Perfume -- NIGHT FLIGHT

For today’s article, I decided to talk about “NIGHT FLIGHT” by Perfume. It’s certainly my favorite song from them, and I will explain why through its description very soon.

First, some general informations. “NIGHT FLIGHT” is an album track from Perfume’s third album "Triangle", released in July 2009. But its chorus was revealed two or three months earlier in a Pino Chocolate commercial, which generated quite hype in Perfume’s fandom. I remember that I was kind of new to Perfume at the time, so “NIGHT FLIGHT” was “THE THING” I looked for in those very long months until its original release (I remember even downloading a fake Vocaloid version of the song from YouTube to fill my need of listening to it. Those were, indeed, magic times). The song was later included in “Perfume Global Compilation ‘LOVE THE WORLD’”, released in September 2012.

Here we can see the original Pino commercial featuring the song “NIGHT FLIGHT” and Perfume’s members. It’s a very cool CM with the girls wearing some classy stewardess’s clothes.

And just for curiosity, here’s the Vocaloid version that I mentioned above. As the original chorus and the whole vibe of the song were revealed in the commercial, the author of this version just added the verses, the bridge and some synth melodies. The result was a cool and different version of this gem. And as I told, it was in heavy rotation on my play list until the full original version leaked one week prior to the album’s release.

Like every other Perfume song and Yasutaka Nakata (中田 ヤスタカ) production, “NIGHT FLIGHT” is an overproduced song with killer hooks. This Technopop party starts with some 8-bit blips before introducing the dated synth notes that will accompany us in this crazy video-game plane trip. Together with the synth notes, the electronic and funky bass line is dropped just to remember us how fun this trip is going to be. Then Perfume enters the scene with the “Make a night flight… Have a nice flight” hook. The verses come just in sequence and then you just need to enjoy this trip full of 8-bits noises, catchy synth notes, a funky bass line and Perfume’s fresh vocals, manipulated, of course, by the mastermind Yasutaka Nakata.

Two more things are interesting enough to mention in the article. “NIGHT FLIGHT’s” bridge is very cool because it resembles the sound made by a real plane before exploding in the amazing combination of the same synth notes used since the beginning of the song and the funkier-than-ever bass line. And the final segment of the song is also a combination of Perfume’s chopped vocals with a different synth melody playing along the amazing arrangement used through the song.

In general, “NIGHT FLIGHT” is a very retro song, almost taken from the 80s. Its arrangement is an explicit homage to YMO (Yellow Magic Orchestra) and video-game music. Indeed, I discovered YMO after reading some comparisons between “NIGHT FLIGHT” and their sound.

The choreography for the song is very interesting too, as the girls act like stewardesses doing some typical things that a stewardess always does. You can take a look in the next video.

The video introduced above is my favorite “NIGHT FLIGHT” live performance. It’s from Perfume’s “Disco! Disco! Disco!” live concert held at Yoyogi National Gymnasium in May, 2009 (Regrets, but that video has been taken down...the above is another video). Also, the version featured in this concert is slightly different from the one released in the album. We can presume that it was Nakata’s first version of the song.

“NIGHT FLIGHT” was written, composed and arranged by Yasutaka Nakata (from shibuya-key and electronic duo “capsule”). As for the "Triangle" album, it ranked No. 1 on the weekly Oricon charts, and was the #20 best-selling album of 2009, selling over 331,000 copies (source: generasia).

To finish the article, here's a photo of my own copy of the limited edition of "Triangle".