The Blue Nile: C or D?

'Hats' consolidated the debut, practically down to the track listing, but suffered from having Phil Collins' recommendation stickered to the front. 'Saturday night' was an epic transfiguration of the commonplace, a pop Les Parapluis du Cherbourg, and the kind of song Brett Anderson would like to write in his Scott Walker moments if a) he had clue and b) a few thousand years in which to try.

The last lp - Peace at last? - is very disappointing. The cinemascope sheen was replaced with acoustic guitars, the singing had all gone a bit Michael Bolton, and yes the sleeve was terrible. Maybe this is what happens when you go out with Rosanna Arquette. It seemed to bear out all those who'd had them pegged as some MOR monstrosity, a Dire Straits in waiting. A couple of songs - 'Family Life', 'Tomorrow Morning' - might be worth downloading, but the rest of it is a bit bleh.

My favorite performance by Mr. Wossname who is the singer is actually his turn on the version of "Let's Go Out Tonight" -- I think that's the song -- on Craig Armstrong's first album.

Recommendations... A Walk Across The Rooftops has "Tinseltown In The Rain" which is one of my favourite love songs ever, but Hats is the better album, with about five perfect songs on it. Amazing how similar they are though, despite the six-year gap (there's your big difference to Talk Talk - these guys stumbled upon a vision of perfection early on and stuck with it).

the second is all concerned with the death of love/getting older/etc. eg - 'i'm tired of crying on the staiiiirs...'

it's kind of a godfather/godfather part 2 deal. and all they're bestheard back to back

(okay truthfully I can see the connection at least with Bark Psychosis, but it always seemed to me that The Blue Nile represented the "other half" of BP's source material). Hats multiplied by Spirit Of Eden = Hex.

one) You won’t like them. A Walk Across The Rooftops contains slap bass, trite lyrics on the debris of relationships, pans from (yawn) Coppola’s One From the Heart into (yawn) Paris, Texas, sung by Springsteen impersonating Sinatra. Hats has two white reggae tracks, gated snares, repeated use of the word ‘baby’, yes, is ‘lush’, ‘cinematic’ and MOR. Annie Lennox and Rod Stewart have covered their songs. Phil Collins endorses them.

two) I don’t like American Music Club, John Cale, Talking Heads, Rickie Lee Jones or The Cars either.

three) Men in American books tend to wear hats.

four) Katy (my girlfriend) was in a philosophy class and, as the hush of young students began to stifle and choke, the teacher, by way of gesture, mentioned the best class he ever had occurred when Paul Buchanan, ‘you probably haven’t heard of him’, suggested they talk about love.

five) No-one has registered the scientific unproveability of ‘love’ in song more heart-rendingly than Paul Buchanan: singing “how do I know you feel it?”, just moments from loss, or the frustrated ‘I can only tell you’ of “do I love you? YES I love you!”

six) What do you say when three years into a relationship the only things holding you together is the fear of breaking the ties you’ve built in the outside world as a unit? When an offer of tea is the only lull in the silence? “Let’s go out tonight”, one last time, meet up with the ghost of your happiness, it can be the same again, you will dance, for one night, oh to bed the same different woman every night, and leave the relationship strafed with cigarette burns and headaches in, alone.

seven) Such compassionate pop. During Hats, the band’s lives were fragmenting and none of them felt they had any support around them, it would have been so easy to become insular and dismissive of others in such a situation.

eight) Below a peat sky, her hair is scraped through with coral orange and tickles of grey, and a smell of moist pollen sewn into the webs of her fingers. Scotland’s inability to say Carl strains a last laugh out from her, smoke knuckles through our hair, as the aftertaste of other men places her lips and her eyes’ slow moulder.

nine) You will like them. A Walk Across the Rooftops is a deeply emotional water, Buchanan a child lost in the weave of a Frank O’Hara poem. Hats refuses Don Paterson’s cycnicism of romance and insists on the transcendental of the ordinary and of the journey, the pressure difference.

!) I think romanticism suggests this sense of wilfully not having it all, leaving that one bit back, the whole, the mysterious ‘last’ that can never be reached, romanticism is the journey to try and attain that that you’re purposefully denying yourself. I have never listened to their third record, I most probably never will.

or it could be a disaster too i suppose.

''(Haha, Julio, that's where I nicked my structure, but I guess it was alright cos I think he nicked the turn from the X Y Zedd post on the 'What if Punk Never Happened?' thread).''

I just thought i had seen something like that. but yr post is triffic in its own way.

Yes! "If You're Not The One" works in exactly the same way as the peerless "Tinseltown In The Rain" ie. a "generic" love song rendered strange and fascinating by the force and peculiarity of its emotional over-investment.

Although Cozen you should really check out that there new Coloma album which is almost self-consciously an update of The Blue Nile for the post-glitch generation. As with The Blue Nile it's svelte literary studio-pop that feels like all the sound-politics have been surgically removed (eg. this is click-pop only because, well, why not if it sounds good? cf. Schneider TM's "The Light 3000") so I imagine that in a decade or so it'll have that same lovely timeless-datedness as TBN's first two albums have. It's very much like A Walk Across The Rooftops in particular. Much better than their first album.

