Take That

Take That are an English five-piece pop-rock band consisting of Gary Barlow, Howard Donald, Jason Orange, Mark Owen and Robbie Williams. Barlow acts as the group's main singer songwriter. Formed in Manchester in 1990, the band achieved major success, selling more than 25 million records between 1991–96 alone before disbanding.[1] In 2005 the group reformed without Williams and achieved new success as a four-piece scoring a string of chart hits whilst taking the number of records sold to over 40 million worldwide. In total the band have had 22 top forty singles in the UK alone, [2] 11 of which have reached #1 as well as having five number 1 albums.[2]

Their dance-oriented pop tunes and soulful ballads dominated the UK charts in the first half of the 1990s, spawning two of the best selling albums of the decade with Everything Changes (which was nominated for the 1994 Mercury Prize[3]) and Greatest Hits 1996, and according to Allmusic, "at this time were giant superstars in Europe with the main question about them not being about whether they could get a hit single, but how many and which would make it to number one". The band also won multiple BRIT Awards. Williams having left the band in 1995, the rest of Take That split up in 1996. However, after a 2005 documentary and the release of a new greatest hits album, they officially announced a 2006 reunion tour around the United Kingdom, entitled The Ultimate Tour. On 9 May 2006, it was announced that Take That were set to record their first studio album in over ten years, which was eventually released as Beautiful World. The band have released a second post-reunion studio album entitled The Circus and have completed their Circus Live tour 2009. In July 2010, it was confirmed that Robbie Williams had rejoined the band, and that they would be releasing new material together in late 2010 and also touring in mid 2011.