The Flood

Album: Progress (2010)
Charted: 2
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Songfacts®:

  • This is the lead single from British pop band Take That's sixth studio album, Progress. The song features Gary Barlow and Robbie Williams on lead vocals and was the first to feature Williams since his return to the band in July 2010 after an absence of fourteen and a half years. It was written by all five Take That members.
  • The song's music video was filmed on Dorney Lake in Berkshire, the venue for the rowing events at the 2012 Summer Olympics and also on the Thames at Runnymede, Surrey. The clip features the five members of the band racing against another crew in specially made sculling boats, customised to accommodate a fifth rower. The quintet are all clad in old-fashioned white rowing kits.
  • This was the first Take That single since August 1995's "Never Forget" to feature the five original band members all singing together on a record.
  • Progress was the first album to shift half a million copies in its first week of sale in the UK this century. Coldplay previously held the post 2000 record with a sale of 464,000 for X and Y in June 2005.
  • Progress was the best selling album of 2010 in the UK despite only coming out in November. It sold 1.4 million copies in its five weeks of release. Runner-up was Michael Bublé's Crazy Love whilst Lady Gaga's The Fame was third on the list.
  • Take That acknowledged this epic song on the band's track-by-track analysis to be possibly the best from Progress: "It's an epic sounding song," said Robbie. "It needed epic words and a big melody." Robbie added that he firmly believes the song to be about the quintet. "It's like all the outside forces trying to break through the dam and we are the dam."

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