pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

I know the whole authentic/inauthentic distinction has been deconstructed to oblivion but I still fail to grasp how The Blue Nile is in any way comparable to Talk Talk, pace a shared zeitgeist. Beyond Paul Buchanan's voice, which ensures that the proceedings remain somewhat bearable, there's nothing compositionally interesting going on in Hats: the melodies are awkwardly predictable, doubly so due to the prevalence of slow tempos throughout (incidentally not a problem in and of itself), and in no way is the limited timbral palette ever deployed in a resourceful manner. I absolutely love, say, Avalon but still found Hats to be pretty fucking kitschy, or is that the whole appeal at this point? I also relistened to some Sade to check if I've come to despise 80s sophisti-pop altogether and, if anything, it made me want to further explore her (their?) catalogue.

I can listen to Hats a lot more often than I can take Spirit of Eden - even if the latter in many ways seem the greater musical accomplishment

i think he was lol-ing because that was some turrican-level elevating personal taste to the level of objective truth

― porg and bess (voodoo chili), Monday, January 8, 2018 1:53 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ahh ilx is now forbidden from suggesting one artist might have a more consistent catalog than another

Imo that argument more reflects a misplaced faith in the existing canon’s impartiality than it does some sort of neutral statement about me being “biased”

the reason why they're coming back into consciousness these days is because a lot of currently popular and acclaimed bands cite them as a major influence, not because they're objectively a lot better than bad brains or whoever

it's hard to say bc i'm so, like, long gone in the kitsch woods, i'll never resurface, but even when i was getting into the blue nile the appeal was not kitsch. i can't even tell if they are kitschy? there's an earnestness in buchanan's voice and in the long glowing chords which could be confused for kitsch i guess? but even then it's like a deeply remote earnestness, like the lifelong accumulation of one's feelings about the moon transposed to music. but also i bristle at "there's nothing compositionally interesting going on in hats," like, there's economy and precision in the way those songs are designed even though they are overflowing with feeling. is that not compositionally interesting? (also this pre-hats but "not compositionally interesting" isn't as easily applied to something like "from rags to riches," i think)

hey btw was there ever a succesful ilm attempt at determining why x artist was popular at a given time?

I don't know, the faux-string orchestra buildup in 'Over the Hillside' makes me cringe (I say this as someone who mostly listens to classical music) and that nasal, overly simplistic synth riff after the initial chimes in 'The Downtown Lights' made me laugh. Nice voice, though – that's not the 'kitschy' part, as far as I'm concerned.

xp

I like love the Blue Nile just as they are, but some days I am a tiny bit sad that they weren’t actually a collaboration between the bands Blue and Nile

The sustained intensity of "The Downtown Lights" is quite something, not a/c at all

lol at "not because they're objectively a lot better than bad brains or whoever"

see what I'm saying?

oh wait, misread

the reason why they're coming back into consciousness these days is because a lot of currently popular and acclaimed bands cite them as a major influence, not because they're objectively a lot better than bad brains or whoever

― porg and bess (voodoo chili), Monday, January 8, 2018 3:21 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

of course there's no objective truth about who's more consistent than who but if there's a style of music which is ignored by critics even though its best proponents are, lets say 'on par' with bad brains then yes they're going to get more attention w the distance of time

i didn't really mean bad brains, as a random example idk the teardrop explodes i remember hearing super music nerd ppl talking about like they were a big deal maybe a decade ago but come on they're not on blue nile's level. there's prob some other obvious examples

you guys act like your idea of what's taken seriously is detached from subjectivity even though you'll be dismissive of some artists & enthusiastic about others, we argue all the time on here that x album is better than y, i don't see why it's off the table to suggest blue nile might have been underrated relative to their quality for a long time! except that you think its a Conspiracy that pitchfork likes them now

also i dont care about any of the indie bands that apparently have taken their influence from blue nile & that stuff had zero bearing on why I personally got into them

I don't know, the faux-string orchestra buildup in 'Over the Hillside' makes me cringe (I say this as someone who mostly listens to classical music) and that nasal, overly simplistic synth riff after the initial chimes in 'The Downtown Lights' made me laugh. Nice voice, though – that's not the 'kitschy' part, as far as I'm concerned.

xp

― pomenitul, Monday, January 8, 2018 3:39 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ppl laugh at sincere things bc they make them uncomfortable

the sincerity of blue nile codes to me as a kind of aesthetic bravery, a vulnerability, which is Cool but often tends to seem so more in retrospect

I agree wholeheartedly but I don't hear that at all in The Blue Nile. So that's not what made me chuckle. 'It's all subjective anyway', etc.

d-40 OTM - subjectivity is the name of the game. unless you're so and so

had not heard the album until now -- this is basically sophisti-coldplay

lol jesus

MC LOL Jesus.

how are we loling now

Somewhere between ILM and the rest of the internet.

