Tonight is the sixteenth studio album by the English singer-songwriter David Bowie, released on 24 September 1984 through EMI America Records. The follow-up to his most commercially successful album Let's Dance, it was written and recorded in mid-1984 at Le Studio in Morin-Heights, Canada, following the conclusion of the Serious Moonlight Tour. Bowie, Derek Bramble and Hugh Padgham co-produced the album. Many of the same personnel from Let's Dance and the accompanying tour returned for Tonight, with a few additions. Much of Bowie's creative process was the same as he used on Let's Dance, similarly playing no instruments and offering little creative input to the musicians.
The music on Tonight has been characterised as pop, blue-eyed soul, dance and rock. Much of the album's sound is the same as its predecessor's, due to Bowie's effort to retain the new audience that he had recently attracted, although some tracks contain R&B and reggae influences. Devoid of new ideas from touring, Bowie wrote only two new songs himself. Three songs, including the title track, were covers of songs Bowie co-wrote with Iggy Pop, who was present during most of the sessions and co-wrote two tracks. The title track is a duet with singer Tina Turner. The artwork, featuring Bowie blue-painted against an oil painting backdrop, was designed by Mick Haggerty.
Supported by the singles "Blue Jean", "Tonight" and "Loving the Alien", Tonight was a commercial success, reaching number one on the UK Albums Chart. Critical reception was poor, with most finding a lack of creativity. Following the critical dismissal of his next studio album Never Let Me Down (1987), Bowie expressed dissatisfaction with this period, calling Tonight not one of his stronger efforts, a sentiment echoed by later commentators. He did not tour to support the album and only performed "Loving the Alien" and "Blue Jean" on subsequent tours. The album was remastered in 2018 as part of the box set Loving the Alien (1983–1988).
Background and development
David Bowie released his 15th studio album Let's Dance in April 1983. A major commercial success, it propelled him to worldwide megastardom. He supported the album with the successful Serious Moonlight Tour from May to December 1983. Despite its success, Bowie found himself at a creative stalemate; he realised he no longer knew his audience and later admitted that touring left him devoid of new ideas. At the tour's conclusion, Bowie went on holiday in Bali and Java with his friend, singer Iggy Pop. Pop, having suffered from poor finances for several years, earned royalties from the success of Bowie's recording of "China Girl" and the two were eager to work together on Bowie's next project. Bowie felt he was ill-prepared to record a new album, instead proposing a live album called Serious Moonlight. Pressure from the label to release a follow-up led Bowie into the studio unprepared.
Bowie said he wanted to "go further" on his next record, aiming to explore R&B, funk and reggae music. Bowie decided not to work with his Let's Dance co-producer Nile Rodgers again, which Rodgers attributed to Bowie wanting to prove he could make hits without a "celebrated hit-maker". Bowie instead chose Derek Bramble, a former bass guitarist for the band Heatwave and more recently a producer for David Grant of the band Linx. As he had done with Rodgers for Let's Dance, Bowie invited Bramble to Mountain Studios in Montreux, Switzerland, to record demos of his new material with a group of local Swiss musicians. According to biographer Chris O'Leary, musicians present at the Tonight sessions said the demos were "tremendous", describing them as "funky, raw, [and] full of promise".
Let's Dance engineer Bob Clearmountain was asked to return but was unavailable; he suggested Hugh Padgham, who had worked with XTC, Genesis, Peter Gabriel, and more recently with the Police as a producer. Padgham initially had mixed feelings about working solely as an engineer but accepted Bowie wanted to work this way. Padgham suggested Le Studio in Morin-Heights, Canada, where he had recently completed work with the Police.
Writing and recording
Recording for the new album began at Le Studio in May 1984, less than five months after the Serious Moonlight Tour. Bowie arrived for the sessions with eight of the nine 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". Along with Alomar, most of the personnel from Let's Dance and the tour returned for the record, including drummer Omar Hakim, bassist Carmine Rojas, percussionist Sammy Figueroa and backing vocalist George Simms. Newcomers included trumpet player Mark Pender, backing vocalist Curtis King and Guy St Onge on marimba. Biographer Nicholas Pegg argues that St Onge's contributions provide the album with "its most distinctive instrumental identity". The saxophone section—Stanley Harrison, Lenny Pickett and Steve Elson—were dubbed "the Borneo Horns", in line with the tour's brochure. Like Let's Dance, Bowie played no instruments and he delegated almost all responsibility for the music to the musicians, only occasionally offering critical input.
One of the album's major contributors was Iggy Pop, who later said: "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." Bowie positively compared the collaboration to The Idiot and Lust for Life, Pop's 1977 albums that Bowie co-wrote and produced. The two's new collaborations resulted in "Tumble and Twirl" and "Dancing with the Big Boys", the latter of which was written and recorded in eight hours as they egged each other on. According to Padgham, the two wrote many songs that did not make the final record, describing these tracks as "more left-field" and "less poppy".
