Netflix’s Take That is an entertaining mix of new reveals and missed opportunities

“I wanted a copyright” – says Gary Barlow, the undisputed frontman of Manchester boy band Take That in Episode 1 of the 3-part Netflix documentary titled “Take That”. This one vocalized ambition, alone, encapsulates most of why Take That (now in their early 50s) defied the odds with respect to longevity for a phenomenon that by design, is meant to be ephemeral. While they were put together by Nigel Martin Smith in the early 90s, the genesis of the band was the songwriting prowess of Gary Barlow. The band was built around this core of artistry with the four other bandmembers being the vehicle for the songwriting to be brought to life via a gilded shine of escapism and high octane entertainment value.

It is imperative to understand the context in which an act such as Take That rose to prominence. Boybands have both a predictable story and trajectory. They are put together by ambitious band managers with a singular focus on catering to a specific (but highly scalable) audience demographic (i.e. teenage girls) that is impressionable, potentially obsessive, craving conformity and a sense of belonging and prone to a borderline unhealthy level of unwavering loyalty. This demographic is also an enthusiastic consumer for any and all types of high-margin merchandise connected to their favorite music acts. The image of the band is carefully designed by a team of marketing experts. The songs are written by the hitmakers of the moment. The dance routines, a critical element for the live concerts, are choreographed for impact by teams external to the band. The shelf-life of these musical entities is roughly around 5 years – after which the band typically implodes for one or more of the following reasons:

a. A drug-related scandal plagues one or more of the band members and the ensuing PR nightmare leads to the band’s demise.

b. Tensions between the band members become untenable.

c. Every subsequent album release is a diminishing return commercially speaking.

d. One or more of the band’s focal points is lured by the prospects of solo stardom and exits the band to pursue a solo career.

To the average American music listener with absolutely no finger on the pulse of the international pop landscape (from the 90s to the start of the on-demand streaming era), the biggest boybands in the world after New Kids on the Block were NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys. These listeners do not realize that in the interceding years between the end of Chapter 1 of New Kids on the Block, and the emergence of Backstreet Boys and NSYNC, there was a slew of boy bands from the UK/Europe that enjoyed global ubiquity (excluding North America). Noteworthy examples include East 17, 911, Boyzone, Bad Boys Inc, Worlds Apart, and Caught In The Act.

The undisputed standout of this pack was Manchester boyband Take That. Buoyed by the superior songwriting and vocal chops of the band’s gifted frontman Gary Barlow (his superior artistry started to truly manifest on the second album “Everything Changes”), their musical output was ripe radio fodder that resonated with people outside their intended target demographic. The group of classically good-looking youngsters also choreographed their own dance routines for their music videos and live concerts.

Chapter one of their career as a band spanned three albums and during this period the hits got bigger, with the achingly beautiful “Back for Good” marking a commercial zenith – one that allowed them to momentarily burst the bubble of insulation that was the American musical mainstream of the 90s to score their first and only US Top 10 single. Their end in the mid-90s was marked by three of the four reasons I highlighted earlier for why a boy band’s life as a musical entity ends.

The one thing that separates Take That from the rest of the boybands is that they had a Chapter 2 that was NOT rooted in nostalgia. Quitting at the top in the 90s allowed them to harness high levels of pent-up residual demand (absence does indeed make the heart grow fonder). Hence, when they returned as a four-piece (without Robbie Williams who by then had achieved megastar status outside the US and was the recipient of the 2nd largest recording contract of all time valued at 80 million GBP) after a decade-long hiatus with new material, they took their stardom to stratospheric levels and broke ground with a new generation of fans.

To understand how such a potent phenomenon went under the radar in the US, please read the following articles.

Billboard missed the mark on their analysis of why Take That did not take over America

Take That – Ingredients of a historical comeback

Making an all-encompassing documentary about one of the undeniably greatest and most multi-layered stories in pop music is an ambitious and arduous challenge. In the context of Take That, it has the added weight of needing to provide a sufficient amount of novelty relative to the two other Take That documentaries that have already seen the light of day, namely:

1. “For The Record” (2006) – A retrospective look at the band’s Chapter One in the 90s and a glimpse into their realities at the moment the documentary was made — 10 years after they split in the mid-90s.

2. “Look Back Don’t Stare”(2010) – which chronicles the return of the band’s most successful solo star Robbie Williams, to the band for the recording of their stellar hit album “Progress” (produced by Stuart Price).

The documentary was also bound to run a non-trivial risk of missing key pieces of the story, especially in the broader context of the music industry and contemporary pop culture. Take That has its share of “new reveals” (at least for some of us), but also has its fair share of missed opportunities. I shall address the former first.

What the movie does particularly well is shine an almost comparable spotlight on the individual artistic journeys of each band member. The finest moments of this are:

a. Band member Jason Orange finding his voice as a vocalist after the band’s comeback against all odds in 2006. This is in striking contrast to his limited role as a backing dancer/singer during Chapter One of Take That.

b. A closer look at the pivotal role that the vocal harmony of Howard Donald played with regards to the band’s musical output as well as his unique vocal aesthetic showcased on his beautiful (and sadly still-unreleased) solo single “Speak Without Words”.

c. Band member Mark Owen’s solo career described as a musical apprenticeship that positioned him well to share songwriting input on the post-hiatus incarnation of Take That – especially on their uptempo UK #1 single “Shine”. This also shifted the “sole songwriter” role of Gary Barlow permanently in Chapter 2 of the Take That story to more of a songwriting democracy among the band members.

