pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

Uncut, Q, Mojo, etc have been revisiting Hats regularly for the past 20 years

I'm 25 and never heard of The Blue Nile until so many posters put Hats on their top 5 favorite albums thread i made in ~September 2016. Still baffled, have NEVER encountered them anywhere other than ilx.

i'm 41 and had never heard of them until the 1975 thread here on ilm

Who is going to be the aging No Doubt type band that scores a huge hit covering a Blue Nile song?

― mag gerwig! (Whiney G. Weingarten), Sunday, January 7, 2018 11:27 AM (six hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

We don’t have those anymore, right

I mean the closest analogue is probably *gulp* Maroon 5 and even they probably couldn’t/wouldn’t put a hip cover in the top40

Louise Burns had a good, very loyal, cover of Downtown Lights on her 2017 album, wasn't a hit though

― niels, Sunday, 7 January 2018 16:35 (six hours ago)

So did Bic Runga (well, late 2016)!

Billboard notes the existence of a one-page A&M ad in Billboard in late '89 promoting the thing, complete with Phil Collins endorsement. I remember seeing it at the time and thinking that's a considerable expense for an album I didn't hear at all. Annie Lennox covered "The Downtown Lights" on 1995's platinum Medusa; this might've been the first exposure of ILXers parents to the Blue Nile idk

Yeah i pretty much never hear of the blue nile anywhere other than ilx. in fact, this p4k review is only the second time the Blue Nile's been tagged on the site

Did dan bejar specifically say kaputt was blue nile-influenced? I thought the story behind that one was that it was influenced by the likes of steely dan's gaucho and roxy music's avalon

In my late teens – sometime in 2002 or 2003 – I discovered Talk Talk and Bark Psychosis while exploring post-rock on Allmusic. The Blue Nile was tantalisingly listed among the influences (or 'similar artists', can't recall which).

I was absolutely baffled by the praise for Hats when I first heard it. Perhaps I should try again, though my opinion of adult contemporary hasn't really changed since.

Doesn't sound like any A/C I've heard. I'm not a fan (yet) but it's way too intense.

also a millennial, first heard about it here, but more generally saw it popping up in discussions about sophistipop next to tears for fears, prefab sprout, EBTG, Sade. not sure if i've seen it noted specifically a lot, but they're definitely back ~in the conversation~

That's how it sounded to me at the time, partly because I couldn't hear its famed intensity at all. I'll give it another shot soon.

xp

I will also say that it seems like, at least since their 80s tracks list, the pitchfork taste spectrum has shifted (either consciously or unconsciously) away from the noisy end of alt rock/proto-indie and into dance music, hip-hop, r&b and sophistipop, probably due to a mix of a. shifting tastes of staffers and b. better historical linkages to the pop/R&B/rap they now cover. that sounds conspiratorial, but i do think it's mostly, if not entirely, just a marker of changing referents and ideas of what's important. blue nile would seem to follow suit with that.

otm

yea you're totally otm about that

Dan Bejar usually cited Prefab Sprout, Roxy Music (specifically Avalon), and Screamadelica as his main influences on Kaputt but there was one interview where he cited The Blue Nile, Talk Talk, and Japan as well.

finding that ilx had a lot of love for The Blue Nile when I'd barely ever seen anyone else care about them was how I knew it was worth sticking around

i had literally never heard of the blue nile til i read about them in this thread. but i'm glad, because i like what i'm hearing!

^ cosign this

Hasn't Jessie Ware been spreading the good word of The Blue Nile as of late? Isn't that where The 1975 found out about them?

I also thought maybe Rhye had something to do with it.

"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.

While their influence has long run deep, with outspoken fans including Vashti Bunyan, Phil Collins, and the 1975, to this day nothing sounds quite like Hats."

i feel like this excerpt triangulates things pretty well. would agree that Rhye helped draw attention to the nu-sophistipop thing, though, and i have a distinct memory of How To Dress Well sharing an Everything But The Girl track in a Pitchfork video way back when. not Blue Nile, exactly, but the same wheelhouse.

I first heard about the Blue Nile through ILX probably like 15 years ago, don't think I've ever listened to one of their tracks in full though

"Golden Globes 2018: Lady Bird Wins Best Motion Picture"

I'm pretty tired of Pitchfork trying to tell me what TV shows and movies are cool and I now have way less desire to watch Black Mirror or Lady Bird than I did 2 weeks ago.

I'm guessing 2018 will be the year they finally start with "best movies" and "best TV" end of year lists.

Majical Cloudz a good reference, too

Hats was recommended to me, by that record collector, because I had liked Spirit of Eden - not really similar records imo, but perhaps catering to similar tastes

there's a song on the new Destroyer record called "Tinseltown Swimming in Blood", probably a Blue Nile reference

oh yeah, Rod Stewart did a Downtown Lights cover in 1995 too!

so, three reviews per day for now, or for good?

the release schedule has had tumbleweeds rolling through it for the last three weeks. things pick up friday

yeah they always cut the number of reviews down in the weeks after EOY lists

I'm pretty sure I found out about the Blue Nile when fishing around for Steely Dan-ish music back in the mid-00s

I've been indifferent to the Blue Nile since the 80s fwiw

Release dates in January are dire for everyone

I mean,

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/various-artists-bright-the-album/amp/

they never bothered with the new Gucci album, but what can you say i guess

It's interesting to see this perennial discussion

About like how an artist/band from decades ago with a very specific aesthetic bent, with shades of "uncoolness", when it becomes clear that "at this present point in time yes in fact there are people still listening to that band" that there is a discussion that follows. The discussion goes like "who told the kids about [x]?"

What is unique to me tho about The Blue Nile is that unlike other uncool acts whose influence in the popular canon waxes and wanes, I had heard absolutely nothing about them until.. 2012? I never saw them on any "Greatest Albums Of All Time" lists. I just opened up my 18-year old copy of "The Rough Guide To Rock" to check if there was even an entry (there is) and I don't know why that book compelled me at age 20 to check out Peter Blegvad or whatever and not Blue Nile

part of this is surely about how incredible the music is and how slight their reputation really was, so maybe it ends up feeling like a surprising correction when really musically this stuff stands up and above some much more celebrated groups

lol

I didn't really lol

Back in 2007 the Blue Nile was booked to play a show here but then the whole tour was cancelled. Wonder if they'll ever hit the road again.

I'd say the chance of that ever happening is... practically zero. *Maybe* a solo Buchanan concert/tour but Blue Nile reforming? I can't see it happening.

lol

― mag gerwig! (Whiney G. Weingarten), Monday, January 8, 2018 12:38 PM (forty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

How is this “lol” I was hearing about how brilliant plenty of mostly mid 80s post punk bands where they were nowhere near as good or consistent as blue nile, also you have a bias towards the extreme /raw /punk/ hardcore rap end of the 80s spectrum & of course when history corrects for that bias among critics stuff like Sade and blue nile will rise in ppl’s estimations

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

Turrican doesn't like Blue Nile tho...

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

https://cdn.traileraddict.com/article/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/beetlejuice-michael-keaton-horror-comedy-1024x577.jpg

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 2:53 PM (twenty-six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

basically this, but instead of "lol" it's more "come on now"

The ilx "lol" always conveys an eye roll to me. The rest of the internet seems to use it to indicate insecurity.

lol

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”