...I genuinely submit that there was some quality songwriting on Take That's latest album; and one can't deny Gary Barlow has a great voice. There's actually been a great deal of musical development, even sophistication, creep in since their boyband days.

I pointed out to several friends about 12 months back that their earlier single Patience (another Gary Barlow composition) was structured VERY similarly to Richard Thompson & Tim Finn's Persuasion.

Now of course RT is often venerated in folk circles, but Gary Barlow?

After the initial shock at quite who I was comparing with whom, several of those friends actually admited to liking the said song and saw the similarity.

By the summer last year, even the local Chester buskers weere playing it. They being a discerning lot, they certainly did NOT play Gary Barlow songs the first time round back in the early 90s, even with him a local boy. So yes, independent corroboration that his songwriting has much improved. Although the clues were there, in his earlier opus Back For Good