Take That celebrate Robbie Williams breaking record - as Gary Barlow teases Robbie will rejoin band
Robbie William's latest solo album saw his steal a record previously set by The Beatles.
Gary Barlow has teased that Robbie Williams will be rejoining Take That as the band celebrate the singer breaking a new record with his latest album.
This week the singer and recent Better Man star broke the world record for the most UK No 1 albums, as his 13th solo album Britpop went straight to the top of the charts. In doing so, Robbie Williams has surpassed the tally previously set by The Beatles in 2000 and now holds the record.
Released on 16th January, the new album, Britpop, pays homage to the golden era of British pop music, the 1990s, and has so far produced 5 singles, including Rocket which features Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi.
Williams achieved the new record with 16 chart-toppers, made up of 12 solo albums, three greatest hits compilations, and the soundtrack to his movie biopic Better Man. This doesn't include the two other No 1 albums that he recorded as a member of Take That.
Every single album Robbie Williams has released as a solo artist has reached No 1, bar his 2009 album Reality Killed the Video Star which was only surpassed by boy band JLS.
Appearing on the Radio 2 Breakfast Show this morning (27th January), the current members of Take That, Gary Barlow, Mark Owen and Howard Donald joined Scott Mills for an hour-long special to mark the release of a new documentary about the band.
As well as answering fan questions, Take That congratulated Robbie Williams on his recent record before Gary went on to tease that fans could expect to see Robbie return to the band, saying with certainty "it's going to happen".
Speaking to Scott Mills on Radio 2, Barlow said: "Listen, at some point it’s going to happen in the future and that’s one of the wonderful things about our band is that you never know what’s around the corner.
"As this documentary shows, we all started out at the same place, could you have even imagined back then that we could all be sat in this position now. It’s wonderful, it really is."
The new four-part Take That documentary has just been released on Netflix after being in production since before the This Life on Tour, with a brand new song from the band being featured at the end. Gary Barlow also confirmed on the radio show that fans can expect a new Take That album coming at the end of this year.
Robbie Williams first left Take That in 1995 before rejoining the band in 2010 when they recorded the album Progress and played eight dates at Wembley Stadium which made a record-breaking £38 million. However it was then announced in October the following year that Robbie had exited the band for a second time to focus on his solo career.
In 2014, Jason Orange also left Take That and retired from the entertainment industry completely.
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Authors
Phoebe Kowhai Barnes is a Freelance Writer who covers pop culture and entertainment programmes for the Radio Times. She previously worked as the Senior Assistant Editor at The Tab where she managed its local department. She obtained a BA (Hons) in English Literature from University of Nottingham.
