After nearly a decade without a true original pop-rock album, Robbie Williams returns with BRITPOP, a bold record rooted in the spirit of the 1990s and the golden age of British music.
Conceived as the album he would have wanted to release after leaving Take That in 1995, it leans into more prominent guitars, raw energy and catchy choruses, blending the brit attitude with the pop sound that defined his career.
BRITPOP includes several singles already unveiled (such as Rocket, Spies, Pretty Face, Human and All My Life) as well as collaborations with artists like Tony Iommi, Chris Martin, Gaz Coombes and Gary Barlow, who co-wrote the song Morrissey.
The album was surprise-released ahead of schedule, creating a major buzz, and quickly climbed the charts: it is aiming to become the singer s 16th number-one album in the UK, a record in the history of the British charts.
What does this album sound like in stereo and Dolby Atmos? That’s what we’re about to discover in this review.

For this review, you will find 2 versions tested:

• Ed 1: Tidal Dolby Atmos – 2026
• Ed 2: Tidal MAX – 2026

Below you will find the description of the different editions, as well as the measurements of each edition in the following chapters.

The synthesis of the review are available here.

The album is composed of 11 tracks:

1. Rocket
2. Spies
3. Pretty Face
4. Bite Your Tongue
5. Cocky
6. All My Life
7. Human (feat. Jesse & Joy)
8. Morrissey
9. You
10. It’s OK Until The Drugs Stop Working
11. Pocket Rocket

Summary, scoring and Samples

Ed 1: Tidal Dolby Atmos – 2026

Presentation

This is the Tidal Dolby Atmos presented in Dolby Digital Plus (768 kbits/s) or AC-4.

Below the spatialization for all tracks. Click on the images to zoom in.

Waveform and Spectrum: DR12

The waveform of the Tidal Dolby Atmos – 2026 version shows a very good dynamic range confirmed with DR12.

The spectrogram of the Tidal Dolby Atmos track in 7.1.4 is limited to 20kHz (yellow arrow) with no signal above. This limitation is due to Dolby Digital Plus encoding, which is a lossy encoder that limits bandwidth to optimize data size for a bit rate of 768 kbits/s.
The green arrow shows the 120Hz filtering of the bass channel (LFE).

The graph below represents the spectrum of the Tidal Dolby Atmos – 2026.
The spectrum of Dolby Atmos version decoded in 7.1 shows that all channels are used. The LFE channel is used with a cutoff frequency of 120 Hz (green arrow).
The white arrow indicates the high-frequency limit at 20 kHz due to Dolby Digital Plus encoding.
The yellow arrow indicates the high-frequency limit at 24 kHz due to encoding at the 48 kHz sampling frequency used.

Synthesis and listening

The Dolby mix provides greater dynamics and spatial depth than the stereo version. The widening of the soundstage through the side surround speakers results in improved precision.
However, the mix remains largely focused on a 180-degree frontal soundfield, with occasional effects distributed across the various channels, including the rear channels, as heard on Morrissey.

Rating:

• Dynamic: ●●●oo (3.5)
• Bandwidth: ●●●●o (4)
• Spatialization: ●●●●oooooo (4.2)
• Restitution: ●●●oo (3.5)

Sample : Rocket 7.1 Dolby Atmos (Downmixed in 7.1) :

The sample is in 7.1 wav format, if you can not play the sample in your navigator, you can save it, right button menu and Save Audio As and play it with an external player.

Sample : Rocket Dolby Atmos (Downmixed 2.0) :

Ed 2: Tidal MAX – 2026

Presentation

This is the Tidal Max version presentetd in 24 bits 44.1 kHz.

Waveform and Spectrum: DR5

The waveform of the Tidal MAX – 2026 version shows a extremely low dynamic range confirmed with DR5.

The spectrogram shows that the signal rises to 22 kHz with no signal above this frequency due to the 44 kHz sampling frequency.

