Nightlife

Nightlife is the seventh studio album (eleventh overall) by English electronic duo Pet Shop Boys. It was released on 11 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.