There is no Barry Garlow thread!

Gary Barlow has announced that he has closed his label Future Records after three years of operation.

Set-up in 2009, Barlow quickly brought a number of acclaimed acts to Future including rapper Aggro Santos, classical singer Camille Kerslake and Scottish singer Emma Imagination, all of whom garnered Top 10 hits.

It’s being reported that the Take That singer shuttered the label after it lost £4 million.

A Daily Record source said that “[Barlow’s] label wasn’t making enough money or generating any success.

“Gary was naturally upset because he had hoped to unearth the next big thing,” the source added. “He had singed a few great bands who are destined for success, but the problem was that he also had a few turkeys on his books.”

Losses were not mentioned in a statement from Barlow, however, which said “It’s been a very difficult decision but it came down to time. I’ve had a lot going on recently and I want to spend more time with my family.”

It is understood that current Future Records artists will be folded into the label’s parent company Universal.

Recent signings to Future include Lonsdale Boys Club and female solo artist A*M*E who was recently tipped in the Sound of 2013 poll.

Last year, Barlow received the Music Industry Trust award and was awarded an OBE for services to entertainment and charity work.

So, he has responded to getting the OBE for services to entertainment, and repeating the mantra "I'll sign you mate" on X-Factor by closing his label to "spend more time with his family"

.. or is this one way of not responding to Christopher Maloney's phone calls?

Barlow's always been this tragic case of cloth ears and not much talent who happened to right 3 or 4 fantastic songs, he's spent more time in a career slump than he's spent in a career high and ended up being carried by the bandmates he started off carrying, he'd've been happier as a behind-the-scenes songwritery dude than a performer, and his X-Factor persona makes Michael Owen look like Robin Williams.

loser with a Welsh double L

"happened to write"

You know when Back To Good came out, and everyone was breaking their backs to say "Hey it's a really great song" and recognise Gary as a song-writing genius above and beyond his boy-band contemporaries?

It really wasn't ever a good song. Tony Mortimer could wipe his arse with it, and Stay Another Day shits on it from a massive height. Though post-reunion Take That hits haven't been too bad, inna cabaret-pastiche stylee.

"Back To Good" is a better title, for a song that doesn't exist, probably...

a lot of the post-reunion hits aren't Barlow songs tho? iirc

i've said before his hit to shit ratio is pretty woeful

i do like "Back for Good" tho

Back for Good is an amazing song, be fair. It's also a monkeys-and-typewriters success - look at the choruses of Never Forget and Pray either side of it (I'm sure there are others in between, can't be bothered reminding myself though) to see that he was no Cole Porter, manipulating hooks like marionettes.

The thing is that he was being lionised before Back For Good - iirc Pray was where he started winning awards. Back For Good might as well not have happened, it didn't create the legend.

It seems to have disappeared but he used to have this hugely exhaustive rundown of every keyboard he'd ever owned and why it meant so much to him, it was a really great read. He's madly in love with those big sequencing workstations nobody wants anymore. Met him briefly once at Sarm, dude doesn't have a sense of humour.

Anyway, think he's a fairly competent but horrendously unadventurous songwriter, very primary school hymm stepwise stuff going on with the melodies, no rhythmic interest, which makes it all very ear wormy but eh, not for me.

Stevie otm. Back for Good is kinda decent, but put it next to any of the literally zillions of great songs that everyone knows and it just wilts. It starts off boring ("I guess now it's time for me to give up"), perks up halfway through the verse (leading up to "Gotta leave it, gotta leave it all behind now "), and then the chorus is a strong hook, albeit undercut by the mid-90s plod, mediocre singing and the lifeless backing vocals. I can understand why people who'd go to a Take That concert would consider it terrific (I can even understand why they'd rate Robbie's Angels - a much worse song), but the fact is it's just not.

(The closest Take That have ever come to greatness is Kidz.)

Gary is ok at writing ballads, anthemic or non-anthemic, but he hasn't got a natural flair for pop music. I'm not fond of Robbie Williams' music but he knows more about how pop works than Gary. When they work together sometimes it works ("Shame" and some of the "Progress" album) and sometimes it doesn't ("Candy"). My wife is a huge Take That fan - was there screaming at them in the 90s and has seen them three times since their reformation - and even she admits that Gary isn't the best writer in the band. Watching that "Gary Barlow and friends" show on TV last week was like watching paint dry - he really hasn't got the personality to pull off such a show, and his boring performances as judge on X Factor have done more harm than good. Yes he's a "national treasure" and he'll probably get a lifetime acheivement award at the Brits this year (hmmm.. That's an interesting thought, perhaps I should put a bet on it?) but which member of Take That would you rather have a night out with?

Jason.