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| Full Biography |
| It was, incontestably, the pop story to end all pop stories, the unlikely triumph to beat all unlikely triumphs.
When Gary Barlow, Howard Donald, Jason Orange and Mark Owen released “Patience”, the first single from the second coming of Take That on November 20, 2006, it was more than a decade since the band’s famous split, and the world, it seemed, was ready for them. The return of Take That to their rightful place at the top of the charts became the most compelling tale in British pop music, not to mention the most heart-warming. “Patience” had a grandeur to it as well as a sweeping, heartfelt emotionality, and a classic, crowd-pleasing British pop sensibility. No wonder it became Take That’s ninth UK number one and a hit across Europe, nor that it was voted Best British Single at the 2007 BRIT Awards. Then in the October of 2007, Take That released “Rule the World” which appeared as the theme to the film Stardust. And that winter the Beautiful World Tour – Take That’s most ambitious and successful to date - played to sell out audiences across the country over 32 nights. No story is ever quite that simple, of course, and this one is particularly complicated. The members of the most successful British pop group of the Nineties had spent almost ten years apart, seldom seeing each other or even speaking. Each had been bruised, in different ways and to different degrees, by their time in Take That, and then by their experiences away from the boy band hothouse. They were first reunited in 2005 to discuss the idea of a greatest hits album. Then an ITV documentary was proposed to celebrate ten years since they split. To the others’ surprise, Robbie agreed to appear in the film, though not with the rest of the band. Following the phenomenal success of Beautiful World the band regrouped in April 2008 at SARM Studios in Notting Hill, west London, and began work on a new album, just the four of them in a room. So Take That came back. And now they’re back again. And guess what? They’ve topped “Patience”, and they’ve beaten “Beautiful World”, and no one need wonder any longer whether they’re back for good, or just back for now. Because right now it doesn’t matter. The songs on The Circus are both vintage Take That and a bold step into the future. They’re widescreen, stadium-sized anthems and they’re intimate, heartfelt ballads, they’re lyrically challenging and musically diverse, theatrical and rooted, appealingly naïve and strikingly mature, simple in design but epic in execution. Democratic, defiant and dramatic, The Circus is the sound of four men fully in control of their own destinies, perhaps for the first time in their working lives. Like the song says: learn to listen. Take That Official Website: www.takethat.com | www.myspace.com/takethattv |
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