Robbie Williams - Escapology

Somewhere along the way, I heard a story about a man and his monkey. It was a slightly comical, slightly sad story about a man swept up in events that he hadn't anticipated when he picked up the monkey as his hitchhiker. After some research, I found the song again, and lo and behold, I had a new appreciation for the boy band refugee Robbie Williams.

In case you're wondering, Robbie's musical career started with a British boy band known as Take That. They may not have been a boy band in the traditional sense, but they were still labeled as such. It must have burned Robbie up, and he eventually seperated from that, and was able to break out as a solo artist.

While it's true for all of his solo albums to a certain extent, Escapology was actually a fairly deep album with a lot of emotional moments. In addition to the song "Me and My Monkey", the other standouts include "Monsoon", "Sexed Up", "Love Somebody", and possibly one of the best songs I've ever heard by anybody, "Feel." Perhaps its just because it seems like a perfect way to describe my state of mind over the past couple of years, perhaps just because the emotion was captured in the recording so well it send chills up my spine, or just because I can't resist singing along, this makes the entire album worth the price of admission.

Come for the Monkey, stay for the emotional content...