Here we go then…
If we’re being reductionists, we can distil the entire 1990s down to four chart-topping acts. Oasis, of course, and Blur. The Spice Girls. And Take That. And of the four, it’s the boy band who make it to number one first. Can we finally declare that the nineties, after many a false start, begin now…?
Pray, by Take That (their 1st of twelve #1s)
4 weeks, from 11th July – 8th August 1993
This record actually sounds quite cool – a new-jack swing beat and some edgy horn samples – until the voice comes in. Gary Barlow. Was he ever cool? I’d assumed he must have been, because he was young and in a hot new boyband. But even here, in his prime, he looks like the annoyingly well-behaved cousin that your mum insists on comparing you to… Why can’t you start a hugely successful boyband like Gary…? I mean, who’s he fooling, in the video, writhing around on the beach with his shirt hanging open.
Anyway, this isn’t the time to launch head first into my feelings on Gary Barlow (we can save that for his ill-fated solo career). He may sing lead here, but there are four other boys involved. And, to be fair, they all do their share of topless writhing in the video: on the beach, in the surf, in a fountain, entwined in the fronds of a banyan tree. On the one hand it’s quite arty; on the other it’s completely gratuitous.
The song itself is a funny mix. It treads a similar path to the Gabrielle hit that came before it: the verses are slow, wordy, and strangely lacking in hooks, considering that this is a pop song aimed at teenage girls. Barlow has always had ambition, writing songs that go above and beyond what you’d expect from his genre. He’s also always had the annoying habit of pulling a great chorus out of his arse. Just in time it comes racing in… Before I even close my eyes… All I do each night is pray…
We’ve had a few American boybands warming up the number one slot before this, in the shape of NKOTB, Color Me Badd, and Boyz II Men. But in the UK at least, Take That are the boyband of the decade. Perhaps of all time (1 Direction might have something to say about that, but I can’t bring myself to check the actual sales figures…) Either way, we’re going to be hearing an awful – interpret that word however you wish – lot of them in the coming posts.
And although they are the boyband of the decade, ‘Pray’ isn’t one of their hits that has been played to death. Which means that it’s actually fine to hear this again, and to enjoy the moments that soar past the sludgy verses. Take That had had quite a slow rise to the top, compared to some other pop acts. Their first release, the Hi-NRG ‘Do What U Like’ made #82 in the summer of 1991, and they slowly shed the pop-dance, scored hits with covers of Tavares and Barry Manilow, and went a bit more sophisticated. Once ‘Pray’ made #1, the rest was history. Though few at the time could have imagined that their chart-topping career would span almost two decades…
The UK Number Ones Blog 
This changed my mind about Take That for a couple of singles at least – it’s a great pop single as opposed to cheesy disco covers and turgid ballads. Who knew Take That would turn out to have one of the great popstars and songwriters of the era! And Gary and Mark would have a handful of great songs too….
I notice someone is conspicuous by their absence from your last sentence…. : )
I’d agree with Gary Barlow being a good songwriter… ‘great’ might be pushing it… But as a popstar he’s pretty dull.
oops I wasnt signed in for this comment! And oh, Gazza without the rest of the gang was terrible, just so bad. I spent most of my “Robbie is brilliant” years when he unexpectedly became the top UK solo star of the era slagging off Gary as having the good luck to write 2 great songs in Pray and Back For Good, and nothing much else. Till of course he proved me wrong in the mid 00’s as did Mark Owen starting with his fab Four Minute Warning.:)
Four Minute Warning is great… Reminds me of the summer between school and heading off to uni! Even Gary’s best songs tend to veer towards MOR a little too much for my liking, though I can objectively see he is a good songwriter
Having discovered this blog late last year when it had reached the mid 80’s I’ve taken this long to read every post. I’m sorry but I’m finding it hard to take it seriously now. Maybe it’s an age thing but you have been extremely negative about (in order) the Police, Ultravox ( in the Jo Dolce post ), Whitney, Lionel Richie, Bryan Adams, now Gary Barlow, whilst you seem to think Steps are musical geniuses on a par with the Stones or ABBA! I’m imagining that when we get to the late 90’s every awful BWitched, Steps and Atomic Kitten number one will be given the thumbs up? Ultimately, we all favour that music which was out in our formative years, which for you early millennials was the above named groups plus the reality TV tribe. Those of us who grew up with punk, New Romantics and house music, and ended our twenties with the early Take That hits might look at things differently
Well first of all, thanks for reading every post : ) Sometimes feels like shouting into the void when you publish a blog post, so glad to hear they’ve all been seen by at least one person…
As for the charges laid against me… Music’s all subjective, isn’t it? There’s no scientific formula that proves B*Witched are categorically less worthy than The Rolling Stones (I am not for one minute suggesting that they aren’t!) Plus, when you list the artists above, I haven’t been negative about their entire careers and creative outputs… just certain songs.
There are plenty of Bryan Adams songs I like… But ‘Everything I Do’ is an overblown cringefest. I love plenty of Whitney, and have been quite open about that in my posts on her, but her version of ‘I Will Always Love You’ stinks. Ditto Lionel and ‘Hello’. I’ll admit, I do take a slightly perverse satisfaction in disparaging some of the more respected names in rock music (The Police, Ultravox…) because I don’t think they’re worthy of the classic status that everyone else seems to accept without question.
And without giving too much away, I will certainly NOT be giving every B*Witched and Atomic Kitten #1 a glowing review… But sorry, not sorry: Steps are a criminally underrated pop group with some classic songs (none of which made number one, alas…)
Good reply! I think the point I was trying to make is you weren’t alive/were too young to remember Ultravox et al when they were in the charts or Bryan Adams was number one and, probably clouded by my dealings with ‘special’ millennials in work, everyday life, I’ve interpreted it as you sniping at my generation’s choice of music and saying yours is so much better (Steps). No one likes having their special childhood/adolescent memories disparaged by the next generation, even if it’s completely trivial. There’s no scientific formula that says someone who paints murals on walls is less worthy than Van Gogh, it’s just accepted fact. Keep doing what you’re doing, you seem to be a geek I could go out for a beer with
PS I live in south Wales, know relatives of H from Steps, and by all accounts he’s a bit of a diva
No worries : ) I may have sniped at some music of the eighties and early nineties, but there’s a lot of it that I love, and I hope that came across too. Sometimes its easier to rip into something you dislike than it is to gush over something you do… It’s only going to become harder to stay unbiased. Take the Spice Girls for example… On the face of it, perfectly average pop music. But when ‘Spice’ was the first album you bought with your own pocket money, aged 10… Nostalgia can be a powerful drug! As for H from Steps being a diva… I have to say I’d expect nothing less!
Spice Girls and Take That are perfectly good pop music aimed at the teen market and have proven their musical credentials by their various members longevity and still being household names today. It’s the wannabes that proliferated in their wake I hated, westlife, boyzone, bwitched etc. (can’t even be bothered to give them capital letters!)I’ll cut you some slack on Steps ( one for sorrow was great). I was ten when the Bay City Rollers were huge, a teenager during the Ultravox period and mid 20’s when Take That first hit number one so I’m not impartial either. To put it in a Scottish context for you H grew up in the equivalent of Glasgow east end, left, has now moved back to equivalent of posh part of Edinburgh and is telling the press he’s returned to his ‘hometown’. Plus more Botox and fillers than Joan Rivers 😂
I can see it very clearly now! Interesting what any sort of fame – even just being Steps! – does to a person…
What do you think? LOL… Like the above commenter said…they were aimed at teens at that time…so it probably hit the spot for them….and no…I’ve never read where you put anything like this on the same level as the Stones or I would have spoken up! And you would have expected me to. I wouldn’t be doing my job without that.
I’ll do Crimson and Clover this week…I linked you.
You know me, I’m already pretty liberal in what I like… Like I said above, there’s nothing to definitively prove that this isn’t better than the Stones… That’s music. And if you asked a 10 year old in 1993 what they preferred, they’d have certaintly gone with Take That! Looking forward to the Crimson and Clover post!
I agree…Stewart I think you are pretty damn fair in your descriptions…even stuff you don’t like…you find something positive to write about. Of all the bloggers I have read…you do not slander anyone…you just tell it like it is.
Believe it or not…I try also…but I’m not forced to write about songs I don’t like…thats the difference. You have no other choice because of your format. I’m glad you do but I would be hated.
Plus like you said…music is subjective. Some love Madonna and insert a name I don’t like…but that is what they like! So if it makes them happy so be it…that is cool.
The only thing you ever said (and yes it’s been said before) that I fought you with is the title “boys band” with the Beatles. I can’t go there…and I’ll fight over that lol. I just think that title if bestowed on the Beatles should be Bestowed on their peers. Stones….etc.
Haha I don’t really think the Beatles are a boyband. More ‘boys in a band’, in their early days. If we were being literal though… Anyway, didn’t we decide that NKOTB were the first modern ‘boy band’ i.e. dancing and miming and so on?
The thing with Take That is, although they were 100% a boyband, Gary Barlow (the singer on this track) writes almost all their songs… Which isn’t usual for a boyband.
Yes they were! Glad we are on the same page.
No…it’s not with boy bands…so I give him a lot of credit for that. Not my thing but I repect people who write their own songs.
I find myself more fascinated by Take That as a group of individuals than for the band’s music, at least during the 1990s. They’re one of the rare groups who’s post-reunion music is actually better than the music of their original heyday. I applaud Barlow for being one of the rare members of a boyband to write their own material.
As for “Pray”, it’s meh. Not the best start to their chart-topping success.
For me this is, if not the best, then the Take That chart-topper I was most surprised about enjoying. This and ‘Sure’. The rest are fairly middling, and were what I’d expect from a mid-nineties boyband.