I saw him on 'today with des & mel'.

I figured out why I like Daniel Bedingfield earlier. Or one aspect. I remembered something Frank Kogan said to me about how he really liked the way that I wasn't scared to be overwrought when the usual rock-crit approach is to come across all Ed Casual (hehe, what's Frank's e-mail address again?). I suppose I see a lot of myself in Daniel. All thing considered, a juxtaposition of poets might be in order:

Everywhere he saw his own image, -
his perfect face...

When he rode out of the city, the people
gathered to admire him: a ribbon
of faces, fixed on this one face
and haunted by its indifference. They said:
'as beautiful as a painting', and we
feel a chill cast across these years
for we know there is another painting
that does not hang in any gallery

- John Ash

I like you so much I'm acting stupid
I can't play the game I'm all intense and alive
I'm losing control of my heart
I'm not supposed to be this nervous
I should play my hand all cool and calm
I can't breathe
I'm losing control of my heart

- Daniel Bedingfield

I was trying to think of more music from the eighties that fits into this area of explicitly emotional quasi-dance pop, but I couldn't get far beyond The Hounds of Love. Any ideas?

Associates surely fit this description.

But Tim is OTM regarding Tinseltown being a lost dance classic, I certainly remember hearing it in clubs in Dundee in the mid-80's. Apparently they had some of their work from Hats remixed by Oakenfold (or some other name remixer), but they nixed it on hearing it. Now that I'd like to hear.

Where did the up and happy songs go, then? Left to rot as demos?

I don't think I'd have the bare-faced gall to actually talk to the man though.

It feels a bit criminal to actually listen to the Blue Nile at this time of year though, like I'm going to shatter the mood.

1. The only track I know is 'I Love This Life', which the Nipper gave me. The Nipper is right about it.

2. Cozen's big post above is indeed good, and indeed structurally resembles one of mine. But no, I didn't take my own structure from anyone else.

3. Whether or not the Bedingfield link is apt, I don't think 'emotional overinvolvement' etc is necessarily the key to 'If You're Not The One': what woke me up to that track was simply the rare quality of its tune.

that's "heatwave" but "stay close" is up there

I was delighted by “I” on first listen.

I’m just sitting here listening to “here come the bluebirds” and trying to keep it together

wow @ "big town". love these!

^^^^ that song and the two remixes of album tracks seem to pick on a specific vibe of steve reich disco that they otherwise never really revisited after "Rags to Riches", and I'm loving this unexpected gift.

Mail delivered. Listening to disc 2 now. "Here Comes the Bluebirds" is beautiful. Reminds me of PAL's b-sides, "O Lolita", "Wish Me Well" and "New York Man".

I'm really appreciating this reissue, it's made me reconnect with High which, if you asked me right now, I'd say is my second favorite after Hats; plus, these new songs are amazing, particularly Wasted (is that new? or was it a b-side I'd just never heard?). I've ordered the vinyl but I wish they'd pull together the bonus tracks from all of these and put that out by itself.

that remix of Days of Our Lives turns it into a Security-era Peter Gabriel track

I’m struggling to find antecedents for “bluebirds” and, especially, “i”, parts of which almost seem closer to 70s singer-songwriter stuff than anything they’ve done. other parts remind me a little of “christmas” and “from a late night train”

Thank you for turning me into 'It's Immaterial'! It's a shame the Song album is not in Spotify. This is probably the closest thing I've heard to the Blue Nile. Not as elegant and missing some of the great synth work but still pretty close.

It might be recency bias but I'd even say this 'Song' album is better than any Blue Nile album that is not Hats..

that meme format where you post one smiling image and one frowny image:

"new" unreleased blue nile songs - smile
high era - frown

shit I gotta get my act together and hear this

xpost: nothing wrong with high era!!!

also, looks like I slept too long on getting Peace at Last on vinyl since it's sold out everywhere and the few copies I can find are over $100. guess I can live without it.

pretty curious to me that “here come the bluebirds” couldn’t find a place on high, seems like a pretty perfect bridge between that record and mid air. a really fitting closer

“i” I sort of get how it doesn’t really fit, parts of it are very hats (the other one it reminds me of is “saturday night”) and the retrain is much more later-period. I’m still on the fence about whether the song really holds together — it’s bursting with really affecting moments and motifs but I just feel like it switches up a little too much to be as effective as it could be

“big town”, as tim says, is straight out of a walk across the rooftops. (tim is always right about the blue nile)

dammit you guys i have zero money to spend on recreational stuff right now and you all just keep talking this stuff up.

off to start a new thread: THE BLUE NILE RULES

I’m just sitting here listening to “here come the bluebirds” and trying to keep it together

― k3vin k., Tuesday, June 16, 2020 5:07 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

<3

'I' and 'Bluebirds' are plain amazing imo. What a gift.

