The Biggest Snubs and Surprises of the 2024 Grammy Nominations

The 2024 Grammy nominations were announced Friday morning and SZA took the lead, with nine nods for the singer, followed closely by Victoria Monét and Phoebe Bridgers, who each took home seven. Eight musicians are tied in third with six nominations each, including Jack Antonoff, Taylor Swift, Boygenius, Jon Batiste, Miley Cyrus, Olivia Rodrigo, Billie Eilish, and Brandy Clark.

Several artists joined the Recording Academy on Friday to announce the 2024 nominees, including Kim Petras, St. Vincent, Jon Bon Jovi, Muni Long, and more. SZA and Swift were expected to be the most nominated artists, for their 2022 albums Midnights and SOS. With six nominations this year, Swift broke the record for the most times being nominated in the Song of the Year category, accumulating seven, although she has never won in this category.

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The Grammy Awards will take place at the Crypto.com arena in Los Angeles on Feb. 4. Here are the biggest snubs and surprises from the nominations. 

Surprise: Victoria Monét triumphs

Earlier this year, Victoria Monét did not get to perform at the MTV Video Music Awards, taking to X to explain that her team said it was “too early in [her] story’ for that opportunity.” They are most likely regretting those words because the singer was nominated for her first Grammy today and six other nominations, including one for Record of the Year. The other categories she grabbed nods in include Best R&B Performance and Best R&B Album.

Surprise: Pop Dance Category is an Australian wonderland

Two Aussies have means for celebration today and their songs will provide the perfect soundtrack. Kylie Minogue’s “Padam Padam” was an inescapable earworm that found its legs in the thumping walls of queer spaces across the country and online. The critically acclaimed song received a nomination today, and it was a welcome surprise. This marks Minogue’s sixth nomination and if she wins, her second Grammy. And speaking of queer anthems, Troye Sivan got his first ever nod for the single, “Rush,” a beloved internet phenomenon. The 28-year-old has been making music for over a decade, and the Recording Academy is finally recognizing his artistry.

Snub: Peso Pluma overlooked in a Best New Artist category

Peso Pluma had a big year with his feature on the breakout hit, “Ella Baila Sola,” and a quick ascent to fame working with the likes of KAROL G, Becky G, El Alfa, and more. The 24-year-old released his album, GÉNESIS, in April, and it spawned the hit “LADY GAGA.” He has become a marker for pushing the boundaries of corridos tumbados, and should not have been overlooked in this category. 

Surprise: Barbie racks up four nods in one category

Barbie was the moment—the closest we got in 2023 to the days of monoculture. The soundtrack was a moment in and of itself, featuring all of the most popular artists of the time. It may not be a huge surprise that it received so much attention from the Recording Academy, but it did dominate one category, receiving four nominations for the Best Song Written for Visual Media. The Ice Spice and Nicki Minaj collab, “Barbie World,” Dua Lipa’s “Dance The Night,” What Was I Made For” by Billie Eilish, and the Ryan Gosling rock-ballad “I’m Just Ken” all received a nomination.

Surprise: Rihanna’s Black Panther song gets Grammy love

When the song “Lift Me Up” was released, the public heralded it as Rihanna’s return to music because she hadn’t released an album in seven years. It’s still unclear when she plans to make a full-length project again. But if this Grammy nomination for her song on Black Panther: Wakanda Forever soundtrack says anything, it’s that the Recording Academy and her fans are waiting with bated breath.

Snub: Foo Fighters do not receive an Album of the Year nod

The Foo Fighters’ longtime drummer Taylor Hawkins died in 2022, prompting the band to step away from the spotlight. At the end of last year, the Foo Fighters announced their return to music with a new album but stated they would be “a different band going forward.” Publications like Rolling Stone predicted that the Foo Fighters would nab another nomination for their new album, But Here We Are which “turned such a terrible tragedy into an artistic triumph.” But the album did not end up getting nominated.

source https://time.com/6333788/grammy-nominations-2024-sza-taylor-swift/

Why Renewables Are Key to COP28 Success

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From the outset, the planners of the coming United Nations climate conference in Dubai, known as COP28, have worked to put the private sector at its center. The United Arab Emirates has become a wealthy country and global player not only because of its oil wealth but also through a focus on deal making and attracting private sector investment—and all of those elements have featured in how it approaches this year’s conference.

