GARY BARLOW – "Love Won't Wait"

This glides along inoffensively and mildly catchily, but it’s nothing to get excited about, especially since he doesn’t seem to believe the words he’s singing. More of a B-side than anything else, really. FIVE.

@1 Indeed, but “Back to Good” knows it and exploits it, making him sound somewhat desperate and more sympathetic, even though you’re not exactly rooting for him.

I’ve never heard this song before, and I doubt I’ll be listening to it again. Not interesting enough to really even be called “pleasant.”

I am really not convinced it’s better than “Forever Love”: while “Love Won’t Wait” is less sappy, and less incoherent lyrically, and a little less forgettable, than his debut, it is instead overwhelmingly, mindnumbingly bland – Tom’s point about GB appearing to have little feel for his material is an astute one, too. Not surprised Madonna turned it down – it is hardly a classic song in the first place. But in this version, the musical accompaniment and production is characterless, mass-produced, guff. It’s just horrible, seemingly intended to be heard primarily through car-based not-very-loudspeakers. Its chart run (1-6-19-28-37) pretty much puts this in the fanbase buy category too. Although it seems here, just as with its predecessor, GB was looking, prematurely, towards the Radio 2 audience more than Radio 1. But they were not yet ready (or yet Radio 2 listeners), and his material simply wasn’t up to scratch. So double fail. And what was he thinking.

Apart from the previously much discussed “Open Road”, “For All That You Want” is about the only GB Mark I solo single I’ve any time for, even if that one, too, has it, and its performer’s limitations on open display, it has a certain non-scowling charm, and a certain joie de vivre pretty much absent here.

Above all, this record serves as a useful reminder that Take That released a lot of rather mediocre singles before they really started to hit the mark. 2

Haven’t had a chance to listen to Barlow’s version yet, but my understanding (which wiki supports) is that ‘Love won’t wait’ was a 1994 Madonna demo, i.e., a cast off from the sessions for the (excellent) Bedtime Stories album (it even ends with same ‘Goodbye’ cadence as ‘Take a Bow’) not from any scrapped album between Bedtime and Ray of Light. Also the idea that there was anything like decline/decay from Madonna at this point seems wrong. At least in the US, people were very burned out on the over-exposing/Cultural Studies Madonna of Like A Prayer/Vogue/Sex/Erotica (Madge 2.0), but she’d bounced back nicely with Bedtime as a more comfortably adult/middle-aged persona, and by 1997 we’re kind of midway through that middle-aged Madge 3.0 period that climaxes with Ray of Light and Music, and the comeback/transition to middle-age had already been made.

#8 my understanding is that she started work on the album that became Bedtime Stories with Shep Pettibone, realised it wasn’t working, and junked the song(s) in favour of Babyface and what then became the Bedtime Stories album. So the “scrapped LP” is simply the first incarnation of BS not anything from after it. “Scrapped sessions” would be more accurate, though.

And Ed’s right – this is one of those entries where the UK ness of the blog unapologetically shows. She was a steady but gently declining presence here and 1998 was seen as a comeback.

Like A Prayer had gone 4x Platinum in the UK, Erotica double, and Bedtime Stories just single platinum. So the sales awards for albums as well as singles paint a picture of decline.

The next album ended up hextuple!

See how we’ve already veered away from discussing Barlow on this thread? Love Won’t Wait is the second consecutive Popular chorus I couldn’t freely call to mind before revisiting on YouTube, and I haven’t been missing much. THREE.

I began to feel somewhat uncomfortable that much of the appeal of Blood on the Dancefloor was interpreting to it as evidence of MJs pathology and wondered whether I should be more charitable towards everyman Gary Barlow. The problem is that GB wants to present himself as a wounded soul in this song and fails – as nothing about it speaks of any depth of feeling. The vocal is laboured and the music sounds like a bedroom demo – all preset rhythms and tones. More money and imagination seems to have been spent on the video – although its undercutting of an illusion of depth serves as an unconscious(?) commentary on the song itself.

she had been omnipresent in that second imperial phase after like a prayer in a way she hadn’t been even during the madonna wannabe era – there was a cultural importance afforded to her that hadn’t been in 84 and she didn’t have mj/prince/springsteen stealing the spotlight. there was also a political aspect to her being that wasn’t there in 84 either, and this probably played a part in the backlash circa sex/erotica/body of evidence (a kind of negative synergy at work there) and erotica in particular underperforming. adult contemporary had always been a huge component of her success and survival past initial bellybutton phase when alot of ppl assumed surely she was a flash in the pan and bedtime stories allowed her to regroup via that aspect of her work and she managed to not capitulate entirely to the reactionaries (she wasn’t sorry as she let us know) by mixing it w/ r&b and aligning her self w/ the dominant hit formula in the us during the 90s – r&b/ac crossover. bedtime stories did well, better than erotica but really ‘take a bow’ did phenomenally and the other singles performed comparably to the erotica singles. by 97 there was definitely a sense that she might be over as an interesting pop figure – the courtney love incident at the vmas made her seem a bit old guard and the cw was that she would become a straight up ac artist if she wasn’t one already. alot of ‘the kids don’t even listen to madonna yknow’ pieces and when ray of light came out spin did a jukebox jury w/ ‘the youth’: http://bit.ly/ME2sJF. anyhow r&b has never done particularly well in the uk, marginally better than gary barlow has done in the us, so it’s predictable that it wouldn’t work as a way of stabilizing her chart presence there. as for the actual record here 4 seems fair.

has it? can’t find a top chart artists of the decade lists for the uk for the 2000s but looking at the best selling albums there isn’t a single r&b album in the top 25 (vs robbie williams albums) and only one r&b single (maybe two – have no idea who alexandra burke is) in the top 25 best selling singles. that could be misleading though cuz looking at best selling albums for the us for the 2000s there’s only one r&b album in the top ten and on a year by year basis generally only one or two r&b albums in the top ten. in billboard’s decade end top artists list however you have four r&b artists in the top ten. the top singles (us) of the decade has four r&b in the top ten (vs six in the top ten for the 90s). ftr nearly halfway thru this decade there is only one r&b single in the top ten (guess who), and that single is almost perfectly engineered to be the exception that proves the rule in terms of the general vanishing of r&b from the charts in the us this decade. my impression is that the pop model currently dominant on us charts/radio has been the dominant model in the uk for awhile but i’m not nearly as familiar w/ the data as some of you.

I must admit I’d forgotten the context of Madonna’s involvement; namely that she was coming out of an artistic slump but her 1998 rebirth wasn’t yet obvious; but it was obvious then that the great hope of British pop was relying on a Madonna hand me down. Still, at least it got to number one, it would have beaten Old Before I Die in a head to head and had the highest sales for a number one since WDYTYA’s second week. There was a fanbase which dissipated shortly after – was this the last time Take That fans rallied around their hero?

A few stats. The 1-6 drop has been mentioned; Love Won’t Wait was the second number one in a row to drop out of the top five after a week, the third in four number ones to do so and the fifth in 1997. It was the eighth one week wonder in 1997 from eleven chart toppers. I mention this because, after this – against all odds – the chart stabilises. There are only four one weekers left in 1997; all otherwise strong crossover records and a year would elapse until the next record to drop straight out of the top five.

Also the chart when LWW was at the top set what I think is a new record thus far; the top three were all new entries. All were fanbase records; George Michael (still Barlow’s closest comparison point) was at two with Star People and John Squire’s new band the Seahorses were at three with Love Is The Law.

@9 “Britain *hated* Take A Bow” is a rather dramatic way of saying that the single was only a moderate success, no?

Interesting for me to hear others’ perspectives on mid-’90s Madonna. I thought her putting out a solid album with four pretty good singles (mainly top ten- and specialty-chart bothering rather than #1 smasheroos) wasn’t a decline or a retreat as such, but a good long-run move to be (at least for a period) a less culturally commanding/exhausting, more sustainable presence. I tend to think that having ascended so quickly to “cultural studies Madonna 2.0”-type commanding heights of the cultural economy, Gaga now needs her own Bedtime Stories-type detox/relaxation/austerity period, but maybe my sense of the ebbs and flows of these matters is eccentric.

#21 George Michael hadn’t been a fanbase artist up to that point but Star People’s 2-14-32 chart run suggests it wasn’t bringing in many new fans.

When I heard the bridge I thought “Ahh, I remember this…” but then realised it sounded exactly like the Coca Cola “Holidays are coming” jingle, which is what I actually remembered.

I’m still humming it to myself ten minutes after listening to it. The definition of a 4.5, if such a mark existed.

#27, for clarity’s sake I should add I mean “Star People” not Gary’s tune which I do recall but am unmoved by.

This song was also responsible for a chart stat I found incredibly pleasing at the time as, post-Take That, Gary Barlow’s first two solo singles both got to number one, Robbie Williams’ first two solo singles both got to number two and Mark Owen’s first two solo singles (the wimpy Child and the rather ace Clementine) both got to number three. I was willing Howard and Jason to release some stuff just to keep that pattern going.

As for Madonna’s decline, I can’t remember who pointed it out but Human Nature was released in the same week as Country House and Roll With It and someone said that they thought it was amazing there was a new Madonna single out and nobody was that bothered.

#32 As we’ll never get a chance to discuss Mark Owen’s solo career on here I don’t think I’m the only one to consider his solo efforts underrated. Had he dodged the 1996 Christmas market (he didn’t have the commercial clout and his album tanked) and launched his solo career with Clementine in the new year things might have played out differently.

Another vote here for Little Mark’s Clementine. I certainly rate it above anything GB has ever produced, including this.

In the distinguished lineage of Simply Red’s “We’re In This Together”? I think it’ll be yet more tankard-banging, banjo-wielding gurners. After last night’s shambles it’s no more or less than what England deserves.

Got my info from here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_England_football_team_songs

Fat Les was the official one in 1998 – 3 Lions in 96. The bunnied remake/release was done of their own accord. Two official songs in 98 too – their was the Ian McCulloch/Spice Girls/Space/Ocean Colour Scene collaboration too.

Firstly – my thoughts on Mark Owen’s solo career http://amz1981.wordpress.com/2013/05/08/mark-owen-the-return-of-the-king/

#37 In the nineties I’d be very surprised if most pin up pop stars actually listened to the type of music they were being asked to sing. Being lads in their late teens/ twenties they would have listened to Britpop and having reached a stage where they had a bit more control over their output it’s not surprising their late songs were Britpop influenced. Of the acts you mention `Good Day` was Sean Maguire’s last single before he went back to doing what he was actually good act and Ant and Dec would only have one more release during their pop star phase (a later single would follow, just to save somebody mentioning it) before focusing on their TV work.

I think the standard here was already Robbie Williams whose three pre Angels singles (Old Before I Die, Lazy Days, South Of The Border) were all Britpop lite. Mulling it over there’s never really been a market for an indie boy band; the girls seem to prefer their boys sitting on stools crooning some well worn cover. Which is of course a disgustingly sexist thing to say and not true either as plenty of young women do enjoy indie/ rock and the scene that goes with it; however a bridge between the two never translates into record sales we will shortly be meeting one of the most anodyne boy bands of them all who killed their career with a really good guitar record.

Here’s yer indie boy band. Six UK top 20 singles to date, three of them top 5.

Just to clarify – by an indie boy band I meant a group that an indie band would recognise (albeit grudgingly) as one of their own and which draws fans more or less equally from both camps.