29 March 2003
I don’t remember ‘Tonight’ by Westlife. However, I see that it was only number one for a week; clearly ‘Tonight’ didn’t land the same pop-cultural clout as those other Westlife chart-toppers you love. This means it’s more likely I didn’t know ‘Tonight’ in the first place. So, my long-standing modus operandi in such cases is that I listen to the unknown song LIVE as I write this. Expectations? Default low given those involved, but beyond that I’m also getting mixed signals: the lads wear dark suits on the sleeve above but early-’00s pre-faded bootcut jeans in the video thumbnail below. Ponderous grown-up vacuous ballad, or poppy teen vacuous ballad? Let’s find out!
[One listen later]
What was I thinking: of course this is yet another ponderous Westlife grown-up ballad, this time in the US country-AOR idiom, about the joys of life-sentence couplehood. Westlife Man has kicked off a domestic, probably by pissing all over the toilet seat again, and to row back he tells the party of the second part to “put your best dress on” – it’s date night, babes! And make sure it isn’t your second-best dress either: I don’t need you making a show of me again at the pub while I’m watching the match on the big screen over your shoulder. Even for Westlife this is dreary, drizzly stuff. Points of interest in the video include some bad-even-for-early-’00s haircut choices: Mark with a bleach-blonde buzz-cut, Brian with a voluminous dark dye, Nicky growing it long out the back, Shane brushing forward a negligible fringe. All with their matching pre-faded bootcut jeans! God, the early ’00s were bleak.
