Their first ever appearance here, believe it or not…
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[5.12]
Zach Lyon: You’ll have to excuse my Americanosity but this is the first Take That song I’ve heard. Bit surprising to hear such energy and color here, when they do clearly sound like a bunch of older dudes singing about “kids” in a very detached third-person and mixing in the melody from “Horse with No Name,” which doesn’t help. Corny lyrics too, but it all works pretty well.
[7]
Jonathan Bogart: I have no feelings, nostalgic or otherwise, about their back catalogue — I’ve barely heard any of it — but this sounds pretty much like what I would have expected from middle-aging British boy-banders — overblown, overwritten, and undersung.
[4]
Alex Ostroff: The boy band who sang “Back For Good” tackle the vaguely post-apocalyptic schaffel that Muse awkwardly paraded at this year’s Grammys, with a tinge of My Chemical Romance. As it turns out, faux-political pop is a lot more tolerable when the rock-band earnestness of Muse and their ilk is replaced by ludicrous choreographed dance numbers. That said, riot police gear dance numbers are as profoundly uncomfortable as heavy-handed video montages.
[6]
Kat Stevens: Last year’s X Factor final has already sunk into the murky depths of “oh yeah… that dude won, didn’t he”, so you can be forgiven for shoving Take That’s guest appearance down to the bottom of your mental filing cabinet. I was pretty drunk by the time they came on, but still managed to register that they were singing an identical version of “The Flood” (right down to the timing of the firework rain) to the one they had performed a few weeks earlier. An audience of millions of viewers. The week before Christmas. A golden opportunity to plug the new album. So why not sing a different song? It appears that rousing, transparently-political stomper “Kidz” was indeed lined up for the 12th December show, but was ditched due to the mass student protests the previous week. This seems even more baffling! Why not take the opportunity to show some solidarity with your fans and give them an anthem to shout on the freezing cold streets? Half of those fans will be the ones remortgaging the house for their childrens’ £9k/year tuition fees, after all. Perhaps the producers didn’t want their feelgood entertainment show to be associated with the nasty Asbo hoodies that poked Camilla Parker-Bowles with a stick? Simon Cowell is not one to pass up a good press opportunity, but police brutality in Parliament Square and pensioner-poking outside the Palladium do not make for prime time ITV1 viewing (that’s saved for ITV2 etc). The fact that the song got written in the first place is the most confusing aspect of all, Gary Barlow being a staunch Cameron supporter throughout the election campaign. Does this song announce a political U-turn for Barlow? Has he seen the awful future in store for the country his three children will grow up in? If so, nicking the melody from upper-class-satire “Sunny Afternoon” seems like a nice if clumsy idea (and probably explains why he got Mark to sing lead, to distance himself from the whole business). If not then it smacks of utter boneheadedness, and the song is by no means strong enough to deal with it. Either way, the “Kidz” clearly prefer Lethal Bizzle for their riotous anthem.
[2]
Edward Okulicz: An absolutely enormous-sounding song, Stuart Price regains some of his lost mojo (seriously, is anyone still listening to Aphrodite or Night Work?) with another Mark Owen vision of apocalypse. His songs are often quite odd, and his jester’s call of Armageddon is no exception. He can’t quite growl the aggression the song needs on paper, but Gary is there to bring the big chorus home. It’s completely empty as an anthem, but it is satisfyingly large.
[8]
Martin Skidmore: This stomps along very impressively, though it seems odd to have Mark singing it, as his is not at all a storming voice — it seems more made for Robbie. I’m not sure exactly what they are singing about, but it’s something to do with teen rebellion. Still, a strong chorus and raucous production makes this a big single.
[8]
Jer Fairall: A garish, tuneless, pompous mess that doesn’t even have the good sense to recognize that an anthem is generally more useful when it appears to actually be an anthem for something. “Born This Way” is sounding better already.
[1]
Alfred Soto: The ponderous verses, burdened by the opulent electronica that is Stuart Price’s gift to the stars, are exactly what I’d expect from this crew of aging twinks who think misspelling the title is an act of rebellion. The footstomping chorus is much better though, although I’ve no idea where Double T think they’re leading the parade.
[5]