The band smashed the record for the fastest-selling album this century, and Robbie's dad Pete Conway believes his son is FINALLY happy.

Last night Gary Barlow, 39, Howard Donald, 42, and Jason Orange, 40, celebrated with a glass of bubbly as their album Progress topped the charts with a staggering 500,000 sales in just one week.

Meanwhile teetotal Mark Owen, 38, and Robster, 36, clinked together glasses of sparkling water.

Pete toasted his son's transformation too.

He said: "I've been with them together recently and it was such a pleasure to watch them all perform again. They are like a band of brothers.

"Rob's voice has become very strong. A lot stronger. I noticed that. I don't know if its because he is now very fit and very happy but he's singing really well. His voice has changed as he got older and I get a lot of pleasure from it. It's good he talks about depression as well. I know he said there was depression in the family but it isn't me. I'm not depressed, I just get up and smile."

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Apparently, the reunion of the group didn't go quite as well as they might have hoped.

A source told Now magazine: "Robbie was in, then decided he wanted out, before changing his mind again a few weeks later."

The source added: "When he left the first time round - just days before the UK leg of the Nobody Else tour began in 1995 - it was a monumental blow for all the lads.

"So his reluctance last year brought it all back for the boys."

Hopefully, the boys will be back for good though, since they are set to embark on a record-breaking tour next year.

The band sold more than a million tickets on the first day they went on sale last month, causing online ticketing agencies to stall and even phonelines to stop working.
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The Strictly Come Dancing judge expressed her interest in recording a track with Gary Barlow's 'The Flood' group when asked who she would like to collaborate with.

"I'd love to duet with Take That," she told Metro. "I was a big fan of theirs when I was 13."

She added: "I'd love to sing with Rihanna too: it'd be great to do something with a strong female.

Dixon recently confirmed that her new single will be 'Every Part Of Me' - a duet with Jay Sean.
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/music....ts.html

Built by Mobile Roadie and designed to promote their new album, Progress, the free app features streaming song samples, news and Twitter feeds, click-through track purchasing, video clips and photos.

Mobile Roadie and Polydor tell Music Week that more than 20,000 email addresses were captured in the app.

The app was only available in four markets - including the UK and Ireland - in its first week. It is now available globally.
http://www.musicweek.com/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=1043441&c=1

The cheeky singer was spotted rolling up piles of snow into balls outside his hotel and hurling them at his Take That bandmates.

And he clearly found his naughty move hilarious as he burst out laughing.

He and Gary, 39, were once fierce enemies when Robbie, 36, quit the band back in 1995 after a series of vicious rows and confrontations.

But earlier this year they announced they would be reuniting for an album and UK stadium tour.

The five-strong group are currently in Stockholm, Sweden, and seem closer than ever.

Their trip comes just a week after they smashed the record for the fastest-selling album this century following their reunion.

Robbie spoke recently about how Mark Owen, 38, convinced him to rejoin the band after a 15-year split.

On the ITV documentary Look Back, Don’t Stare, he said: “I didn’t feel like I had the energy to do it. It was a scary prospect.”

And Robbie’s dad Pete Conway revealed earlier this week how he believes his son is finally happy.

He said: “I’ve been with them together recently and it was such a pleasure to watch them all perform again.

“They are like a band of brothers.

“Rob’s voice has ­become very strong. A lot stronger than ­before. I noticed that.

“I don’t know if it’s because he is now very fit and very happy but he’s singing really well.

“His voice has changed as he’s got older and I get a lot of pleasure from it.”

http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news....-Barlow

I've never really considered myself the swooning type. But here I am, crossing the plush carpet that leads towards their suite, and having to break out my firmest 'pull yourself together' pep-talk voice.

Robbie, still the charmer of the outfit after all these years, reaches out and grabs me, delivering a hug and kiss. Mark and Jason are here too -- Gary and Howard having been dispatched to another interview -- but they hang back a bit. To make it normal, I dispatch kisses and hugs all round, which feels a bit awkward, and akin to a receiving line at a wedding.

I've barely found my seat before Mark launches into a barrage of questioning. "Do you live in Dublin? London? Where in London? Are you Irish? How long have you lived here? Are you a massive Catholic? What about your mother?"

"Erm, what about my mother?" I say. And, though I've finally managed to get a question in, it's not exactly the best opener of all time. "What's, like, the history of your family?" Mark continues.

