Millennium (song)

"Millennium"
Single by Robbie Williams
from the album I've Been Expecting You
Released	7 September 1998
Format	CD single cassette digital download
Recorded	1998
Genre	Pop, symphonic rock
Length	4:07 (album version) 3:46 (radio edit)
Label	Chrysalis
Writer(s)	Robbie Williams Guy Chambers Leslie Bricusse John Barry
Producer(s)	Guy Chambers Steve Power
Robbie Williams singles chronology
"Let Me Entertain You" (1998) "Millennium" (1998) "No Regrets" (1998)
Music video "Millennium" on YouTube

"Millennium" is a song by English singer Robbie Williams from his 1998 album I've Been Expecting You. In September 1998, it was released as the album's first track which became Williams' first single to top the UK Singles Chart. The song also received extensive airplay in the United States and Canada, where it was the lead single from Williams' 1999 compilation album, The Ego Has Landed.

The song borrows heavily from the musical arrangement of John Barry's "You Only Live Twice", the title track of the 1967 James Bond film of the same name, said to be one of Williams' favourite James Bond movies.^[1] However, it is a re-recording in a slightly different key instead of a direct sample for reasons of cost.^[2]

Recording and composing

The song that would become "Millennium" started being written in 1997. Once producers Steve Power and Guy Chambers heard Williams' demo, which already had a sample of "You Only Live Twice" by Nancy Sinatra, they found potential for a single given it showed a different sound from Williams' debut album Life thru a Lens. As Power explained: "It had the more programming-based feel that we wanted to introduce on the second album in order to get away from the guitar-based feel of the first album, and it already had the chorus hook, the Bond theme sample, on the demo version, which I remember mixing before last Christmas." The lyrics were mostly done, although Chambers felt it lacked "an obvious title for the track," and suggested "Millennium" for being "both strong and topical". Then Chambers asked for a "football chant" which only had a melody before Williams came up with "come and have a go if you think you're hard enough'." The whole writing process took about four hours, and Chambers described "Millennium" as "the simplest song Robbie and I have ever written -- only two chords. And it's written in D flat major, which is very unusual in pop music." ^[2]

Writing and pre-production was done at Blah Street Studios in Hampshire. Trident Studios in London were used for the majority of the recordings, including drums, bass and samples for the backing track, and the backing vocals, which included three female session singers and male vocals by Williams' guitarist Gary Nuttall. Williams' vocals were done at Jacobs Studios in Surrey.^[2]

Williams suggested using a only accompanied by a hip-hop beat. Guy Chambers found a beat by speeding the sample up. The record label, Chrysalis Records, discovered that a new recording would cost only one tenth of the licensing fee that would be required to sample "You Only Live Twice", so they asked for a new string section that still acted as a recognisable pastiche of the song. Nick Ingman arranged the orchestra, which according to Power "was in the wrong key for 'Millennium', although we did want it to sound like the original sample in the choruses and we did refer to John Barry's original score for that", and conducted a 26-piece string section, plus harp and four French horns, at Angel Studios in Islington to the programmed backing track, with a guide vocal over the top.^[2]

Power said the song used most of the 48 tracks offered by the multitrack tape: "We had about six tracks of backing vocals, and nine tracks for the strings. Then there were the programmed tracks; and when you get into programming, you'll layer about four kick drums to tape! For speed, and to keep the creative flow going, we put them all down to separate tracks rather than spend time deciding which one we wanted loudest when recording. So we had a lot of independent outs from the programmed backing track onto separate multitrack channels, like the programmed percussion and sampled noises. Then there were the unused scratching tracks, and the live percussion --all in all, I think we filled maybe 36 or 38 tracks in total."^[2]

Music video

The tongue-in-cheek video for "Millennium", directed by Vaughan Arnell, features Williams parodying James Bond, complete with tuxedo and references to Bond films like Thunderball and From Russia with Love.^[3] The video was filmed at Pinewood Studios, home to most Bond productions. During the end of the video, Williams drives away in an economy car, a fittingly chosen Bond Bug, instead of 007's Aston Martin DB5, which later drives past him while he's having car trouble.^[4] Future celebrity chef Lorraine Pascale made an appearance in the video as one of the 'Bond Girls'.^[5]

At the 1999 BRIT Awards, "Millennium" won the award for Best British Video.

Reception

The song became Williams' first number-one single in the United Kingdom, shipping over 400,000 copies and being certified Gold by the BPI. The song also became an international success; it managed to break into the Top 40 around the world. It also became Williams' first song to chart inside the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 when it was released in 1999. However, neither "Millennium" nor "Angels" (the song chosen as his second single in the United States) charted in the top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100 chart; it did chart at #20 on the Mainstream Top 40 chart.

Formats and track listings

These are the formats and track listings of major single releases of "Millennium".

UK CD1
(Released 7 September 1998)

1. "Millennium" – 4:07
2. "Love Cheat" (demo version) – 3:46
3. "Rome Munich Rome" (demo version) – 3:05

UK CD2
(Released 7 September 1998)

1. "Millennium" – 4:07
2. "Lazy Days" (original version) – 4:29
3. "Angels" (live version) – 5:38

European CD Maxi
(Released 7 September 1998)

1. "Millennium" – 4:07
2. "Love Cheat" (demo version) – 3:46
3. "Rome Munich Rome" (demo version) – 3:05
4. "Angels" (live version) – 5:38

Charts and sales

Chart successions

References