I've Been Expecting You by Robbie Williams
I've Been Expecting You is the second studio album by British singer-songwriter Robbie Williams. Williams and Chambers started the writing process of the album in Jamaica in the spring of 1998. I've Been Expecting You was released in October 1998. It debuted at #1 on the UK Albums Chart, and went on to become the UK's best selling album for that year. According to the BPI, the album has sold 2,563,106 copies in the UK as of June 2009, and has been certified 10x Platinum for shipments of 3 million copies. It is Williams' best selling album in the country and the 38th best selling album of all time. The album also received attention outside the United Kingdom, particularly in continental Europe and Latin America, and has sold a total of five million copies worldwide. Williams finished album promotion with an extensive European Tour in the autumn of 1999. I've Been Expecting You was ranked ninety-first in a 2005 survey held by British television's Channel 4 to determine the 100 greatest albums of all time. In 1998, Williams was sued by Ludlow Publishing over the song "Jesus in a Camper Van", because it lifted lyrics from the Loudon Wainwright III song "I Am The Way", from his album Attempted Mustache. The lyric to "I Am the Way" is as follows: "Every son of God has a little hard luck sometime, especially when he goes around saying he's the way." The lyric to "Jesus in a Camper Van" in question is: "Even the son of God gets it hard sometimes, especially when he goes around saying, I am the way." Williams claimed that he had heard a young man say the line whilst in rehab, and only found that it was a line from Wainwright's song after he had already recorded it. Williams' agents called Wainwright to notify him about this, but Wainwright had little say in the matter; "I Am the Way" was a parody of the Woody Guthrie song "New York Town"; Ludlow Publishing owned the line's copyright. In 2002, Ludlow Publishing won the lawsuit, receiving 25% of the income that "Jesus in a Camper Van" garnered, and subsequently, the album was re-issued replacing "Jesus in a Camper Van" with "It's Only Us".
Robbie Williams has often played the clown prince of pop but his second album is laced with appealing maturity. It’s there in the sophistication of Neil Tennant-assisted “No Regrets” and the ambition of “Millennium”’s sumptuous fusion of trip-hop and Bond-theme strings. It’s most pronounced in the reflection and self-examination of his lyrics though. An admission of vulnerability set to an airborne chorus, “Strong” is a model of Williams’ s increasing depth and soul.
