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Released: November 1982


Rating: 4.621 (average of 9 ratings)


Genre: British folk


Quotable: --


Album Tracks:

  1. Don’t Renege on Our Love
  2. Walking on a Wire
  3. Man in Need
  4. Just the Motion
  5. Shoot Out the Lights
  6. Back Street Slide
  7. Did She Jump or Was She Pushed?
  8. Wall of Death


Sales (in millions):

sales in U.S. only --
sales in U.K. only - estimated --
sales in all of Europe as determined by IFPI – click here to go to their site. --
sales worldwide - estimated --


Peak:

peak on U.S. Billboard album chart --
peak on U.K. album chart --


Singles/Hit Songs:

  • --


Notes: The 2005 deluxe edition added bonus track “Living in Luxury.”


Awards:

Rated one of the top 1000 albums of all time by Dave’s Music Database. Click to learn more. Spin magazine – album of the year


Shoot Out the Lights
Richard & Linda Thompson
Review:
“Richard & Linda Thompson’s marriage was crumbling as they were recording Shoot Out the Lights in 1982, and many critics have read the album as a chronicle of the couple’s divorce. In truth, most of the album’s songs had been written two years earlier (when the Thompsons were getting along fine) for an abandoned project produced by Gerry Rafferty, and tales of busted relationships and domestic discord were always prominent in their songbook. But there is a palpable tension to Shoot Out The Lights which gives songs like Don’t Renege on Our Love and Did She Jump Or Was She Pushed? an edgy bite different from the Thompsons’ other albums together; there’s a subtle, unmistakable undertow of anger and dread in this music that cuts straight down to the bone. Joe Boyd’s clean, uncluttered production was the ideal match for these songs and their Spartan arrangements, and Richard Thompson’s wiry guitar work was remarkable, displaying a blazing technical skill that never interfered with his melodic sensibilities.” MD

“Individually, all eight of the album’s songs are striking (especially the sonic fireworks of the title cut, the beautiful drift of Just the Motion, and the bitter reminiscence of ‘Did She Jump Or Was She Pushed?’), and as a whole they were far more than the sum of their parts, a meditation on love and loss in which beauty, passion, and heady joy can still be found in defeat.” MD

“It’s ironic that Richard & Linda Thompson enjoyed their breakthrough in the United States with the album that ended their career together, but Shoot Out the Lights found them rallying their strengths to the bitter end; it’s often been cited as Richard Thompson's greatest work, and it’s difficult for anyone who has heard his body of work to argue the point.” MD


Review Source(s):


Last updated March 16, 2010.