Take That - Best Ballads (1996)

Take That are an English pop group formed in Manchester in 1990. The group currently consists of Gary Barlow, Howard Donald and Mark Owen. The original line-up also featured Jason Orange and Robbie Williams.[2] Barlow acts as the group's lead singer and primary songwriter, with Owen and Williams initially providing backing vocals and Donald and Orange serving primarily as dancers.[3][4][5][6]

The group have had 28 top 40 singles and 17 top 5 singles in the United Kingdom,[7] 12 of which have reached number one, as well as having eight number one albums.[8] Internationally, the band have had 56 number one singles[9][10] and 39 number one albums.[11] They have received eight Brit Awards—winning awards for Best British Group and Best British Live Act.[12][13]

Williams left the band in 1995 while the four remaining members completed their world tour and released a final single before splitting up in 1996. After filming a 2005 Take That: For the Record about the group and releasing a new greatest hits album, a four-piece Take That without Williams officially announced a 2006 reunion tour around the UK, entitled The Ultimate Tour. On 9 May 2006, it was announced that the group were set to record new material together once again; their fourth studio album, Beautiful World, was released in 2006 and was followed up with The Circus, in 2008. The group achieved new success as a four-piece, scoring a string of chart hits across the UK and Europe while selling over 45 million records worldwide.[14][15][16]

Williams rejoined Take That in 2010 for the band's sixth studio album, Progress. Released on 15 November of that year, it was the first album of new material to feature Take That's original line-up since their 1995 album, Nobody Else. It became the fastest-selling album of the 21st century[17] and the second fastest-selling album in British history.[18]

In 2014, the band recorded a seventh studio album, this time as a trio without Williams and Orange. The album, titled III, was released in November 2014 and became the band's seventh number one. It was preceded by the single "These Days", which became the band's 12th number one single in the UK.[19]

Since 2011, Take That have set the new record for the fastest-selling tour of all time in the UK with Progress Live, beating the previous record set by their Circus Live Tour in 2009,[20] won the 2011 Brit Award for Best British Group,[13] and were named as Amazon's top-selling music artist of all time.[21] In 2012, the band were announced by Forbes as the fifth highest-earning music stars in the world.[22] In the same year, the Official Charts Company revealed the biggest-selling singles artists in British music chart history with Take That currently placed at 15th overall, making them the most successful boy band in UK chart history[23] with four of their albums listed in the best-selling albums of the millennium.