EMI is lining up British pop star Robbie Williams’ sixth solo album “Intensive Care” for an Oct. 24 release in Europe. The first single, “Tripping,” described by Williams on his Web site as “something like a mini-gangster Opera,” will be issued to radio from Sept. 5 ahead of its Oct. 3 release at retail.
Williams, formerly with British boy-band Take That, has been recording the album in Los Angeles over the past two years.
The singer is one of Europe’s biggest hit-makers with 18 top ten singles in the United Kingdom alone, and six No. 1 albums in Britain. His last album, Escapology (Chrysalis), led the European Top 100 Albums chart for more than ten weeks in 2003. According to EMI, he has shifted 35 million albums worldwide. He has also won a record 15 Brit Awards.
Ahead of the album, Williams will play a one-off show Oct. 9 at the 12,000 capacity Velodrom in Berlin. The concert will be simultaneously broadcast at cinemas across Europe. Television broadcasts are also being lined up.
The album is part of the groundbreaking integrated global deal negotiated in 2002 by Williams’ London-based management IE Music and EMI.
Meanwhile, T-Mobile International has unveiled mobile-music content products linked to “Intensive Care,” which will be available Sept. 5-11 exclusively for the wireless carrier’s customers. This follows an exclusive 18-month partnership with Williams, which it announced last month.
The T-Mobile offering will include downloads, ringtones, ringback-tones and cell-phone wallpaper created from the “Tripping” single.
Downloadable and streamed video clips from the “Tripping” video will be made available prior to its European broadcast.
It is unknown when, or if, “Intensive Care” will be released in North America. Despite a strong promotional push in an attempt to expand Williams’ global reach, “Escapology” flopped across the Atlantic, selling just 136,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
