Gary Barlow is, at heart, an optimist. He writes soulful pop songs with misty-eyed verses and huge choruses, often bolstered with big blocks of harmony to hammer home the joy. Outside of his day job as leader of Take That, he's also particularly gifted at creating lingering McCartney-style melodies—broad and folky in 2013's “Let Me Go” and “Small Town Girls” or melancholy and slinky in 1999's “Lie to Me”. But it's his ballads that confirm his belief in ultimate redemption, particularly the time-stopping “Forever Love”.