I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight
| I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by Richard and Linda Thompson | ||||
| Released | April 1974 | |||
| Recorded | May 1973 at Sound Techniques, Chelsea, London | |||
| Genre | Folk rock | |||
| Length |
36:55 (original) 53:26 (2004 reissue) |
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| Label | Island | |||
| Producer | Richard Thompson, John Wood | |||
| Richard and Linda Thompson chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |
 |
| Robert Christgau | A− |
| Q | |
| Rolling Stone |
 |
| The Rolling Stone Album Guide |
|
| Spin Alternative Record Guide | (10/10) |
I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight is the second album released by Richard Thompson and the first including and credited with his then wife, Linda Thompson as Richard and Linda Thompson. It was released by Island Records in the UK in 1974. Although never commercially successful and critically ignored upon its release, it is now considered by a number of critics to be a masterpiece and one of the finest works of both Richard and Linda singularly or together.
The album has been included on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
After the marked lack of success achieved by his first album, Henry the Human Fly, British singer/songwriter/guitarist Richard Thompson started a personal and professional relationship with Linda Peters, a session singer.I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight was the first album by the duo of Richard and Linda Thompson.
Sessions for the album took place in Spring 1973 at the Sound Techniques studio, in Chelsea, London with house engineer John Wood co-producing with Thompson. The album, provisionally titled Hokey Pokey, was recorded on a shoestring budget in a matter of days, but because of vinyl shortages, the album was not released until 1974.
Where his first album was treated harshly by the critics, the second was eventually hailed as a masterpiece. it is now regarded as a classic of English folk rock and one of the Thompsons' finest achievements.
In the sleeve notes for the 2004 CD re-release, David Suff writes: "Throughout the album Richard's sombre, dark songs are driven by his masterful understated guitar and Linda's haunting spiritual vocals. The songs detail a beautiful yet desolate world of life before the fall, the lives of the homeless, the thief and the inebriate. The songs are thoroughly English in their mood and responsibility, wry observations of the hopelessness of the human condition." Considering the song "End of the Rainbow", Suff writes:
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