Everything Changes

by

Take That

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Take That's 2nd brilliant album, released in 1993 features their first ever UK #1 single: 'Pray', and three more UK #1's ('Babe', 'Relight My Fire' and 'Everything Changes') plus the #2's 'Love Ain't Here Anymore' and the dance/ballad reworking of 'When will I wake up with you?'.

Though it features more ballads than 'Take That & Party', their first album, 'Everything Changes' features many a top dance tune too, including 'Pray', 'Relight My Fire' with the irrepresable Lulu, and 'You are the one'.

Also great to see is that all members but Jason get a chance to sing. Robbie on the title track, Howard on 'If this is love' and Mark on 'Babe'. Gary does most of the rest of the album.

Highlights include: 'Another Crack In My Heart', 'Pray', 'Everything Changes'.

All over, for quality and consistancy of work it is probably Take That's best album.

Buy it!

If you have Take That's 'Greatest Hits', than you don't need this: the best songs here are the five, still magnificent singles, confirming my suspicion that Take That were THE great singles band of the 1990s. 'Everything Changes' inscribes the eternal appeal of pop transience in a love song; 'Pray' is a gorgeously mature singalong; 'Relight My Fire' is a burning disco stomper, complete with lightening strings, marred only by some undignified screeching near the end; 'Why Can't I wake Up With You' sinuously out-georges George Michael.

Closer 'Babe', however, is something else, the pop song as opera, or historical epic film, a tentatively melancholic opening accumulating and expanding into a cathartic explosion of orchestra and guitar, which is so breathless not even Mark's weedy singing can ruin it.

The rest are strictly filler. Most (e.g. 'Wasting my Time', 'Broken your heart') are perfectly acceptable Take That workouts that forgot the tune. A couple worryingly bespeak Gary Barlow's desire for maturity, with self-conscious, muso-heavy slabs of serious MOR imitating Elton John, Eric Clapton, Burce Hornby, Marc Cohn, Richard Marx etc.; showing why it was Robbie who stole our hearts and solo plaudits. One exeption is the exciting 'You are the one', which, I swear, is exactly what New Order would sound like if they were a boy band.