For better or worse, we, in all of our autocratic consumer-crit greed, are slaves to timeliness. A record over six months old is often discarded, deemed too old for publication, a relic in the internet age. That's why each week at Stylus, one writer takes a look at an album with the benefit of time. Whether it has been unjustly ignored, unfairly lauded, or misunderstood in some fundamental way, we aim with On Second Thought to provide a fresh look at albums that need it. The Blue Nile are the Thomas Pynchons of popular music. Since forming in 1981, they have set out on a quest to gift the world with a brand of haunting and cinematic pop, producing a mere three albums of unstinting excellence. Their 1983 debut A Walk Across the Rooftops startled the music world with its original and poetic majesty. The follow up 1989’s Hats was no sophomore failure, painting their themes of despair and hope with even more devastating effect. It remains one of the great 80s albums. The six year break had induced a sense of expectation. They cut an entire album then erased it. Their self sufficiency - they were their own producers and managers - was a burden they manfully bore for the benefit of their artistic vision. They found perfection would take longer and longer to achieve. