The effort culminated in a dance-pop record largely influenced by 1980s music and the European club scene. Neon Nights became the most successful album campaign of Minogue's career, peaking number 8 in the United Kingdom and spawning four top-ten singles in the territory, including "Put the Needle on It" and "I Begin to Wonder".
Minogue received generally positive reviews from music critics, who praised its cohesion and mixture of styles. Neon Nights has come to be regarded as a cult classic among pop music fans. She went on a limited tour in support of the album, which included a one-off show in New York City. Neon Nights has been reissued twice since its release, marking its 15th and 20th anniversaries.[1]
Background and recording
Despite producing a top-five hit with 1997's "All I Wanna Do", Minogue was dropped by record label Warner Brothers after her third studio album Girl became a commercial disappointment, and she saw herself as effectively retired from the music industry.[2][3] She appeared in productions of Macbeth and Notre-Dame de Paris during this time.[4][5]
"Sometimes you need that bushfire to clear the slate and regenerate. We all get to know—when we've got enough years behind us—when you need to firmly shut a door for a very different one to open. It was like that. I was at peace with everything being finished."[6]
In 2001, DJ Pete Tong approached her to record vocals for the trance instrumental "Stringer" by DJ duo Riva, which was becoming a hit in European clubs. The track became "Who Do You Love Now?", which peaked at number three on the UK Singles Chart in late November and remains her longest-charting entry, spending 16 weeks on the chart; in Australia, the song peaked at number fifteen.[7]
The single's success led to a six-album record deal with London Records, a subsidiary of Warner Music, and work on a new album soon began with London giving Minogue free rein of its production.[8][9] Minogue turned 30 while recording the album, a milestone that she wanted to celebrate with Neon Nights and reflect her positive mindset as a time capsule.[10]
Minogue worked on the album in London, Paris, and Stockholm, and longtime collaborator Terry Ronald accompanied her on many of the songwriting trips. The recording process commenced in 2002 at Murlyn Studios, a cabin located in the outskirts of Stockholm.[11][12] She first met with Henrik Korpi and Mathias Johansson, better known as Korpi & Blackcell, and Karen Poole; the four wrote three of the tracks on Neon Nights, including opener "Put the Needle on It".
The French indie rock band Neïmo became involved with the album after sending several backing ideas to Faversham.[12][13] In Paris, their studio was a living room outfitted with vintage music equipment, with Minogue's vocals recorded in a spare bedroom. She and Ronald finished three tracks with the band. Their third time in Paris, in May 2002, became the pair's last writing trip together as Ronald later started chemotherapy.[12] Ronald is a co-writer on six Neon Nights tracks, and survived his cancer diagnosis.[14]
Composition
Neon Nights is a dance-pop album with a prominent early 1980s music and French house direction, capturing the European dance zeitgeist of the early 2000s.[15][16] Minogue recounted that Neon Nights was the first time she had a major involvement in writing any album, from the lyrics to its production.[12] Her blueprint was to translate the underground club scene into an accessible format; essentially a record that sounded like remixes of pop songs.[2][9] As a result, Neon Night pulls from an eclectic assortment of genres including electro, house, funk and R&B.[17][18][19] The album was described by David Trueman of Amazon as "[dripping] with sleazy synth-funk and production risks unheard of in polished pop music".[20]
"Dance music is such a huge passion of mine, so [the production process] was a dream. I wanted to hear the songs and feel, as I closed my eyes, that I'm on a dance floor, in the club, under a mirror ball. That's what that album is for me. In fact, that's why we called it Neon Nights—it just had to be something that felt like when you're at a glitzy party with your dancing shoes on."[9]
The initial output from Neon Nights mimicked the trance sound of "Who Do You Love Now?", a brief discarded early on, whose vestiges appear in the closer "It Won't Work Out"—later retooled into a flamenco-tinged trip hop ballad.[11][21][18] "Mystified" was one of the first tracks to be finished for Neon Nights which helped to mold the album's electropop template, while the band Neïmo influenced its sonic palette with a pared-down "tough electro-punk sound".[11][13][12] "Put the Needle on It", the opener, and "A Piece of Time" are both electroclash songs that convey this underground element; the former has been compared to Donna Summer, while the latter to Daft Punk and Miss Kittin.[11][22] "On the Loop" continues this experimentation with the use of distortion.[20]
Madonna (pictured in 1987) served as an inspiration for album, who later approved her song "Into the Groove" for a mash-up treatment.
Critics have identified post-disco as a prominent influence throughout Neon Nights,[23] from the aforementioned "Put the Needle on It"[20] and "Creep" to "Mighty Fine". Music writer Quentin Harrison described the former two as pulling from American aesthetics in channeling electro-funk, R&B and hip hop.[19] Jack Smith from BBC Music likened "Mighty Fine" to Parliament-Funkadelic.[22] The record evolves into eurodisco on the "dark and gritty" "I Begin to Wonder" and its "dreamier" counterpart, "Come and Get It".[23] Elsewhere, "For the Record" and "Don't Wanna Lose This Feeling" are pure pop songs.[11]
The album's lyrical themes revolve around romance and sex. "Put the Needle on It" is innuendo-laden, and "Vibe On" is about vibrators, reportedly an inside joke from the 1997 film Private Parts where a woman straddles a speaker between her legs.[26][27] Critics have noted that Minogue infuses the record with a "sultry" and "sleazy" persona, more "trashy-hot rather than gossamer-gorgeous", with John Lucas of AllMusic writing that she is "sexually charged but smart and slightly aloof".[20][28][29] Alexis Kirke of MusicOMH made the case for Minogue as the inverse of her older sister Kylie: "There's a Dark Willow in Buffy, a Dark Phoenix in the X-Men – and there is also a "Dark Kylie". Dark Kylie exudes more of a night-time sexuality than Kylie herself."[30] Kirke and Smith described her vocals as "powerful", which she credits her stint on the musical Notre-Dame de Paris with developing.[3]
Release and artwork
The album was released in the United Kingdom and Europe on 17 March 2003. It was handled by London Records in all territories except for the United States, where its 7 October 2003 release was through Ultra Records. Neon Nights was Minogue's first album to be green-lit stateside since Love and Kisses in 1991. An official "bootleg" edition was made available in Australia in 2003, notably substituting "I Begin to Wonder" and "Don't Wanna Lose This Feeling" with its mash-up counterparts; this edition was later re-issued alongside Neon Nights 20.[31][32]
The cover photograph for Neon Nights was taken by Matthew Donaldson.[33] Its minimalist composition sees Minogue against a white backdrop, propping herself up from the floor with one leg extended and reaching for her shoe: "[I]t was like, there's a white board, just lie on it and roll about and we'll see what we come up with. There was a freedom to it and we wanted it to feel like an outtake from Studio 54 or something."[9] It was particularly inspired by a photograph of actress Liza Minnelli crawling on the floor at the aforementioned nightclub.[34] Minogue said that its laidback approach was due to her camera shyness. Rob Copesy of Official Charts called the artwork "strangely brilliant", while Ron Slomowicz of About.com compared it to Calvin Klein—"slice of life, like a bedroom photographer".
Neon Night has seen three separate re-issues, with the track list expanded on nearly each: the 2007 deluxe edition was made into a 33-track double disc, which the 15th anniversary edition issued onto vinyl for the first time. Neon Nights 20 boasted over 100 tracks across seven CDs.
Neon Nights became Minogue's most successful album release, reaching number eight in the United Kingdom, where it was certified Gold.[7] In Australia the album was initially a moderate success, reaching #25 on the albums chart. However, when re-issued for its 20th year anniversary, the album reached a new peak of #17 - the highest position for any of Minogue's albums, besting the chart position of her debut album in 1990.[35] The album was also nominated for Best Pop Release at the 2003 ARIA Music Awards, making it Minogue's only ARIA nomination to date.
