Nightlife (Pet Shop Boys album): Difference between revisions

Revision as of 14:46, 17 July 2006

Revision as of 21:39, 21 July 2006

Line 26:

After the release and promotion of their previous album, ''[[Bilingual (album)|Bilingual]]'', Pet Shop Boys started work with playwright [[Jonathan Harvey]] on the stage musical that eventually became ''[[Closer to Heaven]]'' (At one stage during the writing process, the musical was given the name of ''Nightlife''). Pet Shop Boys soon had an albums-worth of tracks and decided to release the album ''Nightlife'' as a concept album and in order to showcase some of the songs that would eventually make it into the musical. ''Nightlife'' has arguably the darkest sound of any Pet Shop Boys album, perhaps due to the fact it had a theme of human activity at night.

There is a considerable variety of musical influences present: hard trance in the [[Rollo Armstrong|Rollo]] produced "For your own good'" and "Radiophonic"; dance-pop in "Closer to Heaven" (which features a speech sample from the [{Frasier]] episode [[Matchmaker]] and "I don't know what you want but I can't give it any more"; disco pastiche in "New York City boy"; and even country music in "You only tell me you love me when you're drunk". "In Denial" is a duet featuring [[Kylie Minogue]]. It was seen as a risk by critics because this project came at a time when Minogue was experiencing low record sales and did not have her own record contract. The year after ''Nightlife'''s release, Minogue also signed to [[Parlophone]] and released her hugely successful ''[[Light Years]]'' album.

In the [[United States|USA]], ''Nightlife'' was released as a limited edition 2 CD set called ''Nightlife/Extra''. The second disc featured the b-sides and remixes that had been released in Europe on the singles for "I don't know what you want but I can't give it any more" and "New York City boy".