British singer Gary Barlow finally feels he has escaped the embarrassment of his last studio album Twelve Months, Eleven Days, which flopped in the U.K. charts.

The Take That star went out on his own when the group disbanded in 1996, and although his first solo offering, 1997's Open Road, was a number one hit, his 1999 follow-up limped into the charts at 35.

Barlow is ready to return with Since I Saw You Last, his first record of original material in 14 years, and admits he now feels ready to put his past failures behind him.

Speaking to Britain's Metro, he says, "'The last solo record was such a mess. I thought is it going to haunt. All those memories and it hasn't done. It's felt like a new thing to make this record. Dead easy. I haven't been tearing my hair out.

"To be there thinking 'Will people like it?' and 'What do people think about me?'... that's not a good place to be. That was the place that I was in 14 years ago."