''Since I Saw You Last'' is the fourth solo studio album released by British singer-songwriter
Gary Barlow
Gary Barlow (born 20 January 1971) is an English singer, songwriter, record producer, and television personality. He is the lead singer of the British pop group Take That.
Barlow is one of the United Kingdom's most successful songwriters, havi ...
. The album was released by
Polydor Records
Polydor Records Ltd. is a German-British record label that operates as part of Universal Music Group. It has a close relationship with Universal's Interscope Geffen A&M Records label, which distributes Polydor's releases in the United States. ...
on 22 November 2013 in Ireland, and on 25 November in the United Kingdom. It debuted at number two on the
UK Albums Chart
The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts C ...
,
and met with a mixed critical reaction.
It is Barlow's first full-length solo album in fourteen years, following 1999's ''
Twelve Months, Eleven Days''. It features a range of genres, described by Barlow as a mixture of pop, folk pop and alternative. The album's lead single, "
Let Me Go
Let or LET may refer to:
Sports
* Let serve, when the served object in certain racket sports hits the net and lands in the correct service court, such as;
** Let (badminton)
** Let (pickleball)
** Let (tennis)
* Ladies European Tour, the ladi ...
", was released a week before the album, and became Barlow's 21st
UK top-three single.
Background
With
Take That
Take That are an English pop group formed in Manchester in 1990. The group currently consists of Gary Barlow, Howard Donald and Mark Owen. The original line-up also featured Jason Orange and Robbie Williams. Barlow is the group's lead singe ...
on hiatus and following the success of a series of
solo concerts over the previous two years, Barlow announced plans to release his first solo studio album in fourteen years. The album was released on 25 November 2013, to be followed by a live tour in 2014. The album was confirmed to feature a duet with
Elton John
Sir Elton Hercules John (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight; 25 March 1947) is a British singer, pianist and composer. Commonly nicknamed the "Rocket Man" after his 1972 hit single of the same name, John has led a commercially successful career a ...
on the track "
Face to Face" on 24 September 2013. Regarding "
Let Me Go
Let or LET may refer to:
Sports
* Let serve, when the served object in certain racket sports hits the net and lands in the correct service court, such as;
** Let (badminton)
** Let (pickleball)
** Let (tennis)
* Ladies European Tour, the ladi ...
", Barlow said, "I've always liked folky, acoustic music, but I've never fully explored it. I turned back time and was listening to
Johnny Cash
John R. Cash (born J. R. Cash; February 26, 1932 – September 12, 2003) was an American country singer-songwriter. Much of Cash's music contained themes of sorrow, moral tribulation, and redemption, especially in the later stages of his ca ...
and early
Elton John
Sir Elton Hercules John (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight; 25 March 1947) is a British singer, pianist and composer. Commonly nicknamed the "Rocket Man" after his 1972 hit single of the same name, John has led a commercially successful career a ...
before I wrote 'Let Me Go'. I'm 42; I don't want to do urban or dance music. I love
Mumford & Sons
Mumford & Sons is a British folk rock band formed in London in 2007. The band currently consists of Marcus Mumford (lead vocals, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, drums), Ted Dwane (vocals, bass guitar, double bass), and Ben Lovett (vocals, key ...
—it's good, English music, but let's be honest, they got it off Johnny Cash too."
Barlow cites that after the release of ''
Twelve Months, Eleven Days'', he stopped singing as he walked away from the limelight. He said, "I never even sang in my own studio; I was telling myself
hat
A hat is a head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorporate mecha ...
I don't need to be an artist anymore; I started as a songwriter." However, after the success of the Take That reunion, he felt that he had to face his demons and right the wrongs he felt took hold of his last full studio album. He said, "The one thing I was dreading was that the last album would be on my shoulder the whole time I made this one, but it wasn't—it was flushed out really quickly. I'm not haunted by that time. My experience 14 years ago was completely different from now." Barlow further elaborated, "The last album I made was so laden with people telling me who I should sound like that I listen back now and think 'Who's that?', but ''Since I Saw You Last'' was easy to make; there's a lot of my life on this record."
