the blue nile: hats

this is like asking to pick your favorite child

most inexplicable discovery from the 5 favorite albums thread, never heard of this, had no idea so many people held it so dear.

― flappy bird, Monday, October 3, 2016 12:31 PM (twenty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It feels like a minor hit, maybe an ost appearance? There's a craig armstrong version which I knew before the blue nile one:

https://youtu.be/osP05cpJKNM

the last minute of "downtown lights" :O

nah, downtown lights is the obvious pop song here - been covered by rod stewart, annie lennox, even keane have done a version xp

We had it at record club a few years ago.

https://devonrecordclub.com/2013/02/04/the-blue-nile-hats-round-45-toms-selection/

Rob's reaction was interesting...he doesn't like late period Talk Talk either and, whilst they are not all that similar sonically, there's something about the purity of the sound that I guess is anathema to his ears.

I went for Saturday Night but could have picked any of the seven (seven track albums are always fantastic!).

Isn't 'let's go out tonight' the most pop song in here?

― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Monday, October 3, 2016 12:48 PM (seventeen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't know, maybe. I always thought Headlights on the Parade was the poppiest

what i never heard of flags and fences!

I have been saving the book about them (Nileism) for the right moment.

― I wish you could see my home. It's... it's so... exciting (Jon not Jon), Monday, October 3, 2016

It's OK, rather prosaic considering how much a good writer could rhapsodize about them

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arOG2_QG4ls

found an OG pristine vinyl copy of this for $1 a few months ago, pretty ridic what slips through the cracks sometimes.

still find it cheap at carboot sales here too, rubbing shoulders with chris rea et al

yeah same here, have been jamming it for the past few days. whatever past discussion there's been of it on ILM has somehow slipped by me for the decade i've been here
― ciderpress, Monday, October 3

Me three.

xpost to scik mouthy

it's hard to make a nuts and bolts case for an affinity between late talk talk and blue nile but i will say that the paul buchanan solo album is the only record that reminds me of the mark hollis solo album at all.

^^ more than enough to get me interested. Only heard abt Blue Nile's album through ilx last week, and Hollis was on my mind frequently.

album is called Mid Air

Listened to the title track of that and it reminded me of Lewis - L'amour

"Seven A.M." because it goes down a storm with just about any combination of Sade's "Make Some Room," the dub mix of Mr. Fingers' "What About This Love," M.E./Virgo's "School Hall," and the Arthur Baker "Rapid Eye" remix of Will Downing's "In My Dreams."

saturday night/quarter to five/when the storefronts are closed in paradise/meet me outside the cherry light

I love the meticulous productions of Talk Talk and David Sylvian's solo work, but I've never got on with The Blue Nile. I can't deny that the production on this record is great, but whenever I've listened to it I've often found my attention wavering very quickly. 'Let's Go Out Tonight' is a great example of a song that I switch off from long before the end.

Listened to the title track of that and it reminded me of Lewis - L'amour

― Evan, Monday, October 3, 2016 7:52 PM (thirty-three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ok wow...

George Costanza: "If this is a lie, if this is a joke, if this is your idea of some cute little game, we're finished ...

:(

At the office through laptop speakers so maybe that is a dumb comparison.

For example I thought those were synth pads behind his voice and piano. Realizing they're not.

Saturday night obv

yup

yeah "saturday night" is the one that i've been most obsessed with, when the strings come in a little over halfway through the song it's just game over, music doesn't get much better than that

"From A Late Night Train" is imo as sublime as it gets

reminds me of Aztec Camera!

not exactly my bag in general, but will say the singer reminds me a bit of Adrian Belew

Noooooooooo

I would have thought that Let's Go Out Tonight might be a front-runner, but from the comments, maybe not. Anyway, it gets my vote, but all are great.

A lot of people seem to prefer the Craig Armstrong cover (on which Buchanan sings), but I think Hats remains the definitive version. Second place goes to Isaac Hayes version…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3vuy0QJ0BA

Evan, all I meant was I want you to be right. I want it to sound like Lewis. And it does. Nothing dumb about it.

Oh, totally misread you then! I'm often a little too worried about offending those who are closer to an artist than I am. New to the Blue Nile myself but liked that solo track much more.

dude holy shit that isaac hayes cover of "let's go out tonight" !!

Oh, totally misread you then! I'm often a little too worried about offending those who are closer to an artist than I am. New to the Blue Nile myself but liked that solo track much more.

― Evan, Monday, October 3, 2016 9:58 PM (fifty-six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Can't say I was too clear with Seinfeld reference tbh. Just really, really wished your Lewis reference was on point. And it was.

yeah "saturday night" is the one that i've been most obsessed with, when the strings come in a little over halfway through the song it's just game over, music doesn't get much better than that

― k3vin k., Monday, October 3, 2016 7:00 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah I was coming here to say that "saturday night" has the slightest of edges because the string refrain from the 3 and half minute mark is like two lovers walking towards each other on a city bridge.

also it's my "song i would sing on Idol or equiv" song.

"saturday night" is my vote

http://www.primlifestyles.com/wp-content/plugins/RSSPoster_PRO/cache/c9820_Beyonce-Formation-4.gif

most inexplicable discovery from the 5 favorite albums thread, never heard of this, had no idea so many people held it so dear.
― flappy bird, Monday, October 3, 2016 12:31 PM (twenty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ya me neither

shouts out to my favorite lyric ever though: "in love we're all the same / we're walking down an empty street"

god that isaac hayes cover

this album was a big deal in my house growing up. My mother is the kind of woman who buys a CD every year - Will Young, Daniel Bedingfield, Ronan Keating - and her then-partner was a Britpop man who also loved dance music. But they both would say this is their favourite album of all time.