Neon Nights was met with generally favourable reviews from music critics. John Lucas of AllMusic felt that it was the "most confident and forward-thinking release yet for Dannii" and commended the album's cohesion; its variety of influences notwithstanding.[29] Similarly, Jack Smith from BBC Music called it "a pleasant cocktail of pop sophistication, club culture and accessibility".[37] The album was highlighted by Billboard with Keith Caulfield writing, "Neon Nights is full of unabashedly fun, well-crafted, pure dance songs. Clubgoers and pop fans will eat this album up, and nearly every track would work at top 40 radio." Similarly, Music Week called it a "winning mix of pop and club".[39] In a positive review, Alexis Kirke contrasted Minogue with her older sister: "[Kylie] is in danger of being engulfed and surpassed by her darker side."[38]
Ron Slomowicz of About.com, who was a fan of Minogue's prior output, felt that the album "starts out amazingly" with "massive club hits", but criticized its middle section as "[wandering] into a murky area of 80's throwback-inspired retreads". However, he felt that Minogue had the complete package as a pop star.[36] Writing for RTÉ, Cristín Leach gave high praises to "I Begin to Wonder" and "Push", which the album's more "bland" material helped to elevate, and felt that Minogue was still "on her way" in carving an identity distinct from her sister's.[25] In other mixed reviews, critics opined that the material on Neon Nights was generic. Karen Bliss from Tribute wrote that the album is "full of average booty-shaking dance tracks, good for the moment, but nothing memorable," though "It Won't Work Out" was highlighted as a "beautiful, earnest ballad".[40] Kristina Feliciano of Entertainment Weekly echoed this sentiment and felt that Minogue "[needed] some of her big sister's cheekiness" on a set of "dance-floor trifles that's passable (especially "Put the Needle on It") but not very memorable."[41]
Retrospective reviews of Neon Nights were predominately positive. Writing for The Arts Desk, Thomas H. Green found it to be "a sassy and bouncy surprise" full of "chewy, invigorated club-pop, imaginatively constructed".[42] Peter Piatkowski of PopMatters called it a "minor classic" that "displayed an artistry that Minogue hadn't shown before".[43] Quentin Harrison of Albumism outlined Minogue's "club siren transformation" and commented that "Neon Nights remains a distinct dance-pop marker".[44] Mike Wass of Idolator wrote that "it's one thing to create an excellent three-and-a-half-minute dance-pop song, but another to sustain the appeal over an entire album. Kylie managed it with Fever, Madonna followed suit on Confessions on a Dance Floor. Dannii's contribution to the genre is every bit as good as those classics."[11]
20th anniversary reissue
On 1 April 2023, Minogue confirmed the deluxe, expanded anniversary issue of Neon Nights would be released later in 2023.[45]
On 16 June 2023, Minogue released Neon Nights 20; the 33-track album was made available on all digital outlets and CD and vinyl.[46][47][48] The reissue release saw the album re-chart at number 17 in Australia, higher than the original issue's peak of 25, and number 55 in the UK.
"Who Do You Love Now?" (Riva's Bora Bora Club Mix)
8:10
4.
"Put the Needle on It" (Jason Nevins Freak Club Creation Mix)
8:15
5.
"Hide and Seek" (Thriller Jill Original Extended Mix)
6:36
6.
"Come and Get It" (Jerome Isma-Ae Remix)
6:38
7.
"Put the Needle on It" (Tiga's Cookies Dub)
4:51
8.
"Creep" (Jon Dixon Club Mix)
6:38
9.
"I Begin to Wonder" (Almighty Transensual Club Mix)
7:57
10.
"Put the Needle on It" (Cicada Vocal Mix)
7:52
11.
"Come and Get It" (Sharam Jey Remix)
6:12
12.
"Don't Wanna Lose This Feeling" (Jupiter Ace Speared Thru the Heart Mix)
4:15
15th anniversary edition (2018)
In March 2018, as part of the celebration of Neon Nights' 15th anniversary, Minogue announced a special reissue of the album on streaming, CD and, for the first time, on a limited edition 180g pink and blue double vinyl.[49] While the digital and CD versions followed the same tracklisting of the Deluxe Edition released on 2007, the double colored vinyl featured a slightly revised selection of bonus tracks, most notably omitting the B-side "Nervous".[50]
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