After a very tumultuous time in the boy band Take That, Robbie left the group, recorded an album and went in to rehab. Robbie’s drug problem and ego problem was too much for Take That. He was tired of his creative input being ignored and was ready to branch out on his own. And branch out he did. His first album, ‘Life Thru a Lens’ was released on September 29, 1997 and though it started off slow, it would go on to great heights hitting #1 on the UK charts and selling over 3 million copies in Europe.

Now, we peasants here in the States, knew nothing about Robbie and sadly that would continue throughout most of his career. He had some moderate success with a few songs, but for the most part, the U.S. missed on on a hugely talented guy. I’m glad to say, I didn’t miss out. I discovered him a few years later with the songs “Millennium” and “Rock DJ” and I was hooked. But we aren’t here to talk about the albums those songs were on. Nope. We are here to talk about the 25th Anniversary Edition of his debut album, ‘Life Thru a Lens’ and what a box set he put together.

The box set comes in a hard cardboard case with bright, vivid pictures everywhere. The Box Set contains 4 CDs and a booklet. What is cool about the CDs is that they are housed in a tri-fold cardboard sleeve which has these huge panoramic pictures as well as the track listing. There are 2 CDs per sleeve so we get 2 tri-fold sleeves. You can see everything at the bottom. We get 62 Tracks and a 32 page booklet. And one of those CDs is a live show. This is how you do it.

Disc 1 : ‘Life Thru A Lens’

Obviously, the first disc is the debut album ‘Life Thru a Lens’ and there are so many great songs on here. While Take That was pretty much ballads, Robbie was all Britpop! And he does it pretty fucking well. Not only do you have the five great singles of “Old Before I Die” (written with Desmond Child and The Hooter’s own Eric Bazillian), “Lazy Days”, “South of the Border”, the beautiful ballad”Angels” as well as the Queen-esque “Let Me Entertain You”. All fantastic songs, but the best song on here wasn’t even a single it is the angry, funtastic song “Ego A Go Go”. The CD even still has the hidden track “Hello Sir” which is a Robbie reciting a poem telling of an old teacher who told him he wouldn’t amount to anything…boy was he wrong. Some day I’ll do a proper review of it.

Disc 2: ‘Life on the Flipside: Bonus Tracks & B-Sides

The real gem of this box set are the next two discs. First, Disc 2 is a collection of all the B-Sides and Bonus Tracks. The 2 Japanese Bonus Tracks are here with “Teenage Millionaire” (which is better than a lot of tracks on the album which are all really good to begin with) and “She Might Be High”. It also contains the first single Robbie put out which didn’t end up on the album and that is the cover of George Michael’s song “Freedom”. This was a shout out to him being free from Take That. The rest are all B-Sides. Each single he released had 3-4 B-Sides on it so in the end we have 20 tracks on this disc alone. So cool. And it also has a great medley of songs with Robbie and Tom Jones live from the Brit Awards and it is awesome!! Now, with all this you don’t have to buy each and every Single or Maxi-Single. It is all right here.

Disc 3: ‘Work in Progress: The Making of Life Thru a Lens’

The third disc is also pretty interesting as it is full of remixes, demos and rehearsal outtakes. “Freedom” gets a couple remixes including an 11 minute Dub Mix which is actually really interesting. You get demos of songs on the album from Axis Studios, Tower Studios, Crescent Moon Studios and Westside studios. Man, he recorded at a lot of studios. And then there are the rehearsal takes of a bunch of songs from the Spring of 1997. All-in-all, some really great stuff to plow through and we another 15 tracks here.

Disc 4: ‘Life on the Stage: Live at the Forum, London 3 June 1998’

And on Disc 4 we get what every Anniversary Edition or Super Deluxe Edition should have and that is a live show from the era of the album. This one was recorded Live at the Forum in London on June 3, 1998. We get the full show with all of Robbie’s cockiness and cheekiness. There is one thing Robbie doesn’t lack on stage and that is ego and you want that in a front man or a solo artist. He plays basically the whole album and even some of the B-Sides so nice to have live versions of all the songs. His live version of “Teenage Millionaire” is completely over the top and epic! He does a cover of The La’s “There She Goes” another plus and to cap off the night he covers Take That’s song “Back For More” which you might know as it was a pretty big hit. Robbie brings all the energy and excitement to a live show and you don’t leave disappointed. I would love to see him live some day.

The Booklet:

The booklet is pretty decent as it is 32 pages of pictures and lyrics as well as credits for every song in the box set. It is missing an essay or something talking about Robbie and this period. There are a ton of pictures and most seem to be from all the promotional shots taken for the album. It would’ve been cool with some candid photos and shots from events during that period, but it is still a great booklet. Could’ve been more though, but I’m not really grading the box set based on the booklet, it is all about the music.

I can’t believe it has been 25 years already, man does time fly. This is a great way to celebrate the album by giving us everything he did for the album and I couldn’t be happier. Robbie’s B-Sides are as exciting and good as the songs from the album, heck some are even better. The quality of work is incredible and the work is immense. The live show is the perfect end to the set and I think Robbie did it right. My Overall Score is a 5.0 out of 5.0 Stars even with a booklet that missed an opportunity because in the end I’m only here to listen to the music. If you are a Robbie Williams fan, you will want this for the boatload of songs.

Here is everything you get…