It's barely 2012 and already I'm thinking, blimey there were some albums I neglected in 2011 that deserve a bit of a retrial. A couple (todays offerings) I purposely held back from as it was additional material offered alongside fairly current albums from the acts concerned. The other two (tomorrow's offerings) are acts that I like (one I love) but whose albums I didn't spend enough time with and am rediscovering now. OK, enough waffle, on with the words!!
Take That ~ Progressed:
Considering my love for Take That, and the critical outpouring of adoration for Progress, it's somewhat amazing that I stuck to my resolve to not get into Progressed until 2012. It was released 6-7 months into the Progress campaign at a time when I thought a few more singles could have been marketed from that album (most notably, SOS and the dreamy 8 Letters). Progressed appeared as an 8 track EP (what constitutes an album and what constitutes an EP is a whole other conversation!) with the kicky lead off single Love Love (featuring in X Men: First Class) neatly slotting alongside the Progress sound. Indeed, much of Progressed feels like a natural progression of Progress. The nostalgic opener When We Were Young is possibly the most pre-Progress sounding of the bunch, yet is a great track that deserved a much better video than it actually got. There's some forward thinking industrial electro on Man which is balanced by the tear jerking ballad Don't Say Goodbye, which is Gazza at his heart wrenching finest. Viewed as a separate album that deserves it's own campaign (a la Fame Monster), this is a bonkers but brilliant piece of work that is a fine addition to the Take That canon of music.
Suggested singles: Love Love, When We Were Young, Man, Don't Say Goodbye...
The Feeling ~ Together We Were Made (The Bees):
It took long enough for The Feeling to unleash their 3rd album proper onto the world (Disc one of Together We Were Made, also entitled The Birds) so I feel justified in saving their bonus disc of work from these sessions for a whole new album of harmonised goodness! Like Take That, they could have extended their marketing of the "main" album by choosing Leave Me Out Of it and Dance With The Lights (in addition to kicking off the album campaign much earlier with the disco swirl of Searched Every Corner), but as the hastily released Greatest Hits attests, their star is sadly on the wane. Saving this disc as their fourth album may serve me well while I wait for them to get their groove back. The highlight for me from this album is their deliriously crazy duet with Betty Boo on Virtually Art, which seems to just pogo forth from the speakers. This contrasts nicely with the bombastic nature of tracks such as Easier Said Than Done & Over and Over, both of which soar, giving the band a slightly rockier edge than previous efforts. Be sure to add their reverent and recent cover of Rocket Man to this album's tracklist for more 70s inspired MOR-rock/pop goodness :)
I was a big fan of Progressed, although I agree the promotion campaign of the album proper after "The Flood" was really a wasted opportunity. I remember it took too long for "Kidz" to come out and there was a time when it looked like "SOS" was going to be the second single instead. Then "Happy Now" came out, but not officially so. It was very odd.
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