Nightlife is the seventh studio album (eleventh overall) by English synthpop duo Pet Shop Boys. It was released on 8 October 1999 by Parlophone, going on to sell 1.2 million copies globally.
After the release and promotion of their previous 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 album'...
Nightlife is the seventh studio album (eleventh overall) by English synthpop duo Pet Shop Boys. It was released on 8 October 1999 by Parlophone, going on to sell 1.2 million copies globally.
After the release and promotion of their previous 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 album's 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.
There is a considerable variety of musical influences present: hard trance in the Rollo-produced "For Your Own Good" and "Radiophonic"; dance-pop in "Closer to Heaven" 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". The track "Happiness is an Option" borrows melody from Sergei Rachmaninoff's classical piece, Vocalise Op.34, No.14.
Incidentally, there is also a track called "Nightlife" which was recorded with the musical in mind. As things transpired it wasn't included in the musical or the Nightlife album, but was eventually released as one of the "Home and Dry" B-sides in 2002. This song and "Pandemonium" are the only Pet Shop Boys tracks to share the name of an album (although Pandemonium is a live album). Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.
