NEWS that Robbie Williams had signed the biggest recording contract in British history - £80m for EMI to get his autograph - was met with some head-shaking round these parts about the heads-in-the-sand stupidity of record labels.

The same marketing geniuses after all threw a fortune at the long-past-her-moment Mariah Carey, only to end up paying her even more to go away and not sing any more, please.

And Robbie Williams, surely, seemed to have become utterly sick of being a pop star - making a swing album and eyeing up Hollywood, before vanishing to the States for a year - while the British public was suffering from tabloid Robbie fatigue.

Yet, aptly, given the title, the man who managed to escape from a boy band to conquer a rock audience has somehow once again managed to evade being written off.

Escapology, laden with big, radio-friendly anthems and adult rock ballads, is not a bad record - if one aimed blatantly at the American market. (The man who once mentioned Knutsford, Cheshire, in a song now namechecks Vegas and LA every chance he gets).

Though the music may have grown up significantly, Robbie hasn't got over his trademark lyrical obsessions, a contradictory mixture of egomania, painful honesty about the downside of fame, slagging off of ex-girlfriends, and a remarkable amount of self-loathing. Imagine Elton John sacking Bernie Taupin and getting Eminem in to write the lyrics, and you're not far off,

As ever it depends on your tolerance of Robbie and his over-exposed dirty laundry, but the boy still has a way with a tune. Highlights include the Elton-esque rocker Hot Fudge and bitter ballad Sexed Up. He escapes the backlash this time, but what will America make of him?

Updated: 10:15 Thursday, November 21, 2002