With the help of producer/songwriters William Orbit, Mark Ronson, Jerry Meehan, Joey Negro and Soul Mekanik (plus guests as diverse as The Pet Shop Boys and Lily Allen), Robbie Williams has achieved a most radical transformation. Gone is the slick, pop-rogue of yesteryear: in his place is a new Robbie that raps, embraces club beats and (mostly) favours personal indulgence over cheesy, universal pop. Recent single "Rudebox", all electronic riddims and slack-rap vocal delivery, was just the start of this transition. The rest of Rudebox completes the remarkable overhaul with several eclectic covers - from Manu Chau's "Bongo Bong" and Lewis Taylor's underground classic "Lovelight," to subversive takes on The Human League ("Louise"), My Robot Friend ("We're The Pet Shop Boys") and Stephen Duffy ("Kiss Me") ??? and tracks such as "Keep On", "Good Doctor" and "Dickhead", which confirm his quite bewildering quest to becoming a comedic, Staffs-accented version of The Streets.

Slightly more serious are his attempts at what he describes as 'wonky pop'. Songs like "Viva Life On Mars", his odd ode to Madonna ("She's Madonna"), the dark "The Actor" and catchy club-hit-in-waiting "Never Touch That Switch" all feature innovative production and interesting arrangements. Toward the end, we get "The 80s" and "The 90s", two more amusing "rap"-tracks that cover the singer's adolescence and his Take That years respectively; these underline the nostalgic, end-of-an-era feel of the LP. Audaciously eclectic and admirably upfront, Rudebox is overtly a form of personal catharsis. Not all the experiments work, but they're better than you might think, and now they're off his chest it'll be interesting to see where the new Robbie Williams heads to next.--Paul Sullivan

This is awful - don't buy it. Not recognisable as a Robbie Williams album at all - in parts of it he sounds bored to be making such rubbish. Complete waste of time.

I would have given this three stars because I picked it up for ??2.99 in an Amazon offer. However, when your best track on the album is a cover version and the title track the catchiest thing about it, it's strange to actually hear an artist gearing up to take a break.

Robbie/his record company should have skipped the Best-of and put "Radio" on here, placing that at the end of the album so it finished as catchily as it started.

Maybe it will grow on me with time but I'm glad I picked it up at such a good price. The only thing this does is remind me that the next album is probably better, but until Robbie sorts it out with EMI, we won't hear it for a year or so. Maybe I'll listen to this a few more times and see if it's a grower.

This album shows us an older, more mature, more worldly Rob. Very interesting songs, people than do not know the true character will laugh but this is a more intellectual work. Forget the ballads of his previous work, this album does not yield the big chorus ballads that Williams and Chambers came up with. However, Lovelight is sheer bliss, love The 80's - like so much of Rob's work it's autobiographical, sad but dead funny at the same time. A brilliant piece of work from the most beautiful man on earth.

I think this is a much better album than some people give it credit for. Particularly good tracks being, Rudebox, Lovelight, King Of The Bongo and Good Doctor. Not up there with his previous couple of albums though- but then I thought that they were extraordinarily good, so that was a tough ask. The weakest tracks on the album are generally those NOT penned / co-penned by Robbie which I guess says something about the quality of his own song writing. Far better than most of the trash out there and only a little disappointing when compared to the standards RW has set himself.

Yet more pitiful tunes from this master of bed-wetter music. Bland, featureless dross that is the aural equivalent of the colour beige.

EMI paid the Take That star ??80 million for a 4 album deal/ contract. It is second only in value to the colossal ??625 million deal offered to Michael Jackson by Sony in 1991.

With the British Phonographic Association announcing UK record sales were down 15% earlier this year and EMI suffering a 40% fall in profits, record labels have looked for other ways to cash in on their artists.

It is a risky strategy for EMI and I think Robbie Williams will sink EMI the same way as the mighty Michael Cimino sank United Artists Studios with "Heavens Gate" in 1980. At least Cimino is talented, I cant say the same for Robbie Williams.

In 2001, EMI signed a five-album deal with the US singer Mariah Carey worth ??70 million but, when her first release, Glitter, flopped in the charts, the company was forced to buy themselves out of the contract, paying Carey ??20 million.

Williams is considered a safer bet, despite being in his early thirties and no longer appealing to the pre-teen market which makes up the largest section of the record-buying public. His last bestselling album was the rubbish big-band compilation, Swing When You're Winning, which showed he was capable of appealing to an older market and people who are deaf.