Several of the album's songs were co-written in 2011, for a planned duo album with
Robbie Williams
Robert Peter Williams (born 13 February 1974) is an English singer and songwriter. He found fame as a member of the pop group Take That from 1990 to 1995, and achieved commercial success after launching a solo career in 1996. His debut stud ...
titled ''
Cain & Abel'', a nod to Barlow's autobiography, where he refers to himself and Williams as the Cain and Abel of Take That. Williams called the ''Cain & Abel'' album "middle-of-the-road"–believing its sound was too mature to garner mass appeal with his desired youthful, mainstream audience, and decided to cancel the Cain & Abel project. Williams poached "
Candy
Candy, also called sweets (British English) or lollies (Australian English
Australian English (AusE, AusEng, AuE, AuEng, en-AU) is the set of varieties of the English language native to Australia. It is the country's common language an ...
" and "
Different" for his ''
Take the Crown'' album, whilst Barlow acquired the remaining numbers for ''Since I Saw You Last''.
Singles
* "
Let Me Go
Let or LET may refer to:
Sports
* Let serve, when the served object in certain racket sports hits the net and lands in the correct service court, such as;
** Let (badminton)
** Let (pickleball)
** Let (tennis)
* Ladies European Tour, the ladi ...
" was released as the album's lead single on 15 November 2013, debuting at number three on the
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...
becoming Barlow's 21st UK top-three single. The following week, it rose to number two and was certified Silver by the
BPI two weeks later for UK sales of over 200,000 copies.
* "
Face to Face", featuring
Elton John
Sir Elton Hercules John (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight; 25 March 1947) is a British singer, pianist and composer. Commonly nicknamed the "Rocket Man" after his 1972 hit single of the same name, John has led a commercially successful career a ...
, was released as the second single from the album on 20 January 2014.
* "
Since I Saw You Last
''Since I Saw You Last'' is the fourth solo studio album released by British singer-songwriter Gary Barlow. The album was released by Polydor Records on 22 November 2013 in Ireland, and on 25 November in the United Kingdom. It debuted at number ...
" was released as the album's third and final single on 14 April 2014.
Commercial performance
The album debuted at number two on the
UK Albums Chart
The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts C ...
, behind
One Direction
One Direction, often shortened to 1D, are an English-Irish pop boy band formed in London in 2010. The group are composed of Niall Horan, Liam Payne, Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson, and previously Zayn Malik until his departure from the gr ...
's third album ''
Midnight Memories
''Midnight Memories'' is the third studio album by English-Irish boy band One Direction, released on 25 November 2013 by Columbia Records, Syco Music and Sony Music. It was described as having a "slightly rockier tone" than their previous effort ...
'', selling 116,000 copies. It became the fastest selling album of 2013 to miss out on the top spot, while also selling more copies in its first week than Barlow's
Take That
Take That are an English pop group formed in Manchester in 1990. The group currently consists of Gary Barlow, Howard Donald and Mark Owen. The original line-up also featured Jason Orange and Robbie Williams. Barlow is the group's lead singe ...
bandmate
Robbie Williams
Robert Peter Williams (born 13 February 1974) is an English singer and songwriter. He found fame as a member of the pop group Take That from 1990 to 1995, and achieved commercial success after launching a solo career in 1996. His debut stud ...
' album ''
Swings Both Ways
''Swings Both Ways'' is the tenth studio album by English singer-songwriter Robbie Williams. It is his second swing album after 2001's ''Swing When You're Winning''; unlike the latter, which had one original composition, this album features an ...
'', which sold 109,000 copies the previous week to claim the top spot.
The following week, the album sold a further 77,358 copies in the UK. In its third week of release, it once again broke the 100,000 sales mark, with 105,344 sales. In its fourth week of sales, the album sold a further 116,730 copies, up 10.81% from the previous week, and passed sales of 500,000 in the UK with a further 79,000 sold the week after. The album was certified 2× Platinum in the UK at the beginning of 2014 with sales of 652,342 in the UK alone.
The album also became Barlow's second top 10 album in Germany, achieving similar chart success to his debut record, ''
Open Road''.