Hold on a second. Shouldn't this interview be going the other way around?

It has to be said, they seem pretty giddy too. I think the hype has something to do with it. Tickets for their newly announced 2011 tour are about to go on sale, in a rush that will collapse ticket lines and websites, and spark the sale of a million tickets in a single day. After all the years of acrimony, dramas, weight gain, weight loss, and rehab, prodigal son Robbie is finally back in the fold. And, outside, on the streets of central London, as ridiculous as this sounds, the buzz is actually palpable. Every shop I go into is playing one of their songs. Take That fever has taken over Facebook. A crowd of paparazzi has gathered outside the hotel. There is a sense that something is about to go off. And it is, I suppose. The boys' reunion is, arguably, the British pop moment of the decade.

Maybe it's because they've been cooped up in a hotel all day, but there is a sense they're slightly bouncing off the walls. With their boisterousness and my struggle against self-consciousness in the face of three-fifths of a grown-up boy band -- man band? -- the whole thing has the surreal feeling of being somewhere between babysitting and a first date.

The album seems quite literal, I say, in an attempt to get the conversation on track. Both the title, Progress, and the artwork make explicit a theme of personal development. There are references to affirmations, meditation, and, on one song, a mention of a great fear of "not getting wiser". Some of it is quite startlingly frank, such as the Mark Owen-penned track, What Do You Want From Me, a thinly veiled exploration of his troubled marital situation. Earlier this year, he confessed to The Sun about infidelities spanning several years. "I like to think of us moving on," he sings, "I still think I'm in love with you." Did they deliberately set out to tell their life stories?

"The thing is," says Robbie, "I'm a big fan of Mark's solo stuff. And all the way through his records I know what he's talking about because I know personally, from afar," he clarifies, "I know what he's been going through. And it's autobiographical stuff. Mine has been -- famously -- autobiographical stuff, and Gary's has been too. But, you know, he tends to go down the love angle an awful lot."

What's behind Gary's fixation with romance? "It's because he loves love," Robbie says. "Gary Barlow loves love." He looks over at the others, delighted with the slogan he's coined. "T-Shirt!"

"So, the thing is," Robbie continues, "we have a lot to say about our situation, and we're autobiographical kind of guys. It was bound to happen."

Ah, yes, their situation. Certainly, theirs is quite a story. In the early days, they were launched into superstardom as a manufactured vehicle by the impresario Nigel Martin-Smith, and spent several years dominating the charts. There followed the rebellion from Robbie, who quit to go solo, charting his own path through many hits, some flops, addiction, recovery and eventually, this summer, marriage to his long-term love, American actress Ayda Field.

When the band eventually split in 1996, a generation of teenage girls were tipped into inconsolable grief.

After a range of solo outings with mixed success, the band reformed in 2005, but relations with Robbie remained more than frosty. They were non-existent, really. Things were especially bad between Robbie and Gary Barlow, who had fallen out in spectacular style, raging a war of words across the tabloids. It was only in 2008, after some encouragement from his missus, that Robbie decided it was time to build a bridge.

"It was a bit intentional, quite a lot of it," says Jason, going back to the album, "because we came up with the idea of calling the album Progress quite early on."

"You did," Robbie breaks in.

"I did, yeah. When somebody says 'we', and it's a positive, it means me. When somebody says 'we' and it's a negative it means you," Jason says, pointing at the other two.

They're starting to laugh now, messing about. "I thought of the word 'progress' and we all thought it was a great title. As in, you all thought it was a great title," Jason continues.

"So we started hitting that theme," says Mark.

"Do you feel," I ask them, "that you are bonded by the fact that you had this extraordinary journey together? You went off on your separate ways, but, because of the history, there is always a unique connection there?" There is a pause.

"Yeah, that sounds great. Put that in," says Mark. "If you could put, 'Mark said,' before it. 'The brains of the band, Mark said . . . ' That would be great."

And they all fall about laughing.

"Be a bit serious," says Jason. "I'll try to be." He looks at me. "What was the question?" There's another explosion of laughter. Clearly, the reunion has landed them straight back into the honeymoon phase with one another.

Now that they are together again, do they find themselves falling back into the same old roles, like families at Christmas do?

"Yes and no," says Robbie. "Because, this time around, I'm incredibly conscientious. And I wasn't before. The joker of the band, yeah, there's still evidence of that," he goes on, referring to himself. "The thinker," he points to Jason. "The cute one," he says to Mark.

