David Bowie - Tonight (1984) - Lp

Release:  1984
Genre:  Pop, Dance Rock
Format:  LP
Label:  EMI Records
Catalog#  1C 064-240227-1
Prijs:  €10,00


Tonight is the 16th studio album by David Bowie. It was originally released in September 1984, on the label EMI America. It followed his most commercially successful album, Let's Dance. He described the album, released immediately after his previous album's tour wrapped up, as an effort to "keep my hand in, so to speak, and to retain the new audience that he had recently acquired

David Bowie worked on Tonight after completing his Serious Moonlight Tour in support of his previous album Let's Dance. He did not have much luck writing while on tour, so he described the process of recording the album Tonight this way:

It was rushed. The process wasn't rushed; we actually took our time recording the thing; Let's Dance was done in three weeks, Tonight took five weeks or something, which for me is a really long time. I like to work fast in the studio. There wasn't much of my writing on it 'cause I can't write on tour and I hadn't assembled anything to put out. But I thought it a kind of violent effort at a kind of Pin Ups.

Bowie purposefully sought to keep the sound of the band he had used on the previous album and tour, feeling that the new fans he had accumulated would expect to hear the same thing on the new album that they'd heard before, hence the inclusion of the "Borneo Horns" players on the album.
Like Let's Dance, but unlike most previous Bowie albums, Bowie played no instruments on the record, and in fact he delegated almost all responsibility for the music played to his musicians, only occasionally offering critical input.

Bowie brought in Derek Bramble and Hugh Padgham to produce the record, the former receiving the nod from Bowie due to some of the demos he'd recently produced for English female singer Jaki Graham. As with Let's Dance, Bowie prepared for the album by recording some demos beforehand, this time showing up with 8 of the 9 songs that would appear on the album. This surprised collaborator Carlos Alomar, who said "it was the first time in the eleven years that I've been with the damn man that he's brought in anything."

Iggy Pop spent a good deal of time in the studio with Bowie and the band while the album was being recorded, stating "I worked extensively on that album. There's a lot more work there than is reflected in just the simple co-writing credit for two songs and some of the old stuff." When asked why Bowie included so much Pop-written material on the album, Pop could only guess. "I think he just wanted the songs heard more," a sentiment Bowie would mirror when covering Pop's "Bang Bang" on his next album, Never Let Me Down.

Three songs were covers of older Iggy Pop songs: "Don't Look Down", "Tonight" and "Neighborhood Threat", the latter of which stands out as a track Bowie wished he had not done, with him later calling it "disastrous". "That's one I wish I'd never touched, or at least touched it differently. It went totally wrong. It sounded so tight and compromised, and it was such a gas doing it. It was the wrong band to do it with -- wonderful band, but it wasn't quite right for that song."

"Tumble and Twirl", co-written with Pop, recounts the pair's exploits while vacationing in the Indonesian islands Bali and Java after Bowie's previous tour had ended.
"Don't Look Down", which was one of Bowie's returns to a reggae-style track (after Lodger's "Yassassin"), perplexed Bowie: "I tried it every which way. I tried it jazz-rock, I tried it as a march, and then I just hit on an old ska-sounding beat, and it picked up life. Taking energy away from the musical side reinforced the lyrics and gave them their own energy. I think working with Derek Bramble helped because he played propper reggae bass lines."

Three singles were released from the album: "Tonight", "Blue Jean" and "Loving the Alien". "Blue Jean" in turn spawned several videos, including an "elaborate" 20-minute-long collaboration with Julien Temple which was described as more of a "minifilm" than a video, and represented Bowie's interest in making actual movies.


Side A
A1.  Loving The Alien - 7:07 
A2.  Don’t Look Down - 4:08 
A3.  God Only Knows - 3:04 
A4.  Tonight (feat. Tina Turner) - 3:42

Side B
B1.  Neighborhood Threat - 3:10 
B2.  Blue Jean - 3:09 
B3.  Tumble And Twirl - 4:56 
B4.  I Keep Forgettin’ - 2:32 
B5.  Dancing With The Big Boys (feat. Iggy Pop) - 3:32

Vinyl:  Goed
Cover:  Goed