I've probably said this before in any number of ILX posts over the years, but one thing that really stands out about The Blue Nile is the reverent or hymnal quality of their songwriting and production, the sense that the songs are gesturing toward something much larger than the band and their private concerns; certainly these songs never feel autobiographical (regardless of whether they in fact are or not, and notwithstanding the recurrent sonic and lyrical motifs which form the group's indelible imprint).

It's rare to find music so personal, so singular, that is not also idiosyncratic in the strong sense of that word, not irrevocably bound up with the personality of its creator(s). Certainly when I think about 80s pop it feels like a lot of material falls on either side of that line, either deeply personal or thoroughly universal; The Blue Nile's songs feel like a communication from one frame of reference to the other.

Kate Bush produced two songs which also walk this tightrope, I think ("Running Up That Hill", "This Woman's Work"). But only two.

With The Blue Nile it's just what they do.

Which is one reason why the band is so routinely covered by other artists relative to their general obscurity.

"Seven A.M." because it goes down a storm with just about any combination of Sade's "Make Some Room," the dub mix of Mr. Fingers' "What About This Love," M.E./Virgo's "School Hall," and the Arthur Baker "Rapid Eye" remix of Will Downing's "In My Dreams."

so much perfect music in one sentence

yeah i would pay ten dollars just to sit somewhere and hear that run, and i'm really poor.

Booming post Tim

That reverent spirit is probably what triggers thoughts of a kinship with talk talk.

Also the feeling of longing which is so distilled it becomes religious and romantic at the same time

yep, and it's romance of a religious order, something you walk through with its own weather and texture, a weighted experience. every feeling almost having an architectural significance, as if they were individual buildings in a city you're walking through

a lot of this is in the form of address of buchanan's lyrics; it's never really a monologue, it mostly seems to be one end of a conversation, whether he's having that conversation with a person or the feeling of that person

with this framing it's a lot less jarring that peace at last ended up being often literally devotional

Was jamming "Sentimental Man" this morning.

the last minute of "downtown lights" :O

― k3vin k.

Yeah, this is one of my favourite moments in music. The way he sings, "I'm tired of crying on the stairs" and then belts out the title gets me every single time.

same

Gorgeous.

I too checked out this album for the first time this week. Bit embarrassing it took so long given how many times I've seen them namechecked in threads of other bands I love (like the 1975). Great stuff

Full album covered by Pure Bathing Culture for Turntable Kitchen, with Ben Gibbard guesting on two tracks. Subscription-based, but available to non-club members, the black vinyl is $25 + $5 s&h, for U.S. folk, and includes digital.

Nice Stereogum write-up of Hats, also.

For the 'things that sound a bit like Blue Nile': I think Epic Soundtracks has aesthetic similarities anyway, but his Good Things album seems particularly apposite.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joz9SigJ6eg

sometimes wonder why the Hats thread isn't just always on the front page.

mods, make it so

official album of ilm

Hats belong on top naturally

Re-reading this thread always makes me feel happy

This was posted on the C or D thread in case anyone missed it (re-released this year and available on streaming services)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOJ9QcVXZzE

i listened to hats tonight knowing it might be my last late night jog of summer and i can't imagine listening to it at, like, 6pm in the coming months. it's been the first album i've confidently called my favorite album ever made since probably high school, and i only discovered it in 2018, and it's an album i've actually listened to less this year as i've been consciously trying to revisit old favorites while doing my new favorite activity of "moving my body", but damn if isn't the greatest thing ever made every time i go back to it

one of us!

I find it hard to imagine jogging to any song apart from "Downtown Lights" but more power to you!

official album of ilm

Thought that was Jordan:The Comeback.

great album for a walk in the rain

a walk across the raindrops

this such a great comedown album

i wish there was a 12 min long mix of “saturday night”

the final two minutes of "headlights on the parade" rivals anything on this album for me

i found a mint condition copy of this on cassette at a record store in london last week, made me very happy

one of us! one of us!

this has become one of those albums I don't actually have to listen to to get killed by it, I just have to think about it

otm

I tend to want more "From a Late Night Train" and "Family Life" from this band rather than the usual lite funk, though I guess one of the things that makes those tracks special is that they are uniquely spare.

may I direct you to his solo album

Caution: challops ahead.

"I Want to Know What Love Is" by Foreigner would make a pretty good Blue Nile song.

No.

even if you stripped it down enough i don't think it'd be restrained enough

I can hear it but lyrically no.

Do we have a thread for songs that could be off Hats?

'The Lady in Red' :0

i wish there was a 12 min long mix of “saturday night”

― J0rdan S., Sunday, January 1, 2023 4:03 PM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Whenever I listen to Hats it's the album plus "Saturday Night" two more times

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3vuy0QJ0BA

oh man

^^ had a surreal moment when that came on the radio in a cafe near Sagrada Familia while the sun was setting circa 1999.
looking at Gaudi's architecture bathed in a golden glow while this unfamiliar slooooow version of a familiar song played, it felt like my brain was melting.
(being slightly tipsy didn't help.)

Is that a marimba? For someone who nails the late night lethargy of the song, adding that is like throwing in slide whistle or a saw. It's a 10, but ...

an aside: atmospheric slide whistle new fav micro-genre

"it's the poor man's pedal steel"

sorry. as you were.

but yeah, didn't know about this cover. pretty reminiscent of his classic sidelong makeovers of burt bacharach.

ofc i had to look it up and it originates as a b side from a uk only single. nice.

2024 - could this be the year the long-rumored complete second Paul Buchanan album releases?

new song — Paul Buchanan - Mid Air (The Blue Nile)