Robbie Williams

Robbie Williams solo career started in 1996 covering George Michael's "Freedom" (reached #2, 26 places higher than the George Michael original). In late 1997 Williams released his first solo album Life Thru A Lens featuring the singles "Old Before I Die", "Lazy Days" and "South Of The Border". When first released the initial public response, despite favourable reviews, was somewhat underwhelming, as it was gone from the chart after barely a month having peaked at #11. It was the release of the 4th single, "Angels", that turned things around. The single itself, while it did not make the Top 3, clocked up five separate chart runs totalling 27 weeks, and is Williams' best selling single with 868,000 copies shifted. The last single from the album was "Let Me Entertain You" (#3). The album returned to the chart to give Williams the first of his eight number one albums. It went on to rack up 123 weeks on the chart, more than any of his other releases, and now ranks at #58 in the all-time list of biggest selling albums in the UK, with sales of 2,075,000.

His second album I've Been Expecting You was introduced in 1998 by the single "Millennium", which was his first solo number 1 hit single. Other singles released were "No Regrets" (reached #4), "Strong" (reached #4), "She's The One" (his second number 1) which had FIFA 2000 soundtrack "It's Only Us" as a B-side, and "Win Some Lose Some" (reached #7) exclusive to New Zealand. This album, which spent 98 weeks on the chart, is Williams' biggest seller in the UK, at #30 in the all-time list, with sales of 2,556,000.

The Ego Has Landed was a North American exclusive compilation of the best songs from "Life Thru A Lens" and "I've Been Expecting You", which had a poor showing in the album charts, peaking at #63. The album however, sold over 596,000 copies and was praised by Entertainment Weekly as the Album Of The Year in 1999. It went platinum in Canada with sales over 100,000. In total the album has sold almost a million worldwide. The two singles released from this album, "Millennium" and "Angels", reached #72 and #41 respectively.

Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbie_Williams