FEATURE:
Second Spin
Dannii Minogue - Neon Nights
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THIS album choice is quite relevant…
and timely, as Dannii Minogue’s 2003 album, Neon Nights, is twenty. There is an anniversary/reissue release that you can order. Originally released on 17th March, 2003, this was Minogue’s fourth studio album. Reaching the top ten in the U.K. and the top twenty-five in her native Australia, it seems like a good moment to put it back int eh spotlight! I would urge people to buy a vinyl copy of this album and give it a spin. Although it was applauded and celebrated in 2003, I am not sure how much it is played today. Do you hear tracks from this excellent album on the radio?! Maybe you will more now. Dannii Minogue has recently released We Could Be the One. A chart success that has sat alongside her sister Kylie’s Padam Padam, the Minogue sisters are in peak form! Dannii Minogue also presents the reality dating show, I Kissed a Boy. I always hear Dannii Minogue spoken about in comparison to her sister, but she is her own artist that does not copy or replicate what Kylie does. There is a difference. Neon Nights is an album that everyone should check out. This is what Rough Trade say about the new reissue of one of the best albums of 2003:
“First released in 2003, Neon Nights perfectly captured the dance-pop zeitgeist of its time. Propelled by a veritable pick and mix of the European dance production scene, the album spawned four UK Top 10 smashes with 'Who Do You Love Now?' (No.3), 'Put A Needle On It' (No.7), 'I Begin To Wonder’' (No.2) and 'Don't Wanna Lose This Feeling' (No.5). The album debuted at No.8 on the UK Official Albums Chart and was certified Gold, and in Dannii’s native Australia it was nominated for Best Pop Release at the 2003 ARIA Music Awards.
After Dannii’s previous album Girl had paved a blueprint for pop dance crossovers of the noughties, Dannii had parted ways with her label, and had not released music for almost half a decade. Dannii was philosophical then and now, “I knew the crazy world of music was not always fair, but I also knew I’d had amazing experiences and done a lot of awesome stuff. I didn’t think my music career was going to come back, and that was fine. I just thought: ‘Well, that was it.’”
Out of the blue, an invite from Pete Tong would provide an unexpected catalyst. As A&R at London Records, Tong asked Dannii to collaborate with Dutch duo Riva on a rework of their club hit ‘Stringer’. The resultant single ‘Who Do You Love Now?’, would be a worldwide smash.
The single’s success was infused with the dance energy of Ibiza, with many live gigs at iconic venues that were the start of great friendships with the mega Summer Residence DJs, Carl Cox and Roger Sanchez. Dannii was once again upfront and centre in both pop and club culture.
Dannii was signed up by London Records for an album deal and work on Neon Nights commenced. “With Girl, I was given wings,” Dannii says now of the recording process. “With Neon Nights, I was allowed to fly”.
There are a couple of features that I want to highlight before wrapping things up. Albumism recently marked twenty years of a wonderful album that is perhaps Dannii Minogue’s best work. She has not really lost a step or put a foot wrong since her Danniii /Love and Kisses of 1991. 2007’s Club Disco is her latest album. Let’s hope that there are more studio albums from her. Even if you are not familiar with Dannii Minogue., Neon Nights is a great starting point:
“At the time of its release in 1997, Girl presented Australian vocalist Dannii Minogue in top form. An energizing mix of dance and pop, her third studio album was meant to reposition Minogue commercially and critically. Though its reviews were promising, its sales were tepid. Still, Girl gave the singer many opportunities, touring and otherwise.
One such opportunity presented itself to Minogue in 2001. Approached by the Dutch disc jockey duo Zki and Dobri, also known collectively as Riva, Minogue was invited to provide vocals for a hot and heavy dancefloor track they had put together. Minogue took the gentlemen up on their offer and “Who Do You Love Now?” followed shortly thereafter in that same year. Audiences in Europe and beyond, both mainstream and underground, went crazy for the track.
Minogue's partnership with Riva was, without a doubt, enduring proof of her credibility—and marketability—in dance music circles. Minogue could have stayed comfortably nestled in that environment, but she was ready for the next step. With an acute working knowledge of dance genre principles cultivated over three albums, Minogue sought to plot a record that could bring these components together—but with a pop perspective.
Not long after “Who Do You Love Now?,” brainstorming for Neon Nights, Minogue's fourth studio long player, had gone into high gear. On Girl, the force behind its power was personal, but ironically, Minogue had relinquished its content construction to her creative team. Neon Nights saw Minogue put her hands back into shaping the songs, which were daring, indulging a side of Minogue that had previously only peeked around the corner of certain selections in her canon for those paying attention.
Now, given an entire album to express itself, this area of Minogue's performance psyche embraced the totality of her ego and her sexuality. She would wield these two aspects of herself through the album's assembled material. The songwriting and production personnel—notables including Ian Masterson, Terry Ronald, Hannah Robinson, Savan Kotecha, Henrik Korpi, Matthias “Blackcell” Johansson, Karen Poole and Jean-Claude Ades—were pivotal in working with Minogue to draft canvases suitable for this persona to come to life.