i haven't gotten to the new tracks yet but man, high sure is a great album

i love how propulsive "broken loves" and "she saw the world" are, it felt new for them

yeah those are a couple of my faves. the propulsive-ness of “she saw the world” kind of anticipates “buy a motor car”

i can’t believe i have “new” blue nile music to enjoy nor can i believe it’s so good. “i” just knocked me flat today

yeah I just want to retract all my reservations about “i”

Just got the vinyl reissue of High in the mail. It sounds fantastic. The title track still kills me.

also thanks to all of this I just discovered the track Paul Buchanan wrote on Jesse Ware's Glasshouse, Last of the True Believers, which is wonderful, but I really wish he was 'featured' on more than one line repeated twice in the last 30 seconds. I guess he cowrote it though and it sounds like it.

lol that would contradict the credits i was given when i reviewed the record but then again there were a lot of holes in those credits

It might be recency bias but I'd even say this 'Song' album is better than any Blue Nile album that is not Hats..

Sorry, who's this by?

https://www.allmusic.com/album/song-mw0000886575

Ah right, thanks. I remember that one hit single they had in 1986. Slightly strange but really good.

ok well I'm not positive he cowrote it, but in an interview i found she said she wrote it with him:

https://www.iheart.com/content/2017-11-09-interview-jessie-ware-shares-track-by-track-breakdown-of-glasshouse

"Track 11. "Last Of The True Believers" featuring Paul Buchanan

"I wrote after my first record and it was a song that I wrote this with this amazing guy called Paul Buchanan, who is from this cult band of the 80's called The Blue Nile. They're a Scottish band. I managed to get in the studio with him, and we wrote this song, and it was in demo form, and I loved it.

I started to play it when I was doing my American tour because I toured the Devotion record so much, and my last ever tour was in the States. It was a six-week tour. It was amazing, one of my favorite times, and I never do encores, because I think they're annoying, but I did do an encore and so I had to backtrack on what I'd said. I don't think we went off stage though, because I think that's naff. We started doing this, and it's nothing. I've never done that before. We had a demo. We didn't do it how the demo is and we kind of learned it, and I felt like I was in a real band. I didn't feel like I was dictated by the album track. It was just this idea, and people really liked it. Pitchfork put it up. It became this thing that was on the Internet, and people asked me, 'Are you gonna put it on your second record?' I didn't, and it didn't make sense to put it on the second record.

My sister reminded me of this song, because she adored it, so I got my friends (and) they're in a band called The Maccabees, who are really good friends of mine from school. They're massive fans of The Blue Nile. I asked Hugo if he'd like to produce it, and he did, and he brought it to life. He brought it back to life, and I'm really, really happy that it made it onto this record. It fits this record so much more than the second record."

so this doesn't mention that he sang on it, so maybe he didn't? It kind of doesn't sound like his voice.

he def sings on it

but i'll take jessie's word for it! again the credits for that album were a mess

Paul does sing on the track, but not as much as I expected based on having a feat. credit.

Does anybody know the story of "Young Club"? It haunts me. From the sound of it, I would take it to be post-'Hats' but pre-'High,' but really don't know, and kind find anything about it. But it's just so, so, so fucking good:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvcd0ADqu94

Another post of it, sounds slightly differently sourced?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dmbIfI7EdU

'Young Club' is indeed a track from the Hats sessions. It's on the B-sides and Rare CDr

Damn, wish it had been included in complete/quality form with the 'Hats' deluxe, then...

still getting knocked out by "i" on a daily basis

Do I remember right that there is a collection of b-sides and whatnot that has not been rounded up on these reissues? Anybody got a link? I fell in love with this band due to seeing this thread repeatedly bumped for a while and I'm trying to hunt down everything I can.

It's weird that Peace At Last Deluxe is the CD that is hardest to find. I thought that was the one that was less loved?

not sure if this has been posted in another thread on here, but even if so deserves a repost - fantastic quality live show

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fItoUZunua4&list=PLwXOGPZXptBCsQGmwc55lb5YgzZzcpAhT&index=10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fItoUZunua4

Beautiful and melancholy short film of Paul talking about Tinseltown in the Rain.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFoMUAmDGCI

@KenSweeney, were you aware this track was re-mixed/re-released for download last month? You're usually my first source for anything The Blue Nile related! https://t.co/xd28FgSDtr

— Brad (@ballskwok) August 27, 2021

wowee.

absolutely lush.

PJ Moore and Co, eight track new album coming soon. Herald article here.

First track, "Need to Believe", available for download, along w/ album pre-order, at PJ Moore's site.

ooh good find!

There's obvs a hefty wodge of a-Ha in there too, but am I alone in hearing the Blue Nile's 'I Love this Life' in Harry Styles' 'As It Was'?

little piece in Tribune

Forty years ago, Glasgow band The Blue Nile released their first single. Their work was rooted in Glasgow itself, and the changes wrought by the shock of Thatcherism. https://t.co/j6VoGHLErq

— Tribune (@tribunemagazine) July 16, 2022

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fItoUZunua4

good piece and the live recording linked is immense