The album features a guest appearance from singer Tina Turner, who sings a duet with Bowie on the title track, "Tonight". During recording, Bowie and Turner sang face-to-face, although Bowie went back and re-recorded the first verse after deciding to sing his part in a higher octave. Turner had just released her massively successful comeback album Private Dancer earlier that year, which featured a cover of Bowie's 1974 song "1984". A year prior, Bowie had secured Turner's re-signing with Capitol Records, leading to her comeback. Twenty years later in 2004, Turner said that Bowie rescued her career when she was dealing with domestic violence.
The sessions were troublesome. Padgham later told biographer David Buckley that Bramble had a habit of asking for "unnecessary retakes", particularly during the vocal takes. Alomar later stated: "Bramble was a really nice guy, but he didn't know jack-shit about producing." However, Bramble himself recalled that even though he's listed as co-producer, it was "really a very communal situation where ideas came from everybody including the teaboy", and that Bowie's and Turner's vocals were nailed rather quickly (usually in one or two passes). Padgham later revealed in the BBC Radio 2 documentary Golden Years that there was a "falling out" with Bramble towards the end of the sessions, leading to his departure and Padgham taking over as producer. Padgham hated many of the songs, specifically the "too poppy" "Blue Jean" and "Tonight", preferring the "more left-field" compositions that were left off the final album. He later expressed regret that he lacked the confidence to finish the other songs, telling Buckley: "Who am I to say to Mr. David Bowie that his songs suck?"
Songs Commentators have characterised Tonight as pop, blue-eyed soul, dance and rock. Author James E. Perone recognises the presence of reggae, R&B and ska. Bowie purposefully made the album's sound similar to Let's Dance and the Serious Moonlight Tour because he felt the new fans expected to hear the same thing on the new album as the one before. Of the nine songs on the final album, Bowie was the sole writer for only two, "Loving the Alien" and "Blue Jean"; two were co-written by Bowie and Pop, "Tumble and Twirl" and "Dancing with the Big Boys"; and the remaining five are cover versions, three originally by Pop: "Don't Look Down" (from 1979's New Values), "Tonight" and "Neighborhood Threat" (both from 1977's Lust for Life). The other covers are the Beach Boys' 1966 song "God Only Knows", which was reportedly shortlisted for Bowie's 1973 covers album Pin Ups, and the Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller-penned "I Keep Forgettin", originally made famous by Chuck Jackson in 1962. Bowie explained: "I think that [Tonight] gave me a chance, like Pin Ups did a few years ago, to do some covers that I always wanted to do."
Side one Bowie described "Loving the Alien" as a very personal bit of writing that he did not feel fitted in with the rest of the album because it is such a dark song amidst lighter fare. He said, "Alien' came about because of my feeling that so much history is wrong – as is being rediscovered all the time – and that we base so much on the wrong knowledge that we've gleaned." Alomar thought the song concerned the Major Tom character from 1969's "Space Oddity", a claim Bowie rejected. The lyrics are religious and politically charged. While Pegg believes it to be a terrific song, he finds it weighed down by "over-elaborate production". Bowie later admitted that the demo was superior. The reworking of "Don't Look Down" is influenced by reggae music. Bowie had attempted it in different ways, including jazz rock, march and ska, eventually settling on reggae. O'Leary found Bowie's version stripped the power of Pop's original. Lyrically, Bowie ponders how short-lived stardom can be.
Bowie's rendition of "God Only Knows" incorporates strings and saxophone, and he sings his vocal in a croon. Although Bowie defended his recording in a contemporary 1984 interview with Charles Shaar Murray, his biographers deride it as "nadir" and one of the worst recordings of his entire career. For "Tonight", Bowie eliminated Pop's original spoken word introduction, believing it an "idiosyncratic thing of [Pop's] that it seemed not part of my vocabulary". His cover, a duet with Tina Turner, is reggae-influenced; her vocals are placed low in the mix. Despite mostly being held in low regard, Kurt Loder of Rolling Stone at the time praised Bowie's version, calling it "one of the most vibrantly beautiful tracks he's ever recorded".
Side two "Neighborhood Threat" features a heavier guitar sound than Pop's original, although Pegg says that Bowie's version lacks the original's "doom-laden percussion and wall-of-sound atmospherics". Bowie himself later expressed regret covering the song, calling it "disastrous". "Blue Jean" is generally viewed as the best song on the album. It is an "uptempo throwback" to 1950s and 1960s artists, particularly Eddie Cochran. Later dubbed by Bowie as "sexist rock 'n' roll", Buckley calls it a "fine pop song", albeit "slightly run-of-the-mill by Bowie's standards".
"Tumble and Twirl" recounts Bowie and Pop's exploits while holidaying in Bali and Java at the conclusion of the Serious Moonlight Tour. Bowie felt that lyrically Pop's work stood out the most on the track. Pegg finds its music reminiscent of world music, which Bowie explored on 1979's Lodger. On the cover of "I Keep Forgettin", Bowie said at the time that he "always wanted to do that song". It is held in low regard by biographers. "Dancing with the Big Boys" is, according to Bowie, about the "little guy" being crushed by "oppressive corporate structures". The lyrics were taken from a backlog of unused lyrics. Containing many studio effects, Pegg says it foreshadows what Bowie would explore on 1987's Never Let Me Down. Bowie has said it is the "best example" of what he was trying to accomplish on Tonight:
Release Artwork