"We're all trying to be, well, we are more mature," says Jason. "We all have more life experience and we've all had experiences in life. So, with that, you'd hope that you'd get a bit more gracious, and you're able to key into your own humility with life.

"Yeah, it's given us a bit more space. And, like Rob says, hopefully you retain the good bits. Rob is still a larger-than-life character. But with a bit more maturity and a bit more understanding of how the business works, and he knows that. I don't want to speak for you, Rob," he adds, diplomatically, "but we've all got to get in line sometime. We all have. We're all responsible for this band and for the job in hand."

Don't they worry though, that the reunion, especially given their troubled history, might be a bit like a bad romance? You can, with the best will in the world, really want to make it work, but ultimately the personality issues are going to get in the way. After all, they've got a seven-month tour coming up next year, which is quite an intense commitment to each other. Just for a second there is a sober pause. "It could happen," says Mark. "It could," agrees Jason.

Are they better equipped to deal with that sort of stuff now? "I think we will," says Robbie.

"I think we will be more aware of it, if it starts to rise," Mark chimes in. "And I think we're all in a place now, and it's if we can stay in that place because it's going to get difficult the more things go on . . . where, if something comes up, I think we can talk about it."

"There's also a common goal this time," says Rob. "There wasn't a common goal that ran through all five members last time. There was a lead singer, and there were four other people who were striving to be noticed. This time the water level runs straight across us all."

"Gary would tell you himself," Jason adds, "he had his eye on being a solo artist from the word go. He never deterred from that path, really; we were just his stepping stone, really. He'd tell you that himself. And none of us suspected it. Well, actually, Robbie started to suspect it, and that's why you rebelled. Well, one of the reasons you rebelled."

"Because I was cool, as well. I fucking went Glastonbury, alright. Didn't I!?" Robbie says, lighting a fag and giving me his best mentalist stare. "You did," is all I can manage by way of a reply.

"I think Gazza's learnt lessons, and we all have," Jason breaks in. "Sorry Rob, I seem to be paraphrasing everything that you've said, but there is a common goal now."

"What's that?" asks Mark.

"Unity!" Robbie shouts, and they burst into singing, "Taaaaaake That," lifting their arms skywards.

Are the lessons, then, the whole self-development, reconciliation chapter, almost as important as how the album does? "No, no," Jason's wearing a hint of a wicked smile. "The album is paramount. The money that we earn is the most important thing."

"I'm only kidding."

But Mark's upset: "He says that all the time, and it always bothers me. But, you see, that's a little dagger for me. But that's our relationship. He likes to say things like that. And for me that makes me go, 'Oooh!' But I was never able to say it before. But the progress is, now I can say, 'Don't say that.' And then we can have a chat after you've left the room, 'why does it hurt me?'"

And here they are, pushing 40, discussing the merits of dissecting and properly communicating their feelings.

"But he's obviously joking, though," Robbie says, jumping to Jason's defence. "Because if there's anybody in this band who's the least worried about money, it's him. Now, where were we? Before we broke up as a band because of what Mark said."

They seem to know exactly how to push each other's buttons, I suggest.

"No, we don't actually," Robbie disagrees. "We don't because we are consciously aware of not doing that this time around. That was where we were at. The most important thing for anything to happen is that we don't piss each other off. If we piss each other off, there's no point in doing this. At all."

Mark: "Well . . ."

Robbie: "Or maybe there is."

Mark: "Yeah. There is. There is."

Robbie: "The music, man. The music."

"Do you know what?" Robbie goes on. "The level of honesty I've noticed with the boys since I've been back is unbelievable. Because I've still got bits of the old band in me. When we sit down and have a band meeting -- there was a band meeting not so long ago at Gary's studio, where a couple of people said a few things that, you know, made my toes curl, and made me go. . . It wasn't directed towards me, but it made me think, 'Oh my God, it's all going to kick off.' And somebody went, 'dad-a-dad-a-dad-a.' And the other person went, 'Yeah, I'm sorry, I'll try and not do that again.' And it's like, 'Oh, wow. Is that what we do now?'"

Mark has a metaphor about where they are at now that he'd like to explain. "It's like a lock, and there's a combination to this lock and we needed all five numbers. And we've opened that door now, and it's great. We couldn't do it as a four. And I don't think Rob, he couldn't -- he could open a million other doors, but he couldn't open this particular door. Only the five of us can."

