We're a thousand miles apart but you know I love you

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts

28/04/96 : Greatest Hits - Take That


OK - I've thought about this for ages (at least 20 seconds) and decided to accept this greatest hits album.  I'm not going to enjoy it (although I'll probably get into it more than I'd like to admit) but I don't think I can use either of my usual lack of cultural (they'd been everywhere for the previous five years) or timely (they'd just split up) relevance arguments.  I also started listening to Mark Morrison's effort which would have been the alternative and I can assure you that any Take That album played backwards at double speed would still be preferable to having to listen to the rest of that.

And well - it's pretty much exactly what you'd expect because you've heard it before.  Out of 18 tracks, 13 of them were top 10 singles and 8 of them had got to #1.  There were a few tracks I didn't recognise but most of it was the Take That that we all know and love, right?  Hey, it's easy to be sniffy about TT but they did what they did well - it wasn't what I'd choose to listen to, but it wasn't horrendous either.  I don't think I really need to say any more about it - and it was one "we" owned - 11/36.

We're at #2 in the charts this week on their fifth week of a 40 week run (having spent the previous four weeks at #1).  It managed another 24 weeks over another 11 runs, with it last being seen in 2011.  The rest of the top five was made up of Alanis, Oasis, Mark Morrisson (a new entry) and Mike & The Mechanics greatest hits (which was somewhat surprised me).  We had two more new entries in the top ten - Hootie & The Blowfish (#9 - who I do remember) and Nearly God (#10 - who I don't.  Ah, apparently it was Tricky being tricksy).

Wikipedia doesn't have an awful lot to say on the album other than it did well - except in the US, where things never worked out from them.  One thing that did surprise me because I didn't remember ever knowing it - "Relight My Fire" was a cover version, having originally been released in 1979 by Dan Hartman (who also wrote James Brown's "Living In America" and "Love Sensation" which went on to be sampled heavily by Black Box in "Ride On Time").  

"Customers also listened to" Robbie Williams, Natalie Imbruglia, Wet Wet Wet and Janet Jackson - some of which are more expected than others.  But I think for a lot of people of a certain age, Take That are the kings - and for me they're certainly a lot more pleasant to listen to after a break of 25 years. 

21/04/96 - Not quite my cup of tea
05/05/96 - An enjoyable reminder I'd never heard before

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