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Much of the public attention around how the private sector will engage at COP has focused on the deeply controversial role of the oil and gas industry at the conference—and understandably so. Sultan Al Jaber, the COP president, is the CEO of the U.A.E.’s state-owned oil company and has made a point of engaging oil and gas companies ahead of the summit. In this column, I want to focus on a less-noticed but arguably just as important sector that has become a focal point ahead of the conference opening later this month: the renewable energy industry.

As is often the case, pre-conference negotiations have been fractious. A bright spot has been the widespread support for the tripling in the deployment of renewable energy capacity by 2030. The diplomatic effort, led by the European Union, the U.S., and the U.A.E., has gained support from dozens of countries.

The logic is two-fold. Most obviously, rapidly deploying renewable energy is necessary to combat climate change. (A United Nations “stocktake” report outlining the state of play for climate action ahead of COP28 described scaling up renewables as “indispensable.”) “This is significant,” Maroš Šefčovič, an executive vice-president of the European Commission who oversees E.U. climate policy, told me in September. “By tripling the output of renewables, you can dramatically reduce CO2 emissions.”

And there’s a political reason for enthusiasm, too: it’s much easier to back building a new clean energy industry than finding ways to wind down an old one.

Read more: John Kerry on Corporate Climate Finance: Money Always Behaves the Same Way

At a COP preparatory meeting I attended in Abu Dhabi last week, conference organizers were keen to tout a collaboration between governments and industry to chart a path forward for renewables and keep the Paris Agreement target alive. Behind closed doors, the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), an intergovernmental membership organization representing more than 160 countries, and the Global Renewables Alliance, an industry group representing thousands of companies, presented the roadmap they cooked up in partnership with the COP presidency.

The message was fundamentally optimistic, but the coalition underscored that a lot of work remains. Countries need to reorganize their electricity sectors, clean technology supply chains need to be strengthened, and workers need to be trained. All of that comes on top of a need to invest an average of $1.3 trillion across the globe annually by 2030, including and especially in riskier emerging markets. Making the money flow requires the tall order of reforming international finance. “The task is monumental, but it’s feasible,” Francesco La Camera, the head of IRENA, told me in Abu Dhabi.

Read more: The World Already Has Its Climate Solutions. Now Is the Time to Deploy Them

Much public support for renewables—particularly in the U.S.—has come in the form of subsidies. And, while the coalition calls for diverting subsidies from fossil fuels to renewables, that isn’t the primary demand it’s making of governments. Instead, the coalition focuses on wonky but important technical fixes. Governments can, for example, reform the way that electricity is bought and sold to accommodate more renewable energy. And revised permitting measures can get renewable energy projects off the ground faster.

If you’re a clean energy wonk, these recommendations may be old news. But what is new is who is making them, and where. The COP process is at its core a negotiation between governments—or at least it has been. While the private sector has shown up to recent COPs in increased numbers, the urgent need for companies to get projects off the ground has made the private sector even more central, and the conference’s organizers are keen to push that agenda.

“It’s really refreshing to see that we’re now involved,” Bruce Douglas, who heads the Global Renewables Alliance, told me right before heading into a meeting with COP officials and others. “At the end of the day, it’s going to be us that will be investing, risk taking, and delivering and deploying and operating all this renewable capacity.”

source https://time.com/6333831/renewables-are-key-to-cop28-success/

The Marvels Post-Credits Scene, Explained

At the end of The Marvels, the audience sees Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) closing the wormhole opened by Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton) that poses a risk to the fabric of space and time, causing a rift in the space-time continuum. Toward the end of the movie, Monica explains to Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) and Ms. Marvel (Iman Vellani) that the only way to close it is from the inside. She uses the powers that her teammates charged her with to close it, but she is stuck on the other side of the wormhole—a different dimension that is not immediately explained to the audience. The post-credits scene of the movie shows us where exactly she went.