Neon Nights is a retro-contemporaneous fantasia, showcasing Minogue's encyclopedic awareness of dance music devices to incredible effect. Euro-disco, in a juicy assortment of colors and flavors, displays itself on “I Begin to Wonder” and “Come and Get It,” the latter a sly hidden track within the album's closing piece, the lone cool down number, “It Won't Work Out.” Minogue's enduring fascination with American aestheticism, as politely harvested from electro-funk, R&B and hip-hop origins, are accounted for on “Put the Needle on It” and “Creep.”
And while there are plenty of original sonics to feast upon here, Minogue's love of previously established jams is not disguised on Neon Nights. From the mesmeric interpolations of funk/jazz maestro Tom Browne's “Thighs High (Grip Your Hips and Move)” (on “Mighty Fine”) and avant garde futurists Laidback's “White Horse” (on “Push”), Minogue's tastes are first-rate.
Minogue, ensconced within her record's glowing rhythms and grooves, enjoyed her club siren transformation. The set's verses, bridges and hooks are dressed to the nines on “For the Record” and “Don't Wanna Lose This Feeling,” affirming Minogue's ability to integrate the finer points of pop lyricism into discothèque oriented song structures. Collectively recalling the floor filling vibes of Ibiza, London and New York City—in either 1985 or 2002—Neon Nights was ready to take club culture to the general public like never before.
Racking up three hits—“Put the Needle on It,” “I Begin to Wonder,” “Don't Wanna Lose This Feeling”—Neon Nights achieved gold certification in the United Kingdom. Sweetening her chart jackpot was the LP's critical consensus. Almost unanimously, the music press showed support in their assessment of Neon Nights as Minogue's breakout moment. Neon Nights was gorgeously reissued in 2007, packaged with a bountiful supply of B-sides, outtakes and remixes.
Twenty years later, Neon Nights remains a distinct dance-pop marker, its influence apparent to the discerning ear. Nowhere else could one come in contact with such a glamorously assembled gaggle of influences that cross decades and sounds to unite the hedonism of the dance floor with the accessibility of pop radio”.
I am going to wrap up with a review from AllMusic. Neon Nights has won plenty of adoration. Comparable with early/mid-2000s albums from Kylie Minogue and Madonna, Dannii Minogue’s strong and versatile vocals and songwriting is evident throughout. The sequencing is great too, so that the singles and bigger songs are nicely distributed and not all at the top or bottom:
“There's something about those Minogue sisters. No matter how many times they seem to be down for the count, a surprise comeback hit is always just around the corner. Dannii has never quite achieved the level of superstardom that sister Kylie has attained, but she has shown equal tenacity. Released in 1997, Girl may have been a commercial failure, but it succeeded in repositioning her as a sophisticated club artist rather than a B-list pop singer. That album caught on in the burgeoning trance scene of the mid-'90s, and Neon Nights partially follows that trend into the 2000s on tracks such as "Who Do You Love Now?," the out-of-nowhere comeback collaboration with Riva that gave Dannii the biggest hit of her career. However, Neon Nights is a more varied collection, a veritable pick and mix of the European dance scene at the turn of the century. Songs such as the sleazy "Put the Needle on It" and the pulsating "A Piece of Time" are pure electroclash, whereas the bouncy "For the Record" and "Mystified" caught on at the beginning of the major '80s revival that took off in a big way over the next few years. Despite the variety of influences, the album flows better than any of Dannii's albums have before, with only the overly crass "Vibe On" even approaching filler status.
Minogue is no faceless vocalist either; she infuses the tracks with her persona, sexually charged but smart and slightly aloof. There is a revelatory performance on the album's closing track and only ballad, "It Won't Work Out." Against a chilly, spare musical backing, Dannii delivers a heartfelt, unadorned vocal somewhat reminiscent of the best moments of Everything But the Girl. Although the album contains no cover versions, the success of the singles was augmented by the bootlegging craze. "I Begin to Wonder" was mashed with Dead or Alive's "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record") for the clubs, and "Don't Wanna Lose This Feeling" became the first track ever to be granted permission to sample from Madonna's "Into the Groove." These mixes helped these songs reach the widest audience of Minogue's career, topping U.S. club charts as well as those in the U.K. and Europe. Without a doubt the most confident and forward-thinking release yet for Dannii, it didn't quite make her the major star it should have, but it did give her the best run of hits of her career, and continued to show she was much more than the sum of her family name”.
Go and listen to the awesome Neon Nights. I always urge people to get the album on C.D. or vinyl is they can actually spin the thing and get that physical experience! Dannii Minogue’s 2003 album is perfect for these summer days and warm nights. With a reissue version about to come out, it will put this album right back in the spotlight. It is exactly where…
IT deserves to be.