Mark Owen

Mark Owen (born 27 January 1972) is an English singer and songwriter best known for being a member of pop group and band Take That; as of 2019, the group have sold 14 million albums and 11.4 million singles in the UK. In Owen's solo career, he has released five studio albums: Green Man (1996), In Your Own Time (2003), How the Mighty Fall (2005), The Art of Doing Nothing (2013) and his most recent, Land of Dreams, which was released in September 2022 and debuted at number 5 on the UK Official Albums Chart.

Growing up, Owen lived in a small council house with his mother Mary, his father Keith, brother Daniel, and sister Tracey in Oldham. His father was a decorator, later getting a job at a police station. His mother was a supervisor in a bakery. Owen was educated at Holy Rosary Primary and St Augustine's Catholic Schools, both in Oldham. He had little interest in music and played football briefly for Chadderton F.C., in addition to having trials at Manchester United and Rochdale. Before auditioning for Take That, he worked at Barclays in Failsworth.

After selecting Gary Barlow as the group's lead singer in 1989, Nigel Martin-Smith introduced Owen, Howard Donald, Jason Orange and finally Robbie Williams to the fold. The group were signed to RCA records, and after a number of top 40 hits, eventually secured their first number one with Barlow's "Pray". Previous hits included "A Million Love Songs", "It Only Takes a Minute" and "Could It Be Magic".