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In the post-credits scene, Monia wakes up in a sterile laboratory bed and sees her mother, Maria Rambeau (Lashana Lynch), who is believed to be dead. As we saw in episode four of Wandvison, the audience sees Monica return from the Blip (Thanos’ snap that wiped out half of the Earth’s population). She wakes up in an empty hospital room and finds out that her mother passed away from cancer and didn’t have the chance to say goodbye to her.

She cries and tells her mom she’s missed her, but Maria doesn’t recognize her daughter. After they talk, Beast (a popular character from the X-Men) explains to her that she is in a different reality. Her mother gets up from the chair she was sitting in and is donning a red-and-white superhero costume, which she’s never worn before.

To those who are not Marvel connoisseurs, it may be hard to pinpoint who this dimension’s Maria Rambeau is supposed to be. Her costume looks similar to the character, Binary, who is a Carol Danvers variant from Earth-616, according to Marvel Fandom. It’s still unclear exactly what her role will be in the future of the MCU, but Marvel head Kevin Feige has stated in the past that the X-Men will be coming to the MCU, and it was hinted at when it was revealed that Kamala Khan is a mutant. Beast’s appearance in the post-credits scene is the latest hint of the X-Men in the MCU after we were given Patrick Stewart’s Professor Xavier in Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness.

source https://time.com/6333631/the-marvels-post-credits-explained/

The World’s First Whole-Eye Transplant Is Helping an Arkansas Man Recover From a Catastrophic Injury

Surgeons at NYU Langone Health have performed what they say is the world’s first whole-eye transplant, combined with a partial face transplant, in an important step forward for the fields of both transplantation and vision restoration.

In May, a team of more than 140 health care workers performed the 21-hour procedure on Aaron James, a 46-year-old Arkansas man badly injured in a workplace accident in 2021. James, a high-voltage power lineman and military veteran, suffered a massive electric shock when his face accidentally touched a live wire on the job. James was lucky to survive, but lost his left eye, much of his face, and part of his left arm.

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It’s not clear whether James will ever be able to see from his donated eye. Still, the novel combined transplant has given James major cosmetic benefits and improved his ability to speak and eat solid food—meaning that, for the first time since his accident, he’ll be able to enjoy a Thanksgiving meal with his family this year.

The nearly two years since the accident have been a test “of strength, will power, family, friends,” James said during a Nov. 9 press conference. “And I think we beat it.”

Corneal transplants are now used fairly frequently to restore vision and function to damaged eyes, and around 50 face transplants have been performed worldwide—including several by Dr. Eduardo Rodriguez, the NYU surgeon who led the team that performed James’ procedure. But, until now, a successful whole-eye transplant had never been documented. “There’s really been no [previous] attempts [of this procedure], whatsoever, as a human clinical trial,” Rodriguez said during the press conference. “It’s uncharted territory.”

There is always a risk that the body will reject a transplanted organ. But transplanting an eye involves extra layers of complexity because the organ connects to the brain, introducing serious risks, potentially including death, if something goes wrong.

Despite the challenges, Rodriguez and his team decided to attempt the procedure, with James and his family’s blessing. A single donor—a man in his 30s—provided both the face and eye for transplantation. Hopes weren’t particularly high; “none of us thought the eye would even work,” Rodriguez said. But his team wanted to see what was possible.

During the 21-hour operation, which they rehearsed more than a dozen times, Rodriguez’s team injected stem cells harvested from the donor’s bone marrow into the donated eye’s optic nerve. Stem cells, the building blocks for other types of specialized cells in the human body, can work to repair damaged cells, including in the eye. Infusing the optic nerve with stem cells, physicians hoped, would increase the odds of nerve regeneration and eye function.

It’s still too early to say whether he will see from it, but James’ new eye has shown signs of progress in the months since the operation. Blood now flows directly to its retina, the part of the eye that senses light and transmits those signals to the brain to create images. It also has a viable pupil.

James—who still has vision in his right eye—may never see from his left, and cannot currently open his left eyelid, but he says the surgery has already been a success to him. “When they approached me with the eye transplant and asked me if I wanted to do it, I said, ‘Of course,’” James says. “You’ve got to start somewhere.”

source https://time.com/6333176/whole-eye-transplant/

What to Watch Out For on the Next Leg of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour

Taylor Swift is back by popular demand. The North American leg of her historically popular Eras Tour ended alongside the summer: Her last tour date was Aug. 27 in Mexico City. After a little break, she’s starting up again on Nov. 9, this time in South America, starting in Buenos Aires.

