Night Flight by Justin Hayward (Album, Soft Rock): Reviews, Ratings, Credits, Song list - Rate Your Music
New Music Genres Charts Lists
Night Flight
.........
ArtistJustin Hayward
TypeAlbum
Released1980
RYM Rating 2.88 / 5.00.5 from 84 ratings
Ranked#1,490 for 1980
Genres
Descriptors

Track listing

  • A1 Night Flight
  • A2 Maybe It's Just Love
  • A3 Crazy Lovers
  • A4 Penumbra Moon
  • A5 Nearer to You
  • B1 A Face in the Crowd
  • B2 Suitcase
  • B3 I'm Sorry
  • B4 It's Not On
  • B5 Bedtime Stories

Rate/Catalog

Saving...
0.0
Catalog
In collection
On wishlist
Used to own
(not cataloged)
Set listening
Tags
Save
Review
Track ratings
To rate, slide your finger across the stars from left to right.
Issues

4 Issues

4 Issues

6 Reviews

The first question Night Flight raises is: why was this album ever made? I guess there were historical reasons, as always, and this time it may have been Justin Hayward's involvement in Jeff Wayne's massive War of the Worlds project. Justin gave his trademark vocal to the song "Forever Autumn", which became a hit, and Mr. Wayne ended up producing his album and writing a couple of songs for it. Hence, it was clear that Night Flight would not consist of Justin's own compositions only; and that may have been why he liked the thought of bringing some other guest or cover material in as well. But... come on. Justin Hayward, who I would name one of the fucking best songwriters ever. In the 1970s, even on a worse day, he might have written better material than "Bedtime Stories" (by Colin Still), which closes the album. I don't even mean that "Bedtime Stories" is specially bad, while none of the tracks on Night Flight is actually bad, it is just confusingly average.

The album was recorded during 1979, so it is no surprise that there is a notable disco influence on a couple of tracks. That is not a bad thing in itself, but the disco-tinged title track (by Jeff Wayne and Paul Vigrass), which opens the album, is not at all one of the best tracks here. The following songs are obviously better, disregarding if they are Justin Hayward originals or not. There are four of those on Night Flight, and every one is either quite good or very good. "It's Not On" (by Wayne and Gary Osborne) is one of the better tracks as well. Eventually, a listener like me must admit that Night Flight is an OK album, much better than average, even better than decent... but still, I am not sure at all why this album had to be made.
Published
ADVERTISEMENT
Hayward as a slick 'disco boy'. A couple interesting songs among generic fodder.
Published
Definitely has a disco vibe!! Best song: Nearer to You
Published
A lighter, safer version of Songwriter. Basically, Night Flight is more boring than that album. Makes me want to pop in a Moody's album to get the bad taste out of my mouth.
Published
Suitcase is my favourite Justin Hayward solo track. The melody is perhaps not that sophisticated, but the instrumentation and the harmonies (especially the unexpected C7 harmony in one futher chorus) carry the song splendidly through. Notably, he played all the instruments himself on this one. And this seems the best produced solo Hayward, he complained about Jeff Wayne having him reach a hundred takes, but it was ultimately worth it (my favourite trick is the separation of two acoustic guitar picking across the stereo channels in Maybe It's Just Love, hey, that's pretty innovative too. As the other reviewers pointed out, not all the songs are up to the Suitcase standards. Sometimes it is the outside writers who are to blame (I'm Sorry by Hall/Oates is plain hideous) but such a self-penned song as Nearer To You is alsow much below par. Generally the more uptempo and disco-drenched, the worse the track. Apart from Suitcase, the songs I regard as good are Crazy Lovers, Maybe It's Just Love (by Mike Silver) and It's Not On (by Jeff Wayne/Gary Osbourne). Penumbra Moon and A Face in the Crowd are also decent enough. And it's a spine-shivering pleasure to hear Justin Hayward still in strong voice effortlessly reaching the high A note on the title track.
Published
Very uneven, but "Suitcase" and "Crazy Lovers" are great songs
Published
Votes are used to help determine the most interesting content on RYM.

Vote up content that is on-topic, within the rules/guidelines, and will likely stay relevant long-term.
Vote down content which breaks the rules.

