When you think how the fortunes of Take That, and particularly Gary, have changed its amazing. I do remember buying Open Road but not 12 months, 11 days. I wasn't a big TT fan in those days and never went to any of their concerts. Many have said Gary's second album campaign was handled badly with poor single choices ( Take That don't seem to have learnt from this the second time around) and I have to say I don't even remember his second album being released . It goes to show how quickly the music public move on !

 

I do have an abiding memory of watching The Brits and hearing Rob's comments about TT/Gary and squirming in my seat and I also have a really vivid memory of Rob leaving his record company and shouting he was rich beyond his wildest dreams! The music industry is so fickle , as many have pointed out to have a 90's 'boy band' and solo 'boy band' members still topping the charts and selling out tours over 20 years later is quite remarkable.

 

Regarding lll - the record company should definitely reduce the price dramatically. At least it will give the album a chance to climb back up the charts and a fighting chance against other reduced albums.

After my lovely winter break away i return!

 

Welcome back Pippa! Hope you had a nice break!

 

I remember going to a Gary Barlow concert after his second album. It was in Bournemouth. I was about a third of the way from the stage, and it was almost empty behind me. I looked around to calculate the turnout and it was less than 20%. It seemed very sad. His career seemed to be at an end. I never imagined that he would be back bigger than ever before with Take That and with a new solo career. But, no, we don't want Take That to look that sad!

 

That's actually really sad. It must of been so surreal selling out 20 venues in the UK last year and playing to 40,000 people over 2 nights at the O2.

 

The 12 months 11 days era was just a disaster in so many ways so an empty venue is no surprise,huge shame as its a good album that I still enjoy,as I have said so many times before not having lie to me as the lead single was a catastropic mistake.Lie to me as the lead could have made the fortunes of that era so so different.

 

Three is higher than I thought it would this week,but,the price needs to drop as nearly all the albums about it are selling cheaper.I hope these days falls no further this week.

 

I think These Days will probably climb a spot before the week finishes.

 

Lie to Me is a great song, and if it did launch the album, who knows. Take That may never have reformed and Gary niht have experienced a Robbie-Angels resurrection.

 

I would like 12 months to one day re-peak...I can hope :lol:

 

Glad to see I'm not the only one still enjoying 12M 11D. Even if Gary says it's not representing him, I still like it. Lie to Me is a little gem that could be a classic if the great public knew about it and Walk and Fast Car are still amongst my favorites. That album was never given a fair fighting chance. I'd love it if Gary decided one day to release a compilation of his solo work and released Lie to Me as a single.

 

As for III, the boys really need some more promo. I'd have thought they would have been invited on Alan Carr or Jonathan Ross by now.

12 Months 11 Days remains a very enjoyable album, and agreeing whole heartily that it never received a fair fighting chance. I do find it annoying how Gary sometimes distances himself from the album as i strongly feel it does represent him, the songs are not that different from any of his other solo work, or some of Take Thats. I too would love if released a best of style album and released Lie To Me as a single as i feel it could become a reasonable size hit.

 

 

Three certainly needs more promo, maybe they will do more promo and tie it in with the new single.

 

I think he disassociates himself more from that time period rather than the music on the album, as he has performed a few of the tracks in the last couple of years on tour.

 

They need Get Ready For It to be released soon and for them to blitz promo to get it high enough on iTunes for the casually buyer to notice. They need it to do well to give the album a shot in the arm

A blitz of promo most certainly is needed, but will it happen, i am not so sure. A successful second single could really push sales of the album so i would believe its important for them to work hard on promoting the new single.

I think their 2nd single is too good for them to let it flop. I'm still not over the fact that the promotion of Face to Face was such a mess.

Get Ready for It and whatever the 3rd single is deserve proper promotion in order to become hits, not just buzz singles meant to boost the album sales.

To me, Get Ready For It sounds like a potential big hit, especially if it's coupled with the movie release.

Good thing in some small way is that III has re-peaked in Denmark at 23 this week much better than 56.

 

I think the other side of Christmas might help the album as outside the UK/Ireland countries won't think of TT as Christmas gifts and so now maybe some attention will come to it.

Edited January 8, 201510 yr by nirvanamusic

Huge peak performance improvement in Denmark.

