What actually happened at UNVRS?

On Sunday, August 16, Robbie Williams walked out during the closing stretch of Miss Monique's set at UNVRS, the club voted world's No.1 in the 2026 DJ Mag Top 100. The slot sat inside Carl Cox's ongoing Sunday residency, running June 21 through October 4. Williams and Miss Monique performed 'Beauty In Us' together, their collaborative single, with Williams singing the vocal live and in person for the first time. Until that night, the track had only existed as a DJ-set premiere: Miss Monique dropped it into her Tomorrowland Mainstage set on July 24-25, Williams' vocal running off the record, not out of his own mouth.

Is this Robbie Williams' first brush with dance music?

No. Williams has circled club culture for years without fully committing to it: he's worked with Don Diablo and put out material as part of the Lufthaus project on Armada Music. 'Beauty In Us' is the closest he's come to a genuine club feature, and the pair frame it as personal rather than opportunistic. Miss Monique and Williams have described the song as inspired by, in their own words, "our different but equally defining experiences of electronic music and clubbing in Stoke-on-Trent and Kyiv" from the 1990s through the 2010s.

"Our different but equally defining experiences of electronic music and clubbing in Stoke-on-Trent and Kyiv, from the 90s to the 2010s."

Does a pop cameo threaten the club's techno credibility?

That's the real question the scene will argue over. UNVRS built its reputation, and its DJ Mag crown, on bookings like Cox's residency, a lineage of techno and tech-house purism running back through Space and Amnesia. A Take That alumnus taking the mic mid-set, even briefly, is a different kind of statement: it says the club's biggest stage is also willing to court a pop audience for a moment of mainstream attention. Miss Monique's own catalogue sits in melodic, progressive house, so the pairing isn't as jarring musically as it reads on paper. But optics matter in a scene that trades on credibility, and a hyperclub already ranked No.1 in the world doesn't need help getting headlines.