There, roughly 240 fans have been systematically taking turns camping out in four tents outside of the Estadio River Plate, some since June. According to Pitchfork, an internal spreadsheet keeps track of how many hours individuals have spent in a tent, which raises the chances of being one of the first fans in line.

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In June, the group’s rules leaked online and went viral. They contain such requirements as: No one under 18 is allowed, two people minimum and three people maximum per night, and you must spend at least one night per month in the tent. Some Swifties even offer to log hours in the tent on behalf of people in other provinces who can’t be there in person—for a price.

Filtraron la lista de requisitos para estar en las capas que esperan a Taylor Swift
Ni para laburar te piden tanto 💀☠️☠️ pic.twitter.com/4BwofjZa73

— ElBuni (@therealbuni) June 8, 2023

Where the record-breaking Eras Tour is headed next

After her trio of sold-out shows in Buenos Aires, Swift will perform from Nov. 17-19 at the Estádio Olímpico Nilton Santos in Rio de Janeiro and from Nov. 24-26 at Allianz Parque in São Paulo. After a winter break, February will take her to Tokyo, Melbourne, and Sydney, while March will see her in Singapore. 

Summer 2024 will see Swift take the Eras Tour through Europe, including stops in Paris, Stockholm, Lisbon, Dublin, and London. A second North American leg will begin next October, in Toronto. 

The Eras Tour has become known for Swift revealing “surprise songs.” At each show, she sings  two surprise acoustic versions of often lesser-known tracks. Of roughly 161 options, Swift has played 106 songs. That’s 17 from Red (Taylor’s Version), 15 from Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), 14 from Fearless (Taylor’s Version), 10 from Taylor Swift, 11 from 1989, 9 from Midnights, 7 from evermore, 9 from Lover, 6 from folklore, and 7 from Reputation. 

The next leg of the tour will likely see Swift perform some of the more than 50 songs on the list. And at the last show on the first U.S. leg of her tour, Swift announced that she would be releasing the re-recorded “Taylor’s Version” of 1989, so the new songs “from the vault,” that almost made the original cut and are now available, are eligible as surprise tracks.

Read More: The Staggering Economic Impact of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour

After 56 shows each, Swift has surpassed Beyoncé as having the highest-grossing concert tour by a woman. The former has grossed $780 million so far, while the latter grossed $579.8 million. Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour movie, which came out on Oct. 13, smashed records, making more than $230 million worldwide.

And Travis Kelce—a Kansas City Chiefs tight end and Swift’s new beau—may or may not be coming along to South America with her. Kelce alluded to potentially heading “somewhere sunny” for the weekend on New Heights with Jason and Travis Kelce, his podcast with his brother, a center for the Philadelphia Eagles.

source https://time.com/6333509/taylor-swift-eras-tour-cities-songs/

Fargo Season 5 Is a Sharp, Darkly Hilarious Return to Form

Minnesota homemaker Dot Lyon (Juno Temple) has a nice, quiet life. Her husband (David Rysdahl) worships her. Their preteen daughter (Sienna King) is Dot’s whole world. The only apparent obstacle to her happiness is a haughty mother-in-law (Jennifer Jason Leigh), who happens to own America’s largest debt collection agency—and is convinced that Dot’s motives for marrying her boy were less than pure. Then one day, a pair of thugs show up at the Lyons’ doorstep to drag Dot back to a painful past that she never disclosed to her family. She doesn’t go quietly.

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So begins the fifth season of FX’s Coen Brothers-inspired crime anthology Fargo, premiering Nov. 21. As a follow-up to Season 4’s ambitious yet cluttered, 1950s-set exploration of American identity, which aired in 2020, it’s a tighter, funnier, but equally dark return to form for creator Noah Hawley. This time, gender and class are the battlefields on which the show’s eternal war of good vs. evil are fought.