The graph below represents the spectrum of the Tidal MAX – 2026.
The maximum frequency of the spectrum is 24 kHz, which results from the 48 kHz sampling rate used.

Synthesis and listening

There are no real surprises with this album: the stereo version is heavily compressed, with overall dynamic range values between DR4 and DR5 across most tracks, except for the final one, which reaches DR8.
We are still firmly stuck in the loudness race, the loudness war is clearly ongoing. This is particularly disappointing today, especially when high-resolution formats like this 24-bit release offer massive dynamic potential that is simply not being used at all.

Rating:

• Dynamic: ●oooo (1)
• Bandwidth: ●●●●o (4)
• Restitution: ●●ooo (2)

Sample : Rocket 24 bits 44.1 kHz:

Unsurprisingly for a modern production, the stereo version of the album is heavily compressed, except for the final track. This is unfortunate, as that track could have served as a reference for the entire album.
To regain greater precision and dynamics, one must turn to the Dolby Atmos version which, thanks to the enforced normalization at 18 LUFS integrated, allows mixes to make better use of dynamic range.
The result is an immersive mix that draws the listener into the album, with a predominantly frontal presentation.
However, this mix is less showy than those of albums such as Boys and Girls, reviewed previously.

Dynamic Range measurements are shown below.

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Measurements

Dynamic Range comparaisons

Dynamic represents the ability to reproduce a wide range of sounds from the softest to the loudest. The target is to compare the dynamics of the music and not of the media (CD, digital files or vinyl).

For our 2 editions reviewed have obtained the following Dynamic Range (DR) :

	Tidal Dolby Atmos – 2026	Tidal MAX – 2026
Global	DR12	DR5
Min	DR11	DR4
Max	DR14	DR8
Rocket	DR14	DR05
Spies	DR11	DR04
Pretty Face	DR12	DR04
Bite Your Tongue	DR13	DR04
Cocky	DR11	DR05
All My Life	DR14	DR04
Human (feat. Jesse & Joy)	DR12	DR05
Morrissey	DR12	DR05
You	DR13	DR04
It’s OK Until The Drugs Stop Working	DR14	DR04
Pocket Rocket	DR11	DR08

As a reminder, the scale goes from 0 to more 20, but the dynamics are considered good from 12, quite good between 10 and 11, and deteriorate below 10.

Detail of the ratings :

• Dynamic :
  1. Significant dynamic compression, DR less than 7
  2. Compression of the present dynamics, DR between 7 and 9.
  3. Correct piece DR >=10
  4. No dynamic compression (DR >12), dynamic rendering
  5. No dynamic compression, high DR and very dynamic sound rendering
• Spectrum :
  1. Spectrum cut and less than 15 khz
  2. Spectrum cut at 15 khz
  3. Spectrum not conforming to the original and cut (not HD) or original but limited bandwidth (but less than 20 kHz)
  4. Spectrum conforming to the original (but not HD)
  5. Spectrum conforming to the original with HD resolution (higher than 24kHz)
• Surface noise (only for vinyl):
  1. Continuous audible noise
  2. Audible surface noise except on passages with a high level of noise
  3. Reduced surface noise, barely audible on low level crossings
  4. Low surface noise, very good quality
  5. Very low surface noise, no defects, almost inaudible on the quiet passages (exceptional disc)
• Spatialization :
  • Between 0 and 5 for 5.1 or 7.1 channels configuration
  • Between 0 and 10 for Atmos configuration (7.1.4)
  • For more information on spatialization, you can read the article describing this parameter here.
• Restitution :
  1. Low quality of the restitution mixing dynamics, clarity, separation of voices and instruments.
  2. Average quality of the restitution mixing dynamics, clarity, separation of voices and instruments.
  3. Quality of the restitution mixing dynamics, clarity, separation of voices and instruments. Good record.
  4. High quality of the restitution mixing dynamics, clarity, separation of voices and instruments. Very high level disc.
  5. Maximum quality of the restitution mixing dynamics, clarity, separation of voices and instruments. Exceptional disc.

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