Critical reception
At
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, ''Since I Saw You Last'' received an average score of 54, based on six reviews, which indicates "mixed or average reviews".
Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Stephen Thomas Erlewine (; born June 18, 1973) is an American music critic and senior editor for the online music database AllMusic. He is the author of many artist biographies and record reviews for AllMusic, as well as a freelance writer, occ ...
at
AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...
awarded the record four stars, calling it a "handsome album" that "captures what was good about post-McCartney pop singer/songwriters in the mid-'70s, when the best songsmiths never let their ambitions get in the way of a good tune".
Conversely, ''
Observer
An observer is one who engages in observation or in watching an experiment.
Observer may also refer to:
Computer science and information theory
* In information theory, any system which receives information from an object
* State observer in con ...
'' writer Hermione Hoby gave a one-star review in which she said that the album serves to provide "sonic reference points" for "how unassailably uncool" Barlow is.
Track listing
*The album is available in three different formats: standard 12-track CD/digital download, 15-track deluxe CD/digital download, and collector's box set available exclusively from Gary Barlow's official webstore, with a 24-page collector's booklet and an art print all collected together in a presentation box.
Personnel
Musicians
* Gary Barlow – vocals, backing vocals (1–4, 6, 7, 10, 12, 14, 15), acoustic piano (1, 3–6, 9, 11, 12, 14), additional keyboards (1–9, 13)
* Ryan Carline –
Pro Tools programming (1–10, 12–15), additional keyboards (1, 3, 4, 7, 10, 13), programming (2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10)
* Rohan Onraet – Pro Tools programming (1–10, 12–15),programming (2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10), percussion (2, 4, 5, 7), tambourine (14)
*
Dave Arch – acoustic piano (2, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12)
* Massimo Restaino –
accordion
Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed ...
(2, 10)
* Pete Davis – programming (3, 9), additional keyboards (5)
* Ben Mark – guitars (1, 5, 13)
* Tim Van der Kuil – guitars (1–7, 9, 10, 12–15),
banjo
The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashi ...
(2, 6, 10, 12),
pedal steel guitar
The pedal steel guitar is a Console steel guitar, console-type of steel guitar with pedals and knee levers that change the pitch of certain strings to enable playing more varied and complex music than any previous steel guitar design. Like all s ...
(2),
mandolin
A mandolin ( it, mandolino ; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of 8 ...
(10, 12, 15),
lap steel guitar
The lap steel guitar, also known as a Hawaiian guitar, is a type of steel guitar without pedals that is typically played with the instrument in a horizontal position across the performer's lap. Unlike the usual manner of playing a traditional ...
(12)
*
John Parricelli
John Parricelli (born 5 April 1959 in Evesham, Wychavon, Worcestershire, England) is a jazz guitarist who has worked mainly in the United Kingdom.
Parricelli began his career as a guitarist in 1982. He was one of the founding members of the Bri ...
– guitars (2, 8)
*
Steve Power
Steve Power (born in Liverpool) is an English record producer best known for his work with Robbie Williams. He has produced and mixed a wide variety of artists over the years, including Blur, Busted, Andrea Bocelli, Feeder, Joe Cocker,Perciv ...
–
ukulele
The ukulele ( ; from haw, ukulele , approximately ), also called Uke, is a member of the lute family of instruments of Portuguese origin and popularized in Hawaii. It generally employs four nylon strings.
The tone and volume of the instrumen ...
(6)
* Gary Nuttall – guitars (8)
*
Neil Taylor – guitars (8, 13)
*
Samuel Dixon
Samuel Dixon (born 1973, Adelaide, South Australia) is a record producer, songwriter and musician, based in London. Dixon has produced and written with artists including Adele, Sia, Kylie Minogue, Christina Aguilera, Paloma Faith and Jack Savo ...
– bass guitar (1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 10, 12–15)
* Dave Catlin-Birch – bass guitar (3, 9), backing vocals (4, 7), guitars (9)
*
Dave Bronze Dave may refer to:
Film, television, and theater
* ''Dave'' (film), a 1993 film starring Kevin Kline and Sigourney Weaver
* ''Dave'' (musical), a 2018 stage musical adaptation of the film
* Dave (TV channel), a digital television channel in the ...
