Nightlife - time for reappraisal?

[Patrick Bateman]

Thinking about Nonetheless, perhaps one of the big problems with Nightlife is that it doesn't have a single producer. I know Neil likes to opine that it's a coherent album with a concept but it's actually extremely inconsistent. You've got several different producers and all kinds of different tracks ranging from Sweetbox pastiche through country & western ballad and showtune to Pet Shop Boys pastiche.

It's arguably the problem with Bilingual too. While it is generally more coherent in terms of the Spanish sound and theme, there are misteps (only love can break your heart), misteps. Metamorphosis is about as Spanish as Andrew Sachs.

Release may not be perfect but by self-producing and stripping their sound back, it is at least consistent in tone. Obviously, every studio album since has had a single producer, which is revealing. I think they benefit from the discipline of working with one person (or team in Xenomania's case) as it forces them to think about how the part links to the whole. Nightlife remains their most disjointed, random studio album.

[bongsteve]

Always enjoyed the album with the exception of Happiness Is an option. I would have removed it, shifted everything up and finished the album with Nightlife as a euphoric ending to the album of the same name.

[Leonidas]

Closer to Heaven is amazing, can’t believe it wasn’t a single. The album starts ok, but the last 6 or so tracks are not their best work. For me it still remains their worst album. The sleeve though is one of their best.

[Leonidas]

Other highlights include the Lange Mix of NYC boy and the b side Screaming.

[glennjridge]

I could never work out why the first half of Drunk has no acoustic guitar. it goes against what it appears they were striving for.

first off before I heard it... it was described as a country western tune, yet when it starts up, it immediately sounds ominous...like the soundtrack to an 80's SC-FI film.....then,in comes a mellow hawaiian vibe and then we get going,

but I felt it would have sounded better had the guitar been more prominent and all they way thru kinda like they did with the concrete version. but that middle eight...its the king of all their middle eights at least for me.

footsteps would have been better had they recorded the Montage arrangement. its so warm

[Sandy Shaw]

Nice lists guys, leaving out 3,4 songs it automatically wouldve manage to be a little up in my chart of PSB albums

I sometimes think that they should have saved Somewhere for Nightlife instead of wasting it, not having that on an album is something I dont understand, quite similar to Always on my mind where it wasnt on Actually but later on with a different version entered on Introspective. To my mind Somewhere would have made Nightlife better and even released as first or second single.
So add that song to the list !

The only reason their cover of Somewhere exists is because of their Savoy Theatre residency in 1997.

And because Neil was feeling pretty...

[Ramzy]

Nightlife will always have a special place for me because it was the first PSB album I had the luxury of looking forward to (this is a concept a lot of people here will understand) - I got into them, and worked my way through the entire back catalogue, in 1998 and the first half of 1999. For me, its slightly clumsy desperation is its charm, like they really nailed the brief about the more extreme, darker sides of human need and emotion. And maybe because it was 'my' first new PSB record, it was the one I measured everything against that came after, even though Very has always been my favourite.

Maybe one reason I'm struggling less with it than others is that I've always adored Footsteps, which I'm surprised to see so much dislike towards. It was my favourite on the record the first time I heard it and still is. The middle eight dissolving back into the final verse with the sitar and the line "like a child who feels afraid of the dark at night" always makes me cry. I just think it's just such a moving moment - and the key lyric to the whole album, an admission that the dark regresses us to our more base instincts for both better and worse.

But I'll admit one thing Nightlife doesn't sound is effortless. It's maybe their most "everything and the kitchen sink" record - between the three producers, the wide range of styles, the orchestra and the confessional lyrics, it sounds like they weren't entirely convinced it was good enough. But as I've said, that uncertainty and twitchiness is part of what I love about it, even if it wasn't intentional. It feels like the tortured end of their mainstream success, and I think that's how it felt at the time as well, like they went into the era expecting top five singles and backing from Radio 1 and came out of it having learnt the hard way they were now a cult band. Something shifted in this period. They stopped being unassailable and probably Parlophone stopped lavishing them with money. It's a millennial anxiety dream, the snuffing out of the twentieth century and with it so much of the pop world that PSB had known and controlled.

[Sandy Shaw]

Excellent points Ramzy and others in this thread. I've just listened to the 2017 remaster on headphones and it really is a bit of a hotch potch (rather than a Hotspot!).

I like the individual tracks in the sense of the songwriting but there are many which now sound overproduced. The album could have done with one producer only and in a sense there isn't enough recognisable Chris on it...