Which is sweet, but it's sounding a bit too touchy-feely, so Robbie jumps in to lighten the mood. "Mark wants to open the key to your heart," he says, leaning over and looking straight at me. "He does."

"Has anybody opened the key to your heart?" Mark says, starting up with the interrogation again, and suddenly I'm blushing and jabbering away about being so busy and not having time for a boyfriend. Blessedly, it's the PR who saves me from further embarrassment, breaking in to tell me my time is up and ushering me gently out of the room.

L

'Progress', the new album from Take That, is out now on Parlophone

Read more: http://www.independent.ie/lifesty....gDHOH9d

Built by Mobile Roadie and designed to promote their new album, Progress, the free app features streaming song samples, news and Twitter feeds, click-through track purchasing, video clips and photos.

Mobile Roadie and Polydor tell Music Week that more than 20,000 email addresses were captured in the app.

The app was only available in four markets - including the UK and Ireland - in its first week. It is now available globally.
http://www.musicweek.com/story.asp?storycode=1043441

The band last headed the chart in Germany in 1995 with Nobody Else, their final studio album before they originally split, while their previous two Universal albums since reforming, Beautiful World and The Circus, reached two and 14 respectively in the market.

Progress’s success has no doubt been aided there by the return to the fold of Robbie Williams who has now clocked up three chart-toppers in Germany over the last 12 months with EMI releases Reality Killed The Video Star and In Out Of Consciousness – The Greatest Hits 1990-2010 also reaching number one.

Take That are due to be seen on German TV’s Wettern Dass…? this Saturday as part of a European promotion trip that has also taken in visits to France, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland.

Progress has also reached number one in Denmark, Greece and Ireland, while debuting at two in Austria and Switzerland, and starting at six in the Netherlands.

One of the international priorities for Universal and the band with this campaign is to re-establish Take That in France, where Back For Good has been their only hit to date. Leading radio group NRJ has now added Progress’s lead-off single The Flood, while the album itself has entered the French chart this week at 53.
http://www.musicweek.com/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=1043507

THE New Year will definitely be a happy one for Take That – they are trousering £2million to sing in 2011 at a private party.

Robbie, Howard, Gary, Mark and Jason have agreed to play a lucrative one-off NYE gig for the head honchos of Universal, at a top-secret beach location in the Caribbean.

The lads are jetting off to Barbados – first class, of course – on December 28 and are expected to stay at the lavish Sandy Lane hotel, Simon Cowell’s favourite haunt.

Three days later they will perform a 90-minute set for just 20 execs and their families, with Simon and Sony chiefs also in attendance.

As if 2010 wasn’t successful enough for the re-formed quintet, their 2011 will start with a pyrotechnic bang.

Just after the clock strikes midnight, Gary has promised to lead everyone in a chorus of Auld Lang Syne while £70,000 worth of fireworks are let off.

It’s understood they will be netting a cool (or not so cool in the Caribbean sun) £2million for their efforts – part of their Christmas bonus. It beats the tenner I’m leaving for the postman.

My insider tells me: “The lads have had arguably the best year in their 20-year history, and bosses wanted to celebrate with a truly memorable party. It’s all top secret.

“No one’s been told the precise venue yet – just that it will be beach-side, somewhere on the west coast. The boys are really looking forward to it and will use the evening to showcase some ideas for next year’s tour.

“They won’t just be standing up and crooning a few ballads. It’s going to be a huge production, no expense spared.”

To ensure no one goes thirsty, waiters will keep glasses topped up with Dom Perignon champagne, while non-alcoholic cocktails will be laid on for the kids – oh, and Mark, who has sworn off the booze.

West Indian-themed canapes, provided by the famous Lone Star restaurant, will be dished out until 8pm when guests will enjoy a hearty three-course dinner. Then Take That will play until midnight, when there will be an incredible fireworks display.

Could it be magic? Undoubtedly.

Read more: http://www.mirror.co.uk/celebs....1YRGDZf

Every good boyband must eventually perform one, and currently ensconced in the top 10 is a classic example of the DAMPE genre – Take That's vaguely triumphant, vaguely uplifting, utterly indecipherable The Flood. We join them "Standing on the edge of forever, at the start of whatever, shouting love at the world", and then learn that they used to be "cavemen" who beamed at the moon and stars then "forgave them". Which sounds like they've recently been freed from a secure mental health facility rather than premature retirement. More of the same portentous hot air follows: when "thunder turns around" they are "learning how to dance the rain". No, us neither, but of course, big, booming anthems like as this can quite happily succeed solely on the back of buzzwords. Noel Gallagher built a career on such soaring gibberish.

