In part two of his round-up of music in 2010, Andy Welch talks festivals, the Fab Four and the Robbie reunion with Take That.

WHILE the first half of 2010 was ruled by GaGa and a bunch of newbies, the summer was once again given over to the usual mass of festivals and outdoor events. Take That announced erstwhile member Robbie Williams was rejoining for their next album. He’d been threatening to rejoin the band for the best part of a year, before they finally made things official and got to work.

Progress was eventually released in November and duly became the fastest-selling album of the last 13 years, shifting 520,000 copies in a week.

(Oasis’s Be Here Now, the fastest-selling British album ever, sold a whopping 696,000 copies in three days back in 1997). At the moment it’s undecided, at least publicly, whether Robbie’s presence is permanent or not, but such thoughts surely won’t be on the minds of the millions of fans who have tickets to Take That’s concerts this summer.

Talking of reunions, The Libertines got back together to headline the Leeds and Reading festivals and play a handful of other shows. Since the demise of the band, Pete Doherty had become more famous for his off-stage antics than his songwriting.

Whether he’s sorted himself out for good remains to be seen, but seeing him on stage with old friend Carl Barat singing some of the defining songs of the 2000s was a definite highlight.

Eminem and Rihanna released Love The Way You Lie in the summer, and while the duet never made it to the top of the charts, it did manage to sell 820,000 copies, making it this year’s biggest song.

The video featured Hollywood stars Megan Fox and Dominic Monaghan embroiled in a volatile, but ultimately passionate relationship. To put it another way, they made domestic violence look particularly stylised and sexy. Coupled with lyrics about ‘‘liking the way it hurts’’ and you question the wisdom of Rihanna, who had been viciously beaten by ex-boyfriend Chris Brown a year earlie.

September saw The XX win the Mercury Prize and the release of Olly Murs debut single. Things don’t seem to have gone particularly to plan for Olly since finishing second in the 2009 X Factor. Things were no better for eventual winner Joe McElderry either. His album was routinely panned by critics and, on the same day Matt Cardle won this year’s competition, little Joe’s single charted at No 68.

In September, Emma’s Imagination won Sky’s talent show, Must Be The Music, and picked up £100,000 and a record deal with Gary Barlow’s label.

Lady GaGa turned up to the MTV awards in a dress made entirely of meat. Her only problem in 2011 might come from pushing things too far.

After years of legal battles and wrangling over pricing – 18 years of haggling to be precise – The Beatles’ catalogue was finally available to download in November. The main sticking points had been the name, of course; Apple Inc, as in the computer and iPod company, and Apple Corps, the record label founded by The Beatles, and similarity in logo. Finally, there was a resolution and the Fab Four’s music can now be downloaded for the first time. The move didn’t set the world or charts on fire as expected, perhaps due to the fact The Beatles’s material was digitally remastered and reissued only last year. As a result, just Hey Jude, made the Top 40, but as with anything relating to Liverpool’s favourite sons, there will always be a market, and crucially, people willing to part with their hardearned cash for new items.

In the first seven days, more than 450,000 Beatles albums were sold on iTunes, on top of two million singles. Not bad for a collection of songs which began 50 years ago..

The trend of bands reuniting shows no sign of slowing, with Pulp the latest songsters to get back together. The Sheffield stars will play a string of shows around the UK and Europe next year, with one of them rumoured to be a headlining slot at Glastonbury. The year ended on a rather sad note with the passing of Sixties experimental icon Captain Beefheart, aged 69. If you’ve never heard his classic album Safe As Milk, or the more challenging Trout Mask Replica, do yourself a favour with those vouchers you get for Christmas and pick one of them up.