Set in the portentous, pre-pandemic and pre-Jan. 6 autumn of 2019, the season is crawling with law-enforcement types connected to Dot’s case who become avatars for different visions of justice. Fargo’s stalwart good cops include a pragmatic officer from Minnesota (Richa Moorjani) and her fairness-obsessed North Dakota counterpart (Lamorne Morris). A stiff pair of FBI agents worship at the altar of rules. Best—and worst—of all, Jon Hamm plays the pompous, violent, virulently misogynistic “constitutional sheriff” Roy Tillman, whose certainty that he has the authority to mete out divine justice allows him to run his squad like his own personal mafia.

Along with a wonderfully deranged soundtrack (Nightmare Before Christmas fans, prepare yourselves for Easter eggs galore) and reliably gorgeous cinematography, this smartly cast menagerie of oddballs makes Fargo a pleasure to watch. Ted Lasso alum Temple’s signature effervescence conceals a steely tenacity. Leigh drips cynicism and condescension, and has her own convenient theories on justice. The police, she explains to one officer, exist “to separate those who have money, class, intellect from those who don’t.” Hamm is her perfect foil, all macho bluster. He gets some of the most audaciously baroque dialogue in the series’ history—which is saying a lot—and never squanders a line. Approached by colleagues as he bathes in a capacious outdoor bathtub, Roy drawls: “Does my discussing matters of state in moist repose bother you?”

If you’re looking for contemporary political resonance, you’ll surely find it in the inevitable negotiations between Leigh’s billionaire girlboss elitist and Hamm’s Bible-thumping, he-man populist over the fate of one poor, desperate woman. But, as the spookily ageless self-described nihilist in a kilt (Sam Spruell) lurking at the story’s margins suggests, this is a parable, not a hot take. In bringing so many mutually exclusive perspectives to bear on Dot’s traditionally male quest to defend herself and her family, Hawley has more elemental questions in mind.

source https://time.com/6333438/fargo-season-5-review/

Robbie Williams Confronts His Darkest Moments in New Netflix Documentary

It’s hard to overstate the influence of pop star Robbie Williams at the height of his career. He dominated British music charts and tabloids—proving to be the ultimate entertainer both on and off the stage. Having left school without any qualifications, Williams was just 16-years-old in 1990 when he landed a spot in Take That, which went on to become one of the U.K.’s most successful boy bands. Fans were devastated when Williams left the group in 1995, after his bandmates and management took issue with his partying habits. They were even more bereft a year later, when the remaining four members of Take That announced the band was splitting. (The Samaritans set up a special helpline for the distraught fanbase, largely made up of teenage girls.) The phenomenon of Take That was arguably the 90s’ version of Beatlemania. The fans were “obsessive,” Williams notes.

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While the public fully expected Take That’s lead singer and songwriter Gary Barlow to become the breakout star after the band broke up, it was Williams who took center stage as a solo artist, thanks to his game-changing 1997 track “Angels.” The song elevated his career, cementing his front-man status and introducing him to a global audience (though his international appeal never quite took off in the United States). Williams was considered by many to be the bad boy of pop. A firm fixture in the tabloids, he was often pictured leaving parties in a bleary-eyed state. He had high-profile relationships with All Saints singer Nicole Appleton, who went on to marry Oasis’ Liam Gallagher, and Spice Girls’ Geri Halliwell. However, behind all of the hit singles, headlines, and bravado, Williams was struggling to find a sense of peace and purpose. Plagued by self-doubt, the former boybander battled addiction and depression.

Williams’ highest highs and lowest lows come into focus in the new Netflix documentary series Robbie Williams. Out Nov. 8, the series features the pop star taking viewers through his memories of his time in the spotlight. 

The four-part series, shot in 2022, takes us to Williams’ palatial Los Angeles home that he shares with his wife Ayda and their four children, who he heralds as being his saving grace. Aside from a few scenes where he’s pictured walking the grounds of his idyllic mansion in a Gucci cardigan, the singer spends the majority of the time lying in bed with his laptop, wearing a black vest top and briefs. “If I’m not on stage, I’m in bed,” Williams says, explaining the unorthodox location to director Joe Pearlman, the man behind other hit music documentaries such as Lewis Capaldi: How I’m Feeling Now. Williams watches behind-the-scenes footage and video blogs from his decades-long career, often grimacing as he’s confronted with moments he’s long sought to forget.

