Sleepless Nights is a 1982 album by English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 rock

Rock music

Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

 band Lindisfarne

Lindisfarne (band)

Lindisfarne were a British folk/rock group from Newcastle upon Tyne established in 1970 and fronted by singer/songwriter Alan Hull. Their music combined a strong sense of yearning with an even stronger sense of fun...

. It was the first album to be released on the group's own record label, and peaked at position 59 in the UK album charts.

Production

Sleepless Nights was produced and engineered by Stephen Lipson

Stephen Lipson

Stephen J. Lipson is a musician and producer who has worked with numerous artists, including Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Cher, Grace Jones, Paul McCartney, Pet Shop Boys, Take That, Simple Minds, Lindisfarne, and Annie Lennox....

. It was recorded at Ridge Farm Studio

Ridge Farm Studio

Ridge Farm Studio was one of the very first residential recording studios in the United Kingdom. The studio operated for over twenty five years as a residential recording studio...

, Chipping Norton Studio and Marquee Studios.

The album was the first to be released on Lindisfarne's own record label.

Chart performance, single releases and critical response

Sleepless Nights appeared in the UK album charts at #59 in October 1982. This proved to be the album's peak position, and it spent only three weeks in the chart.

Three tracks from the album were released as singles. The first, "I Must Stop Going To Parties", received a large amount of radio airplay but did not chart. It was followed by "Sunderland Boys" and "Nights", both of which proved unsuccessful.

The album received mixed reviews. Bruce Elder of Allmusic rated the album at only two out of five stars. Duke Egbert, writing for The Daily Vault, stated in a review of the 1999 live album Live At The Cambridge Folk Festival that he considered Sleepless Nights to be one of the "highlights of the band's career". In his 2004 BBC Radio 2

BBC Radio 2

BBC Radio 2 is one of the BBC's national radio stations and the most popular station in the United Kingdom. Much of its daytime playlist-based programming is best described as Adult Contemporary or AOR, although the station is also noted for its specialist broadcasting of other musical genres...

 review of The River Sessions, Clive Pownceby praised two tracks from the album, "Same Way Down" and "Nights".

Track listing

All tracks credited to Alan Hull except where indicated

1. "Nights"
2. "Start Again"
3. "Cruising to Disaster"
4. "Same way Down"
5. "Winning the Game" (Jackson/Harcourt)
6. "About You"
7. "Sunderland Boys" (Clements)
8. "Love Is a Pain"
9. "Do What I Want"
10. "Never Miss the Water"
11. "I Must Stop Going To Parties"
12. "Stormy Weather"

Personnel

• Alan Hull
  Alan Hull
  Alan Hull was an English singer-songwriter and founding member of the Tyneside folk rock band, Lindisfarne.-Career:...
  
   - vocals, acoustic, electric and 12-string guitars, keyboards
• Ray Jackson - vocals, mandolin, harmonica
• Rod Clements
  Rod Clements
  Rod Clements is a British guitarist and singer-songwriter.-Career:...
  
  - electric bass, acoustic, electric and 12-string guitars, violin
• Simon Cowe - lead, acoustic and 12-string guitars, mandolin, vocals
• Ray Laidlaw - drums