Listening to the album for the first time now myself - the first song sounds like something that would play on Miami Vice while Sonny Crockett has neon-lit sex with a woman you know is gonna die before the end of the episode.

Kaths

nice takes itt

it wasn't even as much of a diss as it probably sounds! just if you told me that this was a new Coldplay single I would believe you

i was having a lot of trouble actually expressing how i feel about hats earlier so here's a tim f post that is prob still the best thing i've ever read about the blue nile Blue Nile Poll: A Walk Across The Rooftops or Hats?

like, to my ears, this is at least as close to the album as the xx or Jessie Ware are, even before correcting for ~30 years of changes in production trends https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnLNG0WnGsI

sounds a lot like their first two records with the edges taken off

Coldplay sound way more u2ish to me still, i don’t think it’s entiiiirely off or something but

i think he was lol-ing because that was some turrican-level elevating personal taste to the level of objective truth

― porg and bess (voodoo chili), Monday, January 8, 2018 1:53 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This logic, incidentally, explains a lot of the conversations in the rap threads on this board as well

not sure what you're getting at, but ok

In other news, pitchfork does celeb gossip now

https://pitchfork.com/news/lena-dunham-and-jack-antonoff-break-up/?mbid=homepage-more-latest-and-video

Oh wonderful, another Blue Nile discussion.

Turrican doesn't like Blue Nile tho...

― niels, Monday, January 8, 2018 8:15 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I fully expect the Blue Nile doesn't like Turrican either so it's all good

― ♫ very clever with maracas.jpg ♫ (Le Bateau Ivre), Monday, January 8, 2018 8:16 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I've never met the Blue Nile and vice versa, but if I did I'd ask them how they'd feel about injecting some excitement into their music for a change. I imagine it wouldn't go down well, but that wouldn't be my problem.

Roxy Music's Avalon has everything the Blue Nile albums but does it so much better that it isn't even funny.

i don't see why it's off the table to suggest blue nile might have been underrated relative to their quality for a long time! except that you think its a Conspiracy that pitchfork likes them now

completely otm

not to derail thread from the topic of Blue Nile, but kinda curious about how the idea of a p4k conspiracy works these days - anyone know if there's a strong editorial team working to make the site appear to favor a certain aesthetics? I know a lot of posters write reviews there and participate in polls, but never got the feeling they were under any obligation to comply with "p4k rules"

A conspiracy that starts with the subtle promotion of the blue nile

I want to believe

haha, yeah

ilx still gonna ilx in 2018

Don't think anyone suggested a conspiracy, just some speculation about what inspired this particular Sunday Review. Idk why it's so strange to suggest that Blue Nile's recent critical re-evaluation might spring from the group's unusual influence on modern pop/indie. I mean, isn't that a major reason why bands' reputations grow over time?

By unusual, I mean "disproportionate influence based on their popularity/critical regard during their own era"

Did ILM cause this Blue Nile re-evaluation?

K3vin went to considerable and admirable lengths tbh

Idk why it's so strange to suggest that Blue Nile's recent critical re-evaluation might spring from the group's unusual influence on modern pop/indie

prob bc i don't know what these acts are beyond jessie ware and the 1975

Here's what it says in the review:

But just as Big Star became a symbol for the fame-averse underdog ideals of ’90s indie rock, the Blue Nile have proven newly influential. You can hear their heavenly chill on recent albums by Destroyer; their lowercase romance in the xx; their intense intimacy in Majical Cloudz. When Buchanan joined Jessie Ware to co-write a track on last year’s Glasshouse, it became clear how his band’s work had been reflected in pop music’s patient, moody turns

ah lol that's right, i def read that review

I definitely remember reading references to Hats in the early 2000s as a masterpiece, one of the best albums ever made etc, I think it's always been the case that people who liked then *really* liked them

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