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Metacritic	(65/100)
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Allmusic
BBC Music	mixed
The Daily Telegraph
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The Independent
The Independent on Sunday
MusicOMH
The Observer
PopMatters	7/10
Slant Magazine

Take the Crown is the ninth studio album released by British singer-songwriter Robbie Williams. The album was released in the United Kingdom on 5 November 2012, via Island Records.

Take the Crown is preceded by the lead single, "Candy", a track Williams co-wrote with Gary Barlow which became his seventh solo number one single in the UK and 14th career UK number one. The album also featured the original demo version of Take That's "Eight Letters", which is entirely performed by Williams. It is his first solo album in three years after his return to Take That in 2010. According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), Take the Crown was the 36th global best-selling album of 2012 with sales of 1.2 million copies. To promote the album, Williams started the Take the Crown Stadium Tour, which lasted from June to August 2013.

On 9 November 2009, Williams released his eighth solo studio album entitled Reality Killed the Video Star. The album incorporated elements of pop rock, dance-rock, alternative rock and adult contemporary music.Reality Killed the Video Star was viewed by critics and fans as being Williams' "comeback album" after the relative failure of his 2006 release, Rudebox. The album produced four singles, including the worldwide hit "Bodies".

Speaking of the album, Williams has claimed: "After the Take That reunion – a busman's holiday, a break from my career which re-energised me in many, many ways – I wanted to come back with a massive solo album. My main priority was to write what I consider, and hopefully what the world would consider, to be hits. I'm very excited". Robbie met Melbourne musicians Flynn Francis and Tim Metcalfe through the brother of his wife Ayda Field.The like-minded trio immediately hit a rich vein of creative form, penning Take The Crown in just over a week. He said: "My brother-in-law, who’s in a rap combo called The Connects... his music got 40 per cent better overnight. I said, ‘What’s going on?’ He said, ‘Well, we met these Australian guys in a bar and they produce and write songs. And I said, ‘Well, get them up to the house.’ Within eight days we’d written the album. They breathed youth into the situation and naivety and hope. I found it to be a very fortuitous blend straight away, more so than anything I’ve ever done in the past."

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