The second big reveal is that the first sign of Take That being trimmed down to a 3-piece predated the one album/tour return of Robbie Williams to the fold. Furthermore, in this story arc, the person least likely (besides Gary Barlow) to want Robbie Williams back in the band is the one to float the idea of making the overture to get him back.

As mentioned earlier, the documentary has its fair share of missed opportunities too. First, it does not address their popularity despite being relatively obscure in the US. The fact that this documentary received a global release (as opposed to a regional one) via Netflix would suggest that the intended audience included viewers from North America. Yet, it (probably unintentionally) obscures the scale of Take That’s global popularity. While there are scenes from their Asian concert tours featured in the movie, the filmmakers do not demonstrate anything that quite captures the scale of Take That’s popularity outside top-5 music markets (I remember as a kid watching a request show on Dial MTV in India wherein one of the requests that came in was for Take That’s rendition of “Relight My Fire” and it was from a viewer in Iran). The filmmakers do not effectively communicate this idea that Take That had broken through to a second generation of fans as CURRENT artists (as opposed to legacy artists). In the years after Take That reformed in 2006, their tours were listed in Billboard’s top 10 annual grossing concert tours (global list) and this is WITHOUT any concerts in the US. The international scale of an act without a mainstream presence in the US has to be unbelievably high (from a pure commercial standpoint) to end up in these top 10 lists compiled by Billboard and cannot be done by solely flogging their musical distant past. No other boyband (or any other band without a mainstream presence in the US) has achieved this. In fact, for the rest of the boybands, nostalgia is their commercial lifeline.

Second, it goes without saying that Take That is one of the more celebrated symptoms of North America’s isolation from the broader global pop music landscape starting from the mid-90s (a direct by-product of conglomerates’ takeover of American terrestrial radio and the removal of curatorial autonomy from radio DJs). Take That is a classic example of an act that was known everywhere outside of North America. Take That was not remotely unique in this regard. They were part of an entire slew of artists/bands with immense commercial potential in the US but were hidden from the public by the arrogance of a tiny handful of music gatekeepers (that were convinced they knew better) in the US with immense opinion-shaping power. This sonic insulation in the US, in particular, also extended to artists that had #1 hits in the US in the 80s but to the average music consumer in the US, these acts had no “90s and beyond” career. Noteworthy examples include Simply Red (they had a #1 hit with “Fairground” in the mid-90s overseas) and George Michael (his timeless uptempo hit classic “Fast Love” conclusively broke him to a new generation of fans in 1996). What is particularly striking is that both Gary Barlow and Robbie Williams were tipped to be the “next George Michael” as referenced by this documentary multiple times. To the average American viewer, absent this context of the US’ musical isolation, it would NOT be obvious as to why teenage musical heartthrobs of the 90s would aspire to be like “yesteryear’s star” (an unfortunate label that George Michael got stuck with in America by the mid-90s despite having hits that topped the Global Singles chart in 1996). Of course, in reality, he was a star “of the moment” in the 90s – but once again, North American viewers would not know or understand this without a spotlight on this divergent pop landscape that started to emerge in the mid-90s separating the US’ musical mainstream from that of the rest of the world’s.

The last missed opportunity worth highlighting might be somewhat offensive to fans of Take That. That being said, in my role as the primary DJ for the 24/7 global online radio broadcast tied to this blog, it is incumbent on me to separate myself from my fandom of a music act when reviewing the creative endeavors of these acts. We all like to believe that the talent of the musicians we love is solely responsible for their success – but the reality is, an artist/band can have great music but if it does not get exposure via a mainstream avenue to the public, its relative obscurity is guaranteed – even if that music is tied to a major record deal. Take That returned after their 10-year hiatus in the last phase of the musical monoculture era – which was largely driven by radio in the UK. This meant that if their new music had NOT been played on BBC Radio 1, they never would have broken to a second generation of fans and they would have retained the label of a legacy act in the way that their US-based musical counterparts New Kids On The Block did. As a longtime fan, I have to confess that while I found the music from Take That‘s first two post-reunion albums pleasant (and I was happy for their success especially in light of the non-trivial risk of them becoming parodies of themselves), none of it, to me, screamed “comeback of the decade”. It wasn’t until the “Progress” and “III” albums that I believed the band had truly revived their sonic mojo. Once again, this is just my opinion. My assessment is also based on the responses of radio listeners of our radio station that had never heard of Take That prior to tuning in to our radio station. The songs these listeners gravitated to were NOT from the first two post-reunion albums of Take That. In a nutshell, I think the documentary NOT addressing the significance of radio play on BBC Radio 1 misses an incredibly key piece of why their comeback was as successful as it was.

Netflix’s Take That is a story of sky-high aspirations, belief, grit, tenacity, fractured relationships, and finally a catharsis from a past characterized by an acrimonious split, shame, and an erosion of self-confidence. Of course, this catharsis comes from a second (and highly unlikely) round of success and a healed brotherhood between Take That (specifically Gary Barlow) and Robbie Williams. To this end, the documentary is a very satisfying watch. It also has me wondering whether the breakdown of a musical monoculture will allow us to see music stories such as these in the foreseeable future.

STAR RATING: 4 out of 5 stars