take-that

Never Forget – Take That And Their Early Years

Now surely there cannot be one person on this planet that hasn’t heard of Take That. Where have you been if you haven’t?

Gary Barlow, Mark Owen, Robbie Williams, Jason Owen and Howard Donald were the original fab five from Manchester who graced our screens in 1991 when they released their first single and all us teenage girls got to see a nice bit of flesh whilst they smothered their body’s in Jelly and Custard for their ‘Do What You Like’ video.

With Gary Barlow sporting a peroxide blonde haircut and the rest of the boys dressed up shirtless in their studded leather jackets, for all the girls missing a new boy band to obsess over Take That were the new kids on the block and would go on to become one of the biggest phenomena in British pop history.

When the lads first single came out it was pretty much made clear that Gary would be the lead vocalist, Mark was the cute one, Robbie was Jack the Lad and Jason and Howard were the dancers, but this did not deter the fans who literally went crazy for the new pop sensation.  

Even more so when they released ‘It Only Takes A Minute’.

This is when girls rushed out to buy the Take That and Party album and this is when the phenomenon really started to begin.

The band was regularly in all the teen magazines, Smash Hits, Just Seventeen, Top Of The Pops to name a few. 

Fans couldn’t wait to see what the boys had been up to or read the countless interviews they had done.  

If you were a regular watcher of the Saturday morning shows Going Live and  Live and Kicking then you may have been lucky enough to speak to the band on their fan phone in.

Whilst the band was making it big releasing more and more singles and albums Take That merchandise was hitting the shops, fans of the band were  going to school with their Take That bag and pencil case and covering their school books with TT posters, there was bags, dolls, t-shirts, posters, pillowcases, clocks, hats selling out everywhere.

Concerts were a sellout, and thousands of fans would queue for hours waiting with anticipation to hear the lads sing.

Just when it was going so well, the announcement on the 17 July was made that Robbie Williams would be quitting the band, as gutting as this was for fans the other four promised that they would stay together and continue performing as a foursome, releasing  ‘Never Forget’ as their first single without Robbie, the boys made it to number one in the UK .

But it seemed that the boys had had enough of being in the spotlight and Robbie leaving was really the icing on the cake.  On 13th February 1996, millions of fans were left heartbroken when an official press conference went out, Gary, Mark, Jason, and Howard told fans  ‘there would be no more’ and How Deep Is Your Love would be their last single.

Fans were literally gutted on hearing this news, and we kid you not a government hotline was set up for people to ring in case they were struggling to cope after teenage girls were threatening suicide as they were no longer able to cope without the fab foursome and all across the UK the legions of fans literally went into mourning!! It all seems a bit crazy really but young girls really did go into meltdown over this.  

But let’s not forget the boys had a really good run, releasing a total of 17 singles and 3 hit albums.  Let’s reminisce it case you have forgotten:

Singles

  • Do What You Like
  • Promises
  • Once You’ve Tasted Love
  • It Only Takes a Minute
  • I Found Heaven
  • A Million Love Songs
  • Could It Be Magic
  • Why Can’t I Wake Up With You
  • Pray
  • Relight My Fire
  • Babe
  • Everything Changes
  • Love Ain’t Here Anymore
  • Sure
  • Back For Good
  • Never Forget
  • How Deep is Your Love

Albums

  • Take That and Party
  • Everything Changes
  • Nobody Else

What’s your favourite Take That single from the early years?

 

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