I honestly think Take That are doing fine, you have to remember that in this day and age a lot can change in the pop world in the space of 3 years (let alone the 4 years since they last released anything), I know sales are way down but to be at 400k and still selling is still quite an achievement. There are so many acts from that time period who were huge who would kill for that now, the big comeback was almost a decade ago and to still be going this strong is a pretty good achievement I'd say.

I'd not heard Lie To Me before. Just listened to it and it's without doubt a far better song than Stronger but Gary's public profile was so low in 1999 that I really doubt anything he'd released would have been a hit.

 

The charts were full of dance music, Eurocheese anthems, the dying tail end of Britpop and boybands so I can't imagine a string ballad by someone who was, sadly, at this point irrelevant at best and a media laughing stock at worst would have done very well :(

Agree with Aly about III as well, presumably if Robbie hadn't come back for Progress the follow up to The Circus may have sold around 1m-1.5m as the hype would have been a lot lower. And then the downward trajectory for III wouldn't have seemed so severe. Progress was a monster because of the fairytale ending of Robbie finally rejoining.

I never looked at it from this perspective before. Beautiful World had the comeback hype, the Circus had the hype of Take That been so huge again so it is likely the follow up would have not exceeded the Circus or possibly sold somewhat less in the same way the Circus sold a little less than Beautiful World. The hype of Robbie returning and adding the Robbie fans into the mix would have boosted the sales of Progress.

 

On the other hand, it could be argued the difference between Beautiful World and the Circus is minimal. The re-packaged or deluxe release of Beautiful World seen the album make a top 3 return on its release and to my understanding added over 300,000 extra sales to the original release. The Circus re-package was sold as the live album separately but sold over 700,000 so if those sales were added to the original the difference is small. That said, the sales of both albums in their own right are extremely impressive.

 

 

 

The sales difference between BW and Circus is small, your right, Pippa. What is surprising if you think about it is the sales for Progress. If you factor in Robbie then the sales for it should actually have been stronger than they were.

 

Am I right in thinking that BW still has higher sales figures than Circus and Progress?

Yes BW is just shy of 3 million. Circus has sold 2.3 million and Progress 2.4 million

 

Good news about Denmark!

I'd not heard Lie To Me before. Just listened to it and it's without doubt a far better song than Stronger but Gary's public profile was so low in 1999 that I really doubt anything he'd released would have been a hit.

 

The charts were full of dance music, Eurocheese anthems, the dying tail end of Britpop and boybands so I can't imagine a string ballad by someone who was, sadly, at this point irrelevant at best and a media laughing stock at worst would have done very well :(

 

I hope you listened to the live version he did on his tour last year. It's far more impressive than the album version.

And you can watch for him rubbing his legs on the chair to check if it's still there :) (courtesy of the dvd commentary).

Yes BW is just shy of 3 million. Circus has sold 2.3 million and Progress 2.4 million

 

Good news about Denmark!

 

Wow, I had no idea BW had sold more than Progress. It's good news because BW is now my 2nd favorite, after III.

Beautiful World was an epic comeback album, took the sound they'd been building up to just prior to their 1996 breakup and built on it with the influences around at the time and modern production touches. The melodies and songwriting were so on point too. Plus it had a lot of variety - I bought it based on my love for Patience but was so impressed when I heard Shine for the first time, I didn't expect anything like that on the album. I'm pleased it's their bestseller as it's still their best. Progress for me is second best, it was so WTF (not as much as Progressed though, that was so bizarre) that it was genius.

 

I'll have a listen to the live version of Lie To Me later on, I'd listened to the album version earlier.

Progress different to the Circus sold a lot in other countries than the UK. But other countries do only count here if they shoe TT3 or TT4 success I have the impression. To celebrate a number 36 spot is ridiculous. Matter of factly without the chart position with the sales and critics III could be considered as a serious flop even in the UK. In the rest of Europe they sold not even 50,000 copies.

TT and Gary simply do not sell and the backslash in the UK is huge considering that they were away 4 years and everyone should be eager

the backslash in the UK is huge considering that they were away 4 years and everyone should be eager

 

If you say so... :lol:

 

We'd all like the album sales to be a million more, but taking everything into consideration, it's another successful chapter in the TT story and discography.

Edited January 9, 201510 yr by jay727