User:Mrs. Hastings/sandbox/Drew Hacks/Studio 5

Gathering Night is the fifth studio album by American singer Drew Hacks. It was released on May 13, 2032, through Columbia Records, being the singer's final project under the record label. In August 2030, Hacks founded a recording studio named A|Diamond Joint in Los Angeles. The album's recording began that month and lasted until April 2031. Throughout the nine months, the singer crafted over 60 songs, twelve of which were selected to the album's final cut. Beyond songwriting and production duties, Hacks also served as the project's sole executive producer and laid the foundation for the visual identity by himself, before it was taken over by creative director Jacob Bixenman. Hacks worked only with previous collaborators and featured Rina Sawayama, Pabllo Vittar, Beyoncé, and Janelle Monáe as guest vocalists and lyricists.

For Gathering Night, the singer intended to distance himself from the romance- or adulthood-centered concepts of his previous releases, and develop a "partying" persona inspired by musical acts from the 2000s, including Kesha, Katy Perry, and LMFAO, among others. Hacks' experience with his fourth studio album Vertigo Truth (2028) and its second accompanying tour paved his visual restructuring. As a result, the lyrical content of Gathering Night deals with subjects related to nocturnal activities, such as partying, dancing, recreational drug use, alcoholic beverages, and mild friendships, as well as sexual practices, including intercourse and masturbation. Musically, it is an electropop album which mainly presents electronic instrumentation and non-musical elements, such as heartbeats, claps, and ambient sounds.

The album's lead single, "A|Tasty Things" was released in March 2032 to positive critical and commercial response; it peaked at number one in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Europe, and 27 other regions. "A|Liquefying" featuring Beyoncé was issued after the album's release; it also performed favorably in the charts, peaking atop the US, and was subject of critical acclaim. The third single, "A|Calm the Fuck Down" featuring Sawayama and Vittar, was released in July 2032 and met with lukewarm sales. The following singles, "A|Endless Moon" featuring Monáe and "A|Night's Wrapped", were issued in September and November, both to favorable critical and commercial reception. The Gathering Night Tour took place between August 2032 and May 2033.

Upon its release, Gathering Night was critically acclaimed by music journalism for its songwriting, production, concept, featured acts (particularly Beyoncé), and overall presentation. Many reviewers singled out Hacks' ability to transform the partying lifestyle, considered to be "more mainstream" and "less artistic", into an conceptual, deep and well done approach. Several critics deemed it one of Hacks' best albums. Gathering Night debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200, becoming Hacks' fourth consecutive album to do so. By the end of 2032, it had sold over 2.8 million copies in the United States, making it the best-selling album of the year in the country, and it was the second-best-selling album of the year, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), with 3 million copies sold worldwide.