He could be just another hopeful singing his heart out to win X Factor votes. But this weekend it is Robbie Williams auditioning to reclaim his crown as Britain’s best-loved entertainer.

It’s been three years since Williams performed live on a British stage. Since then the star has released a career-threatening flop album, fought a prescription-drug addiction, investigated UFOs and disappeared behind a bushy beard.

Now the former Take That member, who has sold 55 million records, is back fighting fit and has chosen the most high-profile way possible to announce his return.

More than ten million viewers will see his appearance on The X Factor, as a mentor to the 12 finalists tonight, before a live performance of his comeback single, Bodies, in tomorrow evening’s results show.

The appearance has been compared to the 1968 US television special that revived Elvis Presley’s career.

If Bodies, released as a download tomorrow, proves a hit for Williams, the accompanying album, Reality Killed the Video Star, which follows next month, could lure millions of Christmas shoppers into record stores.

But Williams, 35, whose 15 Brit Awards have not helped him to conquer stage fright, says there is an “elephant in the room”.

It is Rudebox, his experimental 2006 album that sold so poorly that one million copies were sent to China to be recycled for road surfacing.

The album is a major test for EMI, which lost high-profile artists including Radiohead after the venture-capital firm Terra Firma took over the company and cut costs.

“The X Factor is very important,” Shabs Jobanputra, president of Virgin, the EMI label releasing the album, told The Times. “The retail market has changed significantly since he’s been away.

“There are very few top artists with Robbie’s longevity. He’s come back with a fantastic album full of quality songs so this is a ‘wow’ moment for the market, comparable to the release of a new Dan Brown book.”

Because of Williams’s potential to fill stadiums and boost a contracting CD market, the team around him — EMI, managers, publicists, radio and television pluggers — have plotted a campaign comparable to a party seeking election.

Talk of an inevitable reunion with Take That is being played down since it suggests that Williams may not be popular enough to win an “overall majority” on his own.

There will be no record-breaking run of shows at Knebworth, in front of 375,000 fans, to accompany the album release. Instead, Williams will jet around the world making promotional appearances on key television and radio shows.

A headline performance at the BBC Electric Proms this month will be beamed live to 200 cinemas across Europe, allowing Williams to connect with his loyal fans before critics dissect the album.

Mark Collen, a former EMI executive who worked with Williams and is now an industry consultant, said: “EMI has done a lot of consumer research and web analytics to find out what Robbie’s fans want and the best channels to reach them.” Mr Jobanputra said: “We will announce a unique deal with Spotify (the music-streaming website) to ‘monetise’ the album: there will be Robbie iPhone apps and a partnership with MySpace Music.”

Crucially, Williams was persuaded to shelve an album of what he called “Robbie-gone-mad ... career suicide” music that he had recorded.

Reality Killed the Video Star instead includes a contribution from Guy Chambers (who co-wrote the huge hit Angels), which was produced by Trevor Horn, the hitmaker who worked with Frankie Goes to Hollywood and the Pet Shop Boys.

Team Williams is aware that this is his last studio album under an £80 million deal with EMI signed in 2002, which granted the record company profits from his concert tours.

If Williams regains the public’s trust, the potential offered by digital means to reach his fans directly he may not sign a traditional deal with a record company again.

Tim Clark, Williams’s manager, told Music Week: “We do see the ultimate demise of the CD. We are reaching the end game for physical.”

Key retailers and radio programmers have already been given a hearing of the album to help create a “buzz”. Jeff Smith, head of music at Radio 2, the most listened-to station, said: “It’s great for the industry that Robbie is back with a strong offering. ”

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