– bass guitar (4, 8)
*
Karl Brazil
Karl Peter Brazil (born 27 May 1977, Solihull) is an English session drummer.
He is best known as the drummer for the British indie rock band Feeder, replacing the band's previous drummer Mark Richardson. He often works with other pop and ...
– drums (1)
*
Jeremy Stacey
Jeremy Stacey (born 27 September 1963) is a British drummer and keyboard player. His early works included the 1990s band The Lemon Trees (with twin brother Paul Stacey on guitars, Guy Chambers and others) and Denzil. He has also played with She ...
–
bass drum
The bass drum is a large drum that produces a note of low definite or indefinite pitch. The instrument is typically cylindrical, with the drum's diameter much greater than the drum's depth, with a struck head at both ends of the cylinder. Th ...
(2), drums (3–10, 12–15), percussion (15)
* Fergus Gerrand – percussion (1, 13)
* Andy Duncan – percussion (8)
*
Caroline Dale
Caroline Dale (born 1965) is a widely recorded British cellist who currently plays principal cello for the English Chamber Orchestra and London Metropolitan Orchestra. She has also performed music for numerous films and played with a wide range ...
– cello (11)
* Jenna Mahon – violin (13)
*
Mark Feltham –
harmonica
The harmonica, also known as a French harp or mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used worldwide in many musical genres, notably in blues, American folk music, classical music, jazz, country, and rock. The many types of harmonica inclu ...
(14)
* Tom Richards –
clarinet
The clarinet is a musical instrument in the woodwind family. The instrument has a nearly cylindrical bore and a flared bell, and uses a single reed to produce sound.
Clarinets comprise a family of instruments of differing sizes and pitches ...
(15)
* Owen Slade –
tuba
The tuba (; ) is the lowest-pitched musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, the sound is produced by lip vibrationa buzzinto a mouthpiece. It first appeared in the mid-19th century, making it one of the ne ...
(15)
* Will Wheaton – string arrangements (1, 5, 7, 8)
*
Nick Ingman
Nicholas Ingman (born 29 April 1948) is an English arranger, composer and conductor in the commercial music field. His collaborators include Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, Björk, and the British X-factor.
Born and educated in London, Ingman moved ...
– string arrangements (3, 4, 6, 10)
* Perry Montague-Mason – string leader (1, 3–8, 10)
* Isobel Griffiths – musicians contractor (1, 3–8, 10)
* Andy Caine – backing vocals (2, 12)
* Ami Richardson – backing vocals (2, 7, 10)
*
John Shanks
John Matthew Shanks (born December 18, 1964) is an American songwriter, record producer and guitarist.
Early life and education
John Matthew Shanks was born in New York City. Shanks moved to Los Angeles when he was 17 years old. He was in a ban ...
– backing vocals (4), 12-string guitar (10)
*
Elton John
Sir Elton Hercules John (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight; 25 March 1947) is a British singer, pianist and composer. Commonly nicknamed the "Rocket Man" after his 1972 hit single of the same name, John has led a commercially successful career a ...
– vocals (4)
Production
* Steve Power – producer, mixing (1, 3, 5–15)
* Ryan Carline – engineer
* Richard Lancaster – engineer (1, 4, 5, 8)
* Rohan Onraet – engineer (1–10, 12–15)
* Sam OKell – engineer (3, 6, 7, 9)
* Joe Kearns – engineer (8)
*
Mark "Spike" Stent
Mark "Spike" Stent (born 3 August 1965) is an English record producer and mixing engineer who has worked with many international artists including Madonna, Marshmello, U2, Beyoncé, Björk, Depeche Mode, Echo & The Bunnymen, Grimes, Ed Sheeran ...
– mixing (2, 4)
* Tony Cousins – mastering
* Studio Fury – art direction, design
* Phil Poynter – photography
Charts
Weekly charts
Year-end charts
Decade-end charts
Certifications
Release history
References
{{Authority control
2013 albums
Gary Barlow albums
Alternative rock albums by English artists