__NOTOC__ "Tighten Up" is a song by the

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

band Electronic. Written, performed and produced by its two members Bernard Sumner and

Johnny Marr John Martin Marr (Birth name#Maiden and married names, né Maher; born 31 October 1963) is a musician, songwriter and singer. He first achieved fame as the guitarist and co-songwriter of the Smiths, who were active from 1982 to 1987. He has sinc ...

, it appeared as the third track on their debut album '' Electronic'' in May 1991 and was also a promotional single in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. Donald Johnson from A Certain Ratio contributed

drums The drum is a member of the percussion instrument, percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophones, membranophone. Drums consist of at least one Acoustic membrane, membrane, c ...

to the song. Combining

electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external electric Guitar amplifier, sound amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar. It uses one or more pickup (music technology), pickups ...

s with a bouncy

synthesiser A synthesizer (also synthesiser or synth) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...

riff A riff is a short, repeated motif or figure in the melody or accompaniment of a musical composition. Riffs are most often found in rock music, punk, heavy metal music, Latin, funk, and jazz, although classical music is also sometimes based ...

, "Tighten Up" is representative of the ''Electronic'' album. When issued as a promo in the USA it reached #6 on ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertis ...

Modern Rock Tracks Alternative Airplay (formerly known as Modern Rock Tracks between 1988 and 2009, and Alternative Songs between 2009 and 2020) is a music chart published in the American magazine ''Billboard'' since September 10, 1988. It ranks the 40 most-playe ...

chart. " Feel Every Beat" would become the next ''physical'' single release worldwide. The single edit is one minute shorter than the album version; the opening bars and the instrumental section are both edited. The song also fades out on a loop whereas the original has a hard ending.

Critical response

Writing in ''

Melody Maker ''Melody Maker'' was a British weekly music magazine, one of the world's earliest music weeklies; according to its publisher, IPC Media, the earliest. In January 2001, it was merged into "long-standing rival" (and IPC Media sister publicatio ...

'', Paul Lester described the song as "the devastating marriage of Smiths guitars and New Order technology that nervously excited fans the globe over were anticipating from Electronic. Imagine a sublime splicing of ' Bigmouth Strikes Again' and 'Dream Attack', then multiply by 12". In ''Vox'' Keith Cameron wrote: "'Tighten Up' gives Marr a chance to relive The Smiths' halcyon days with an exhilarating semi-acoustic dynamism".feel every beat
/ref> Illusionist

David Copperfield ''David Copperfield''Dickens invented over 14 variations of the title for this work; see is a novel by English author Charles Dickens, narrated by the eponymous David Copperfield, detailing his adventures in his journey from infancy to matur ...

used the song during his live shows when he would leave the stage to look for audience members to participate in his show.

Track listing

# Single edit – 3:36 # Album version – 4:37

Charts

References

External links

feel every beat (unofficial website)

{{Electronic (band) Electronic (band) songs 1991 singles Songs written by Bernard Sumner Songs written by Johnny Marr 1990 songs