Yahoo News Robbie Williams is ‘BANNED from performing in Russia’
It looks like Russia won’t let Robbie Williams entertain them, as he has reportedly been BANNED from performing in the country following the release of his controversial new music video.
The former Take That singer has been condemned from Moscow to Vladivostok over the video for his latest single Party Like A Russian after he was accused of “crude stereotyping.”
Copyright [Columbia Music]
The single, the first from new album Heavy Entertainment Show, features a sample from Prokofiev’s Dance Of The Knights, along with lyrics about a man who “alleviates the cash from a whole entire nation.”
Outraged fans accused Robbie, 42, of mocking the Eastern European nation’s president Vladimir Putin, which he irrefutably denies – but consequently, will not be allowed to include Russia in his next tour, according to the Daily Star.
One tabloid, Life, even published an “expert panel” claiming that Robbie would never be invited to perform in the world’s largest nation again. Eek!
Copyright [Columbia Music]
Roman Popkov, who’s employed by exiled oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, said: “[The video is] s*** because it imparts the puny, vulgar Russian elite, which has nothing to do with aesthetics, beauty or romanticism.”
State-run TV channel Vesti also reckons that the Russian theme has been included in the singer’s act as means of rescuing a career which “in recent years was becoming a memory rather than a reality.”
Saucer of milk, table two.
Copyright [Columbia Music]
Meanwhile Robbie defended the single - which has racked up more than two million views on YouTube – on Twitter, claiming the song is actually about Russians being “ridiculously good partiers.”
Backpedaling faster than a politician after Election Day, he told The Sun: “I think the spirit of the record is saying party like a Russian. And we as Brits or you as a New Zealander think that we party really hard.
“I can assure you we’re nothing compared to the Russians who are ridiculously good partiers.”
Robbie Williams – Party Like A Russian from Sergey Vorobioff on Vimeo.
Party Like A Russian can be heard on Robbie’s 11th studio LP Heavy Entertainment Show out on November 4.