If I dropped any I would lose For you own good and The only one. In fact with the benefit of hindsight and had I been in the studio (!) I may have made a medley of FYOG and CTH and kept that for the last track of the album! Most of the others I 'd leave put.

[tottenhammattspurs]

For Your Own Good should have been the lead single with some absolute banging remixes from the trance DJs of the time (oakenfold, rollo himself, lange, Tony de Vit, ATB etc)

[Pod]

It’s a weird one is Nightlife. Their first UK tour in nearly a decade on the back of this was a decent show from what I recall and some of the tracks from the album were very good - for your own good, closer to heaven, drunk, I don’t know what you want… - the first half of the album is actually decent.
Then it all goes a bit wrong, apart from radiophonic, which I love.
Boy strange is crap, as are footsteps, vampires, the only one and in denial.

The b-sides were also very hit and miss. Guilty though, I am partial to ‘casting a shadow’ - I played it watching the northern lights last weekend!

[jamie1978]

It’s a weird one is Nightlife. Their first UK tour in nearly a decade on the back of this was a decent show from what I recall and some of the tracks from the album were very good - for your own good, closer to heaven, drunk, I don’t know what you want… - the first half of the album is actually decent.
Then it all goes a bit wrong, apart from radiophonic, which I love.
Boy strange is crap, as are footsteps, vampires, the only one and in denial.

The b-sides were also very hit and miss. Guilty though, I am partial to ‘casting a shadow’ - I played it watching the northern lights last weekend!

The UK leg of the Nightlife tour was a disaster for them commercially. Quarter-full venues (except Wembley, and even that didn't sell out), and the promoter went bankrupt owing them £750,000. It was around this time that considered calling it a day (and thankfully we know the outcome of that thought process).

Not helped by absolutely dreadful single choices at the time. I don't know what you want but I can't give it any more as lead single is just laughable when you have For your own good, and Closer to Heaven sat on the album.

[Pod]

It’s a weird one is Nightlife. Their first UK tour in nearly a decade on the back of this was a decent show from what I recall and some of the tracks from the album were very good - for your own good, closer to heaven, drunk, I don’t know what you want… - the first half of the album is actually decent.
Then it all goes a bit wrong, apart from radiophonic, which I love.
Boy strange is crap, as are footsteps, vampires, the only one and in denial.

The b-sides were also very hit and miss. Guilty though, I am partial to ‘casting a shadow’ - I played it watching the northern lights last weekend!

The UK leg of the Nightlife tour was a disaster for them commercially. Quarter-full venues (except Wembley, and even that didn't sell out), and the promoter went bankrupt owing them £750,000. It was around this time that considered calling it a day (and thankfully we know the outcome of that thought process).

Not helped by absolutely dreadful single choices at the time. I don't know what you want but I can't give it any more as lead single is just laughable when you have For your own good, and Closer to Heaven sat on the album.

I meant the actual shows, I think most are well aware of the financial catastrophe the shows entailed.
Single choices were odd, give you that!

[Patrick Bateman]

It's a perfect storm - synth-pop was out of fashion (look at Erasure's chart positions at the end of the 90s), they were getting on (ergo the costumes) at a time when the charts were fuller than ever of youngsters, and they chose that point in time to spread themselves thinly and write the musical too. My appreciation of Nightlife now is of it as their dumper album - you can imagine Neil reviewing an equivalent fall from Olympus in 1983, possibly Strip by Adam Ant.

[jasonjohn]

I see it as a terrifically textured album. Hectic and varied, like a night out.

The imagary and art work really solidifies the vibe, too.

The only track I'm not huge on is In Denial simply because I think it makes way more sense in the musical.

Maybe one reason I'm struggling less with it than others is that I've always adored Footsteps, which I'm surprised to see so much dislike towards. It was my favourite on the record the first time I heard it and still is.

It's a lovely track, and a spot-on come-down from all the "nightlife"

[Lleonard Pler]

I see it as a terrifically textured album. Hectic and varied, like a night out.

The imagary and art work really solidifies the vibe, too.

That's it, it's not disjointed but unpredictable, just like night. Night can be menacing, sexy, melancholic, relentless, camp, dark, flirty, doubtful, freeing... and the album is all this and more.

I'd left out The only one and In denial, both too bland, and put Casting a shadow and Ghost of myself instead.

As for the singles, Radiophonic should have been the lead single instead of I don't know what you want but I can't give it any more, although this had one of their best videos ever so I can't complain.