TAKE THAT As you all know that Mark was a member on British most successful boys band at the first decade of the '90.
It's all started when Gary and Mark met in 1987 and the two of them became good friends and after forming unsuccessful band called "The Cutest Rush",
Gary went to see manager Nigel Martin-Smith.By accident he met Jason Orange who was a friend to Howard Donald and they both had a break-dancers on a band called "Street Beat".
Nigel was looking for a new band and he liked Gary's early recorded of "a million love songs" that Gary wrote when he was 15.
Nigel decided to signed the 4 young boys but felt like another member is missing.
The 5th member who was found was Robbie Williams, a young boy who shocked everyone with his talent.Nigel suggested that at least one of them will bring his mum, the contracts were signed and Take That was officialy formed on September 1990.
They started by help from Nigel's friend, Rue Newton(an ex-pop reporter of "Smash Hits" magazine), the boys arrived in March '91 to a TV show and every week they sang a few different songs.
Nigel took a few films and taped the boys and ran to a record companies but they all said no.
So, they opend their own record company called "Dance UK", which was their only choice, but the problem that no one in the UK press knew them and they had hard time to promote their first single.
After their first single "Do What You Like" was out the decision was to do a videoclip that would shock everyone:
Gary starts to sing, the boys join in and they had food-fight with jelly,etc.. and beautiful girls around and the videoclip ended when all five lads were completely naked!The video was first premiere on the show "Hitman and Her", the single reached the number 87 on the UK chart, not to bad to a song that came from a small-unkown record company.
Since then, the phone didn't stop ringing in Nigel Martin-Smith's office, phone calls from record companies who heard the song ad read their first interview in "Smash Hits".
Nick Raymond from RCA heard a terrible things about the new band but at the end he found out they are good and a fans-camp started to grew up and a new RCA contract was signed in September 1991."Promises" was their second sin gle, was out in October 1991 and reached number 38 on UK chart.
The way to their first album was out and on Christmas Eve the record "Once You Tasted Love" was out. The song reached to number 44 on the UK chart and because of that sort of not successful single the release of their first album was delay.The record company told the boys to work harder and so they took it seriously as they can and doubled their work-hours, including loads of gigs in front of teenages, sometimes 4 times a day at schools, clubs, singing in record stores, etc.. and it worked.
Their next single, "It Only Takes A Minute", reached number 25, 16 and finally number 7 on the UK chart.Since then, Take That's career began to took off even though their next single "I Found Heaven" reached only number 15 on the chart, it was all top again when "A Million Love Songs" reached to number 7 and their next single, "Could It Be Magic" reached to number 3 on the UK chart!
Their long waited "Take That And Party" album was finally released and went to number 2 on UK albums chart and stayed on the top 40 for a long time after...
The band also performed and won the Brits Awards and many other magazines survies.On February '93 they released "Why Can't I Wake Up With You?", which also appear in their first album and was the first single to release from their new number one album "Everything Changes".
Next up was their 4 number ones: "Pray" on July '93, "Relight My Fire" with Lulu on September '93, and Mark's debut solo song "Babe" on December '93 and "Everything Changes" on March '94 when Rob was lead vocals again.
Then it was a bit of disapoitment when "Love Ain't Here Anymore" went to number three but soon after with their next "Surre" single, the number ones came back again on October '94 with a new album on the way...
It was later followed by their biggest single ever released on March '95, "Back For Good", who gave them top 5 on USA Billbord chart and number one nearly all over the world.
The un-sure comming album, "Novody Else" was released on May '95 and Take That promote it by a very successful TV appearance on MTV's "Most Wanted".Soon after, on July 1995, Robbie Williams announced he was leaving Take That two weeks before t heir biggest British tour ever! And everybody was sure Take That would split up, but they didn't, they did their tour, they released their number one memory single "Never Forget".
The boys continue an other six months and then on February 13th 1996, in Manchester city, they had a press confferance and announced that "From todayd there is no more"-They are splitting up!
Fans were heart-broken and refused(and maybe still are) to believe the terrible news.
Take That's last single, the cover of Bee-Gee's "How Deep Is Your Love?" went straight to number one followed by their last album, "Greatest Hits" in March 1996.Their last apperances on TV were on Holland, April 5th and on MTV's "X-Ray Vision".
For more information on Take That please see my Take That's links.