Take That, This Life: proof they still have plenty to offer after the pop party is over
“In this life, there ain’t no second chances,” Gary Barlow sings on the chirpily stoic title track of Take That’s ninth album. Without the buoyant melody, the sentiment might seem a bit churlish, given that the former boy band seized their own second chance with famous aplomb. After years of being treated as a national embarrassment in the shadow of the imperial pop success of former bandmate Robbie Williams, the Nineties boyband reemerged as the Noughties comeback kings. By maturing into sleek purveyors of sophisticated pop anthems, Take That affected one of the greatest reunions in pop history.
Indeed, this second phase of Take That’s career (2006 to the present) has lasted longer than their first (1990-1996), albeit with the quintet gradually shrinking to a trio even as they tripled their recorded output. This Life, their first original studio album in six years, gamely grapples with a conundrum of longevity in a fickle business: when the hits dry up, just what is a pop band for?
“I’m a little bit yesterday / I’m a nice try / I’m a little bit broken,” Mark Owen sings on The Champion, a gentle epic that serves as the album’s philosophical centrepiece. “I’m a last chance flying high / I’m a patched-up champion of the world,” are interesting images for a band past their peak but determined to remain in the game. Owen’s fragile falsetto floats safely on a bed of harmonies from his bandmates as he declares that he’s “feeling like a king – but I’m still broken.” It is a song that acknowledges the complexities of being an ageing entertainer.
Take That are all in their fifties now, scruffily bearded, and often slightly careworn, from suffering travails with the taxman (Barlow, Owen and Howard Donald paid back over ￡20 million from a misguided tax avoidance scheme in 2016) to negotiating other culture wars (Donald was dropped from a Manchester Pride concert this summer, subsequently apologising for liking anti-LGBTQ+ tweets).
There may be nothing on this album likely to trouble the singles charts, where Take That haven’t had a sniff since 2017. But there are a lot of elegantly put together songs of struggle and fortitude, full of reassuring sentiments for the fan base who have grown up with them.
Harmonies are key. Take That have been singing together a long time, and at their best can call to mind the seamless sweetness of Crosby, Stills and Nash in their multipart prime. The tender Keep Your Head Up, longing Windows and folky We Got All Day stack voices gorgeously in arrangements evoking the plush soft rock of the Seventies. Indeed, the title song sounds like something Billy Joel might have concocted as a theme for a lost American sitcom – and I genuinely mean that as a compliment. One More Word offers a truly touching farewell to a dying loved one, sung by Donald, that manages to be heartfelt without descending into sentimental mush. There is depth and maturity to this self-composed collection that proves Take That still have plenty to offer after the pop party is over.
This Life is out on Nov 24