Catalog

Ratings: 84
Cataloged: 94
Track rating sets:Track ratings: 5
Rating distribution
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 >>
27 May 2024
sensus Owned2.50 stars For fans
  • 2.50 stars A1 Night Flight
  • 3.00 stars A2 Maybe It's Just Love
  • 3.00 stars A3 Crazy Lovers
  • 3.00 stars A4 Penumbra Moon
  • 2.50 stars A5 Nearer to You
  • 2.50 stars B1 A Face in the Crowd
  • 2.50 stars B2 Suitcase
  • 2.50 stars B3 I'm Sorry
  • 2.50 stars B4 It's Not On
  • 2.50 stars B5 Bedtime Stories
23 Jul 2023
28 Apr 2023
fabricioxviii  2.50 stars Medíocre. 5/10
  • 4.50 stars A1 Night Flight
  • 4.00 stars A2 Maybe It's Just Love
  • 3.50 stars A3 Crazy Lovers
  • 3.50 stars A4 Penumbra Moon
  • 2.50 stars A5 Nearer to You
  • 2.00 stars B1 A Face in the Crowd
  • 2.00 stars B2 Suitcase
  • 1.50 stars B3 I'm Sorry
  • 2.50 stars B4 It's Not On
  • 1.50 stars B5 Bedtime Stories
28 Mar 2023
26 Oct 2022
verymuddy Vinyl2.00 stars
29 Nov 2021
Peter_Quint  3.00 stars
  • 3.00 stars A1 Night Flight
  • 4.00 stars A2 Maybe It's Just Love
  • 3.50 stars A3 Crazy Lovers
  • 3.50 stars A4 Penumbra Moon
  • 3.00 stars A5 Nearer to You
  • 3.00 stars B1 A Face in the Crowd
  • 3.00 stars B2 Suitcase
  • 2.50 stars B3 I'm Sorry
  • 3.00 stars B4 It's Not On
  • 2.50 stars B5 Bedtime Stories
10 Oct 2021
albaneso  2.00 stars
  • 2.00 stars A1 Night Flight
  • 2.00 stars A2 Maybe It's Just Love
  • 2.00 stars A3 Crazy Lovers
  • 2.00 stars A4 Penumbra Moon
  • 2.00 stars A5 Nearer to You
  • 2.00 stars B1 A Face in the Crowd
  • 2.00 stars B2 Suitcase
  • 2.00 stars B3 I'm Sorry
  • 2.00 stars B4 It's Not On
  • 2.00 stars B5 Bedtime Stories
5 Oct 2021
AndyCook Vinyl3.00 stars
15 Mar 2021
Ears_Of_Tin  2.50 stars Some redeeming qualities
16 Oct 2020
zrox Vinyl3.50 stars
17 Feb 2020
Esherlock Vinyl2.00 stars
9 Oct 2019
gabol_poet  4.50 stars Ótimo / Pretty Good
  • 5.00 stars A1 Night Flight
  • 5.00 stars A2 Maybe It's Just Love
  • 4.00 stars A3 Crazy Lovers
  • 4.00 stars A4 Penumbra Moon
  • 5.00 stars A5 Nearer to You
  • 5.00 stars B1 A Face in the Crowd
  • 4.00 stars B2 Suitcase
  • 4.00 stars B3 I'm Sorry
  • 5.00 stars B4 It's Not On
  • 4.00 stars B5 Bedtime Stories
23 Sep 2019
ph9  2.50 stars
29 Jul 2019
Flight401 Vinyl5.00 stars
26 May 2019
Henk56 Vinyl3.50 stars
.........
ADVERTISEMENT

Track listing

  • A1 Night Flight
  • A2 Maybe It's Just Love
  • A3 Crazy Lovers
  • A4 Penumbra Moon
  • A5 Nearer to You
  • B1 A Face in the Crowd
  • B2 Suitcase
  • B3 I'm Sorry
  • B4 It's Not On
  • B5 Bedtime Stories
ADVERTISEMENT

Contributions

Contributors to this release: Ellison, CurtisLoew, Maribor, PC_Music
Log in to submit a correction or upload art for this release
.........