Nightlife Review

07/13/2005 7:35 AM, AMG


Nightlife is a loose concept album -- more of a song cycle, really -- about nightlife, naturally. There's not really a specific story, it's more of a collection of moods and themes, from love to loneliness. In that sense, it's not that different from most Pet Shop Boys albums, and, musically, the album is very much of a piece with such latter-day efforts as Very and Bilingual, which is to say that it relies more on craft than on innovation. Depending on your point of view, this may not be such a bad thing, since Pet Shop Boys are the masters of subtle craft and masterful understatement. Such skills serve them well when they're essentially following familiar musical territory, which they are on Nightlife. At its core, the record is very much like Very -- a clever, skillful updating of classic disco, highlighted by small contemporary dance flourishes, and infused with a true sense of wit, sophistication, and intelligence. Pet Shop Boys do this music better than anyone else ever has, and they're at the top of their form here, but it's hard to get beyond the initial impression that they've done this before. Each individual song works beautifully, from the wistfully dejected "I Don't Know What You Want But I Can't Give It Any More" to the exhilarating Village People homage "New York City Boy," but as a whole, Nightlife seems less than the sum of its parts, largely due to the familiarity of the music. Repeated listens help erase that impression, since increased exposure to these songs makes them feel like a large part of the group's catalog, but Nightlife remains an album that's largely impressive because of its craft and not its inspiration, which ultimately makes it feel like a second-tier album in the group's catalog. [Nightlife was also released as a limited-edition double-disc set, featuring five B-sides -- "The Ghost of Myself," "Casting a Shadow," "Je t'Aime...Moi Non Plus," "Silver Age," and "Screaming" -- two remixes of "I Don't Know What You Want...," and four remixes of "New York City Boy." There's some good stuff here, and most diehard fans will want to invest in this set if they're going to get the album in the first place.] ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide