We've already met Take That once so far this year, and as we're going to be meeting them a fair few times over the coming years I think this is an opportune moment to come clean and say up front that I don't have a lot of time for them. The reasons why will be explained within the individual entries, but for now I can say that, on an irrationally personal and wholly unfair (on the band anyway) I've never been keen because they were the band that made me realise that, no matter how hard I pretend otherwise, I'm not as young as I used to be. None of us are I suppose, but Take That were the first contemporary pop phenomenon that absolutely passed me by. The Bay City Rollers, Duran Duran, Bros, New Kids On The Block et al - I was never a huge fan of any of these either, but I was always aware enough of their existence and the music they made to be able to form that opinion. During the course of the nineties, I was always aware that Take That were there or thereabouts too, but nothing about them caught my ear to push me to form an opinion either way; every 'new' Take That single sounded pretty much like the previous Take That single and with no desire to disentangle the blur the feeling old and in the way me was content to just let the kids have their fun.
Writing now in 2011, I'm aware that the band have now reformed and are enjoying no small degree of success second time round, and yet my interest gauge remains static. Their 'comeback' single made it sound like they'd never been away and it got me to thinking whether my nineties indifference wasn't so much rooted in being too old and wise to appreciate them (after all, I had some very definite opinions about the Spice Girls who came later), but whether it was Take That's fault all along for not giving me something to care about. Because listening to 'Relight My Fire' tonight, I think the latter is more prescient.
Again, I was fully aware of 'Relight My Fire' in 1993, but my awareness was really limited to two factors. Firstly, I already had a certain familiarity with it via the Dan Hatrman original and secondly, as far as Take That's version went, it was always Lulu's contribution that stood out. Listening afresh this evening, little has changed - Take That's 'Relight My Fire' sounds like Hartman smothered by a pillow. To play them back to back is to contrast Hartman's leap-into-your-face-on-a-spring-of-disco-funk version to Take That's arm's length, flat and staid interpretation that relies heavily on the tune alone to carry it. Lulu's appearance is the rescuing cavalry and she comes as a literal breath of fresh air.
Raw and exciting, Lulu's vocal is more raucous even than Loletta Holloway was on the original; whereas Holloway sounded like she belonged, like she was always invited to the party and knew how to have a good time when she was there, Lulu bursts in like she's come round from next door with a bottle of vodka on a mission to get a dull party kick-started. That she doesn't isn't entirely her fault, it was an uphill task all the way - there's no fun in this 'Relight My Fire', no enjoyment in its predictability and no personality in its anonymity. Nothing, in short, to engage with on any level other than to swoon over the lads on the sleeve. Which probably explains why it all passed (and continues to pass) me by; there's simply nothing here to notice save a slick professionalism that knows its market and goes for its throat. And while I'm not criticising that per se, if there's no heart in the grooves then it may as well be marketed as a blank disc to let the listener fill in the gaps themselves. While looking at the cover, obviously.
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