The “Let Me Entertain You” singer’s duality is prevalent throughout the documentary. He’s renowned for being an extrovert, yet admits he is “instinctively a loner.” He is often completely unguarded about his vulnerabilities. Reflecting on the era where his addiction to drugs and alcohol worsened, he reveals “there was a sense of… it would be best if I sort of passed away.” At other times, in the old footage especially, he comes off as arrogant and detached from reality. We witness Williams grapple with a desire to be “normal,” while acknowledging that he hasn’t truly lived a “normal” life since he was 16. “Nobody graduates from childhood fame well balanced,” the musician reasons. 

Williams’ most conflicting relationships—with Take That, the British press, and with himself—form the crux of the story. Here’s what the documentary reveals about the most impactful relationships in his life and career.

Take That

In footage from the early ‘90s, Williams can be seen as an energetic teenager dancing alongside his bandmates. But the cracks soon started to show, as Williams rebelled against the polished image that had been created to represent the band. He also started to clash with lead singer Gary Barlow, who he felt was prioritized by the band’s management. Largely fueled by Williams, the rivalry went on for years. The singer often called out his former bandmate on stage and in interviews, sometimes going so far as to issue cruel jibes about Barlow’s appearance. In one moment of the documentary series, Williams looks back at footage from the ‘90s, as his daughter Teddy (born Theodora) makes one of her welcome interruptions. With the bluntness only a child can get away with, she quizzes her dad about his feelings on Take That, asking: “Who did you hate the most and why?” Without much hesitation, William admits: “I disliked Gary the most… I wanted to make him pay by having the career he was supposed to have.” He later confesses to feeling regret over how he treated Barlow during those years.

After reuniting in 2005, Take That pulled off an impressive comeback, topping the British charts once more and enjoying a critically-acclaimed tour. Williams, then at a low-point in his professional career, watched from afar. Although his memories from his early years in Take That had been “sullied” by how unhappy he was behind the scenes, he later yearned for that sense of brotherhood on stage. In 2009, when Williams battled with his mental health and low confidence as he attempted to make a solo comeback, he turned to his old bandmates. He rejoined the group for an album and a tour in 2010, before leaving once again in 2014. It was a full-circle moment for the singer, who had spent years actively separating himself from the “ex-boybander” label.

Guy Chambers

Take That’s split is not the only band break-up Williams encountered in his career. When the singer was struggling to find his solo voice in the industry, he teamed up with Guy Chambers, who became his musical director and co-writer. He refers to Chambers as one half of the “Robbie Williams band.” It’s easy to view Chambers as the Bernie Taupin to Williams’ Elton John. The duo collaborated on all of Williams’ biggest hits, including “Angels,” “Rock DJ,” “Millennium,” and “Let Me Entertain You.” Chambers features in much of the footage that Williams revisits in his documentary. Their friendship and brotherhood transcended beyond the studio, as we witness them traveling the world together. In Episode 2, during a prominent video filmed in 2000, the duo are seen enjoying a holiday in the South of France with their respective partners. Chambers is with his wife Emma, and Williams is with former Spice Girls member Geri Halliwell. Although we’ve already watched a whole episode’s worth of footage at this point, Williams admits that this holiday is the first time we’ve seen him truly happy.

But their harmonious bond fractured over time, and by 2002, Williams had decided that there was no longer a professional future for him and Chambers. “I needed full control, as much as possible,” he says, reflecting on his decision to cut Chambers from any future albums. “I was done with him.” Williams is cut-throat about the union ending, in an attitude that mirrors his reaction to his split from Take That and makes you wonder if, back then, he viewed people as disposable. It’s another instance of Williams’ dual nature, as he cherished the brotherly bond he shared with Chambers, yet desperately sought to prove that he could go it entirely alone.

The British press

Williams’ fractured, career-defining relationship with the British media is explored throughout the documentary. The invasive nature of the paparazzi, in particular, grated on Williams. Recalling his “confusing relationship” with Geri Halliwell, he says the intrusive nature of the press and the heightened interest in their union had a detrimental impact. Williams recalls being bewildered by how the paparazzi always managed to find them, noting that he was once informed by a photographer that Halliwell was orchestrating the paparazzi shots herself. Although Williams now says he doesn’t believe that to be true, he did at the time, and it wasn’t long before he and Halliwell parted ways.

“Robbie Williams is a crime against music” and “Robbie’s a loser” are just some of the brutal headlines revisited in the documentary. Among the historical footage, the singer can be seen phoning British tabloid newspaper The Sun to confront them over a “Stroppy Williams” story they had published. The singer’s push-and-pull relationship with the press reached its height in 2006, when he was lambasted for releasing a rap song, “Rudebox.” The change in direction was not well received, and Williams believes the British press’ poor reaction to the song negatively impacted the public and, in turn, his record sales.

In 1999, Williams tried to “break America” but was unsuccessful in his efforts. His “cheeky” British humor and his tendency to flash his bum on stage didn’t translate well with American audiences. At the time, this was a devastating loss to the record company who had invested so much in Williams’ attempt at success across the Atlantic. But Williams was later grateful for remaining a relative unknown in the U.S., reveling in regaining his anonymity when he moved to Los Angeles in the early 00s. Williams recalls being filled with a sense of dread when he returned to the U.K. on tour. “It represents hatred and a lack of safety,” he says. “I am divorced from the land that was once mine and I’m deeply, deeply affected by it.”

In spite of all this, Williams still craved the acceptance and approval of the British press. In footage from his 2009 comeback, he excitedly tells the camera that an article about his return to music is “number two on the BBC’s most read” stories. The media’s acceptance, and fame in general, appears to be another drug that Williams struggled to resist.

Addiction and mental health

Williams had a long and hard road battling addiction before getting sober during an ultimatum trip to rehab in 2007, organized by his increasingly concerned management who had witnessed him relapsing. “I’m a want monster, I want everything,” Williams states, before reeling off the drugs he used to indulge in or, as he calls them, his “greatest hits.” The singer’s addictions initially took a strong hold over him when he was 19. Newly divorced from Take That, Williams admits to “ingesting everything I could get my hands on.” As he jostled with the trauma brought about by transitioning from boyhood to manhood in front of the public’s glare, he soon came to rely on drugs and alcohol as a crutch. 

In one enlightening moment, the singer recognises that the attributes that made him an addict are the same ones that made him a renowned showman. His “let’s see how far we can take this” attitude had both a positive and negative impact on his life and career.

Having been diagnosed with depression in his early 20s, Williams went on to experience what he describes as a “nervous, mental breakdown.” Although he was considered to be a cheeky chappy in the press, the musician struggled with depressive episodes which, at the height of his troubles, impacted his ability to perform, preventing him from doing the thing he believes he was born to do.

The man in the mirror

The experience of watching the Netflix documentary means seeing Williams get in his own way time and time again, a cycle revealed to be something only he could break. While the singer voices the impact of the press’ brutal criticism, it soon becomes apparent that Williams’ biggest critic is himself. Early on in the documentary, he alludes to his disordered eating. Reflecting on his first trip to rehab as a young twenty-something, Williams says the experience became more of a “weight loss camp” for him, admitting he was only eating a banana a day at the time. His body image issues are not directly brought up again, but they are visible in Williams’ self-loathing thoughts and taunts. Throughout the documentary, in both old and new footage, the singer refers to himself as “fat” and “fatty.” It’s always presented in a jovial, throwaway manner, but the sinister feeling behind it is clear for anyone who’s paying attention.

Over the years, Williams struggled with finding a sense of self-worth and purpose, at one point asking “am I enough?” He chased success, thinking it would amount to happiness, and although it worked for a short while, it wasn’t a sustainable or healthy way of living. 

As the series shows, the singer managed to find some much-need balance after creating an identity outside of fame by becoming a father and husband. After meeting Ayda Field, a former American actor, in 2007, Williams embarked on a serious relationship with her after exiting rehab. “I guess the God-shaped hole has been filled with four kids and a wife,” he says in the closing moments of the documentary, sharing that he’s on his way to “being really, really happy.” Still very much a work in progress, like us all, Williams signs off the documentary from a place of hard-earned tranquility. Having confronted his darkest moments on tape, Williams has made peace with his former self and is focused on what the future holds.

source https://time.com/6332204/robbie-williams-netflix-documentary-revelations/