Great Debut for Great Boy-Band from Great Britain
yokoboy@hotmail.com | Northern California, USA | 03/02/1999
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Take That & Party, the debut album from british boy-band Take That is a strong debut album from a band who would soon reach world wide success. It features more of a dance club feel than their later albums and spawned a string of hit single including "Promises", "It Only Takes A Minute", "I Found Heaven", "A Million Love Songs", "Once You Tasted Love", and the US club favorites "Could It Be Magic" and "Do What U Like". The album features singer/songwriter Gary Barlow on most tracks, but also features Robbie Williams on key tracks. At this time, fellow 'That-ers' Mark Owen, Howard Donald & Jason Orange were not singing lead on any tracks (I don't think Jason ever did).Besides the string of singles, the album features many other noteworthy moments including "Give Good Feeling", which would later become an international success for Latino boy-band 'Magneto', the inspirational ballad "I Can Make It", the light hip-hop influenced "Satisfied" and "Take That & Party", and the mid-tempo songs "Why Can't I Wake Up With You", and "Never Gonna Let You Go".The whole album from start to finish and back to re-start, is superb. The only track I didn't much care for, and I haven't figured out why yet, is "Once You Tasted Love". It's not that it's a bad song, but for whatever reason it just rubs me the wrong way. I have heard that the US version of this album has different versions of "Could It Be Magic" and "Why Can't I Wake Up With You", but since I haven't had the opportunity to hear the British version of this LP, I can't make comparisons."