Take That managed the same trick on The Garden (a good portion of all DAMPE song titles include the definite article) from their last album, and although Barlow & co are at an age where such a "mature" approach befits them, it's an age-old pop formula. Indeed, the two boybands who dominated UK pop after Take That's initial split in 1996 both produced textbook examples of the genre. Consider, if you will, Boyzone's philosophical treatise A Different Beat.

"Let's not forget this place," they sang. "Let's not neglect our race. Let unity become, life on Earth be one. So let me take your hand, we are but grains of sand, born through the winds of time, given a special sign." Add an instant-gravitas faux-African choir and some military drumming to decorate their creamy crooning, and you have DAMPE gold.

Their spiritual offspring, Westlife, then took up the same flaming torch with The Rose. "Some say love it is a river that drowns the tender reed," they began, and once they'd thrown in mentions of "flower", "soul", "winter", "dance" and a "road" that is "long", stopped shaving for a few days and made a video in black and white, they could hardly fail.

These songs are invariably ballads, but East 17, as you might expect, were a touch more edgy on Let It Rain: "Make it rough like a chainsaw," rapped Tony Mortimer. "Inject a beat, eat meat like carnivore. Trumpets sound and wrath pours down. Angels dance to the new groove in town." That's right, Tony.

You could date the genesis of the DAMPE back to the days when the Beatles were flexing their intellectual muscles and lesser acolytes were trying desperately to be taken equally seriously (we're duty bound to mention Dave, Dee Dozy, Beaky Mick & Tich's Legend of Xanadu), but the genre had an Indian summer of popularity during the early 80s, when the po-faced pseudery of the new romantics was informing some magnificently pretentious British pop.

And occasionally, they had the style to back up their bluster. Duran Duran accompanied their best tunes with unmitigated nonsense, resulting in Save a Prayer being among the finest DAMPEs ever recorded. With its faintly mystic pan pipe-style motif, and video featuring the band gazing longingly out to an ocean sunset, Save a Prayer pretty much nailed down the DAMPE blueprint.

"Feel the breeze deep on the inside," yearned Simon Le Bon. "Look you down into the well, if you can, you'll see the world in all his fire." Displaying a random-weather-metaphor-generator approach to words that is another DAMPE hallmark, he went on to promise he would "try to hold the rising floods that fill my skin".

Elsewhere, Spandau Ballet were churning out equally silly pop symphonies (remember Musclebound?), and the solo stars were at it too. You may recall Howard Jones's Hide and Seek, or Nik Kershaw's The Riddle. Perhaps you even entered the competition that Kershaw's record label launched to interpret his song's mystical references to "seasons of gasoline and gold". This was without the author's knowledge, by the way, and Kershaw later admitted the lyrics were "nonsense, rubbish, bollocks, the confused ramblings of an 80s pop star". Say it ain't so, Nick.

At least he's part of a noble tradition. You can surely suggest your own nominees for the relatively exclusive but timeless DAMPE canon. Once you've learned to dance in the rain, that is.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music....pic-pop

Williams has had to say no to the swanky bash in Barbados citing 'family commitments'.

Instead, Gary Barlow, Howard Donald, Mark Owen and Jason Orange will be performing at a top-secret location at the luxury destination to celebrate their success this year.

The four lads have agreed to play for friends at the gig organised by record label Universal and have even agreed to perform for nothing.

A spokesman for the band told the Daily Mirror: 'It's basically a chance to get away in the sun and perform a few songs at a party for friends. They are not being paid a penny.'

The band, who will be touring their new album Progres next year, will also be seeing Auld Lang Syne when the clock hits 12.

'The lads have had arguably the best year in their 20-year history, and bosses wanted to celebrate with a truly memorable party,' their spokeman added.

'It's all top secret. No one's been told the precise venue yet - just that it will be beach-side, somewhere on the west coast.

'The boys are really looking forward to it and will use the evening to showcase some ideas for next year's tour.'

Read more: http://www.metro.co.uk/music....8lOkIfa