As if we were still in 1996, Take That have once again taken their country, the United Kingdom, by storm. Their new album ‘This Life’ – the third they released as a trio – achieves one of the biggest number 1s of the year. And this album has sold up to 116,163 copies in one week. Only one album has managed to sell more in 2023 in the British Isles: ‘1989 (Taylor’s Version)’ shipped 184,965 units in its first 7 days.
Take That’s album has sold 108,000 CDs, 5,000 vinyls and 300 cassettes. In addition, it has produced 2,000 downloads on sales portals such as iTunes. Of course, its streaming is very low: only the equivalent of 1,400 copies. The 116,000 copies are more than the entire top 18 albums combined. Of every 100 copies that have been sold this week in the UK, 18 have been of this Take That album.
This marks Take That’s 9th No. 1 of the year over 4 decades. They thus tie with Coldplay for number 1 albums, being only behind the Beatles (15 number 1 albums), the Rolling Stones (12) and Queen (10). The previous ones were ‘Everything Changes’ (1993), ‘Nobody Else’ (1995), ‘Greatest Hits’ (1996), ‘Beautiful World’ (2006), ‘The Circus’ (2008), ‘Progress’ (2010), ‘III’ (2014) and ‘Odyssey’ (2018).
Of course, its own sales record is far from being broken and will surely never be beaten. ‘Progress’, the album in which they reunited with Robbie Williams, sold 518,601 copies in its first week in 2010. It is the third best figure in a week in the entire 21st century, after ’25’ by Adele (800,307) and ‘Divide’ by Ed Sheeran (671,542).
Curiously, no Take That single appears in the top 100: their fans are of the physical format and, as we say, streaming of the entire album is rather low. We remind you that a few weeks ago we were lucky enough to interview Take That. Gary Barlow told us: «We are more surprised than anyone to still be here. It’s crazy. The music industry is very tough. Having success with an album, once in your life, is one thing, but maintaining a career for 30 years is not easy. I would go back to what I said before: I think the important thing is to keep making music and hope that people connect with it. For some reason the public wants us to continue being there for them, and we are going to continue doing what we do to the best of our ability.
