Swing When You're Winning is a swing album by English pop singer Robbie Williams, released in 2001. Consisting mainly of pop standard song covers common to the Great American Songbook, this album is his fourth solo album released in the United Kingdom and his fifth solo album overall. Aside from the title, the album is not directly associated with Williams' previous album, Sing When You're Winning.
| Untitled | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   [1] |
| NME | (5/10)[2] |
| Slant | [3] |
Born from his lifelong love for Frank Sinatra – combined with the success of the track "Have You Met Miss Jones?" that he recorded for the film "Bridget Jones's Diary" in early 2001 – the album was recorded at the Capitol Studios in Los Angeles, California, and was symbolically released under the Capitol label.
The album was certified as 7x Platinum in the UK.
Album description
The album features the UK number one single "Somethin' Stupid", a duet with Nicole Kidman. Additional featured songs include versions of "Beyond The Sea" which was featured in the 2003 animated motion picture Finding Nemo, and "Have You Met Miss Jones", which was part of the soundtrack in the 2001 film Bridget Jones's Diary. The album's first song, "I Will Talk and Hollywood will Listen", is the only original song on the album.
The album featured duets with actors Rupert Everett, Nicole Kidman, Jon Lovitz and Jane Horrocks, as well as a special guest performance from Robbie's friend and former flatmate Jonathan Wilkes. Surprisingly the album features a duet with Frank Sinatra on the song "It Was a Very Good Year", in which Williams sings the first two verses, and a recording of Sinatra is used for the vocals on the third and fourth verses. Williams explains this came about after one of his session musicians played his vocals to Sinatra's family. This musician was purportedly a good friend of the family, and played with Sinatra on the original release of "It Was a Very Good Year". Another surprising guest musician is pianist Bill Miller who accompanies Williams on "One For My Baby". Miller played on many of Sinatra's tours and recordings (among them the original 1954 soundtrack recording of "One For My Baby" and the 1958 Capitol studio recording). Additionally, backing musicians for portions of the album include the London Session Orchestra.
Williams was able to fulfil a lifetime's dream by appearing in a one man showcase at London's Royal Albert Hall[4] with the London Session Orchestra, released on DVD as Robbie Williams Live at the Albert in 2001.
Track listing
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "I Will Talk and Hollywood Will Listen" | Guy Chambers, Robbie Williams | 3:17 |
| 2. | "Mack the Knife" | Marc Blitzstein, Bertolt Brecht, Kurt Weill | 3:18 |
| 3. | "Somethin' Stupid" (with Nicole Kidman) | Carson Parks | 2:50 |
| 4. | "Do Nothin' Till You Hear from Me" | Duke Ellington, Bob Russell | 2:58 |
| 5. | "It Was a Very Good Year" (with Frank Sinatra) | Ervin Drake | 4:28 |
| 6. | "Straighten Up and Fly Right" | Nat King Cole, Irving Mills | 2:36 |
| 7. | "Well, Did You Evah!" (with Jon Lovitz) | Cole Porter | 3:50 |
| 8. | "Mr. Bojangles" | Jerry Jeff Walker | 3:17 |
| 9. | "One for My Baby" | Harold Arlen, Johnny Mercer | 4:17 |
| 10. | "Things" (with Jane Horrocks) | Bobby Darin | 3:22 |
| 11. | "Ain't That a Kick in the Head?" | Sammy Cahn, Jimmy Van Heusen | 2:27 |
| 12. | "They Can't Take That Away from Me" (with Rupert Everett) | George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin | 3:07 |
| 13. | "Have You Met Miss Jones?" | Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart | 2:34 |
| 14. | "Me and My Shadow" (with Jonathan Wilkes) | Dave Dreyer, Al Jolson, Billy Rose | 3:16 |
| 15. | "Beyond the Sea" | Jack Lawrence, Charles Trenet | 4:32 |
| 16. | "Outtakes" (hidden track) | 2:51 |
Success
After the success of his third studio album, Sing When You're Winning, Williams wanted to take another musical direction. He took two weeks off his tour to record what would be his fourth studio album, the big band album he had always dreamed of making.[5]
When the album, Swing When You're Winning (in reference to the preceding album), was released in late 2001, it became an instant number 1 hit in the United Kingdom (spending 6 consecutive weeks at number 1), Ireland, New Zealand, Austria, Germany and Switzerland and it reached the top ten in the rest of the world going on to sell over 2 million copies by the end of 2001 and over 7 million altogether.[6] The album spent 57 weeks inside the UK charts selling over 2.1 million copies being certified 7x Platinum in the United Kingdom[7] and becoming the 49th Best Selling Album in UK music history.
In Germany, it is the best-selling album of his career, selling more than 1,500,000 copies and reaching 5x Platinum. Swing When You're Winning debuted there at #1 and stayed there for 9 non-consecutive weeks. It managed to stay 83 weeks on the German Albums Chart, 19 weeks of them in the top ten. Thanks to its success, it is the 4th best-selling album of the decade 2000-2009 there.[8][9]
Singles
The first single from the album was a duet with Kidman, "Somethin' Stupid". A cover of Frank & Nancy Sinatra, the song became Robbie's fifth number 1 hit in the United Kingdom, selling almost 100,000 copies in its first week of release,[10] as well as hitting the top spot in Argentina, New Zealand, Latvia and scoring top ten placings all over Europe. It became one of the biggest hits of 2001, selling over 200,000 copies in the UK alone after spending three weeks at the top of the charts, being certified Silver in January 2002.[11]
A second single was released from the album, a double A-side "Mr. Bojangles/I Will Talk and Hollywood Will Listen"; however, it was only released in Central and Eastern Europe.
"Mack The Knife" was released as a radio single in Mexico.[12]
Although not a single, "Beyond the Sea" was used in the credits of the film Finding Nemo in 2003 and was also released on the album's Academy Award nominated soundtrack.
The DVD
A DVD called "Robbie Williams Live at the Albert Hall" was released in December of that year. So far, it has become one of the best selling music DVDs in Europe, being certified 6x Platinum in the United Kingdom[13] and 2x Platinum in Germany.[14]
The DVD included performances of nearly all of the songs from the album, with performances from Jonathan Wilkes, Jon Lovitz, and Jane Horrocks, as well as a live version of Robbie's 'duet' with Frank Sinatra. Rupert Everett emceed, and Nicole Kidman attended the show, but neither performed their duets featured on the album (They Can't Take That Away From Me and Somethin' Stupid, respectively); these were the only songs from the album which did not feature live. Additionally, there were three songs performed live which did not appear on the album:
- "The Lady is a Tramp"
- "Let's Face the Music and Dance"
- "My Way" (finale)
Best-selling album of the 2000s
| 2000–2009 | Peak position |
|---|---|
| German Albums Chart | 4 |
| UK Albums Chart | 17 |
Certifications, peaks and sales
| Country | Peak position | Certification (if any) | Sales/shipments |
|---|---|---|---|
| Argentina | 9 | Platinum[15] | 40,000+ |
| Australia | 3 | 4x Platinum[16] | 280,000+ |
| Austria | 1 | 4x Platinum[17] | 120,000+ |
| Canada | Gold[18] | 50,000+ | |
| Europe | 1 | 6x Platinum[19] | 6,000,000 |
| France | 21 | Gold[20] | 100,000+ |
| Germany | 1 | 5x Platinum[21] | 1,500,000+ [22] |
| Hungary | 2 | Gold[23] | 5,000+ |
| Ireland | 1 | ||
| Netherlands | Platinum[24] | 80,000+ | |
| New Zealand | 1 | 5x Platinum[25] | 75,000+ |
| Poland | Gold[26] | 20,000+ | |
| Sweden | 4 | Platinum[27] | 60,000+ |
| Switzerland | 1 | 3x Platinum[28] | 120,000+ |
| United Kingdom | 1 | 7x Platinum[29] | 2,100,000+ |
See also
References
- ^ Allmusic review
- ^ NME review
- ^ Slant review
- ^ Williams was able to fulfil a lifetime's dream by appearing in a one man showcase at London's Royal Albert Hall
- ^ Discography>Albums>Swing When You're Winning
- ^ The Sun: Swing album
- ^ BPI Certification for "Swing When You're Winning"
- ^ Template:Cite gold platin
- ^ http://musicline.de/de/chartverfolgung_summary/title/Williams%2CRobbie/Swing+When+You%2527re+Winning/longplay
- ^ "Something Stupid" first week sales in the United Kingdom
- ^ BPI Certification for "Something Stupid"
- ^ "Mack The Knife" Mexican Promo
- ^ BPI Certification for "Live at the Albert Hall"
- ^ IFPI Certification for "Live at the Albert Hall
- ^ CAPIF
- ^ ARIA
- ^ IFPI Austria
- ^ "Gold & Platinum Certification – February 2002". Canadian Recording Industry Association. Retrieved 2010-08-19.
- ^ http://www.ifpi.org/content/section_news/plat_month_20100201.html
- ^ Disque En France
- ^ IFPI Germany
- ^ http://www.musikindustrie.de/gold_platin0/
- ^ MAHASZ
- ^ NVPI
- ^ RIANZ - May 19, 2002
- ^ ZPAV
- ^ IFPI Sweden – 2002 Certifications
- ^ IFPI Switzerland
- ^ BPI