on tour with Take That.
America didn’t really “get” Robbie Williams when he toured in 1999. Should Stoke-on- Trent’s most famous export (sorry, Slash) ever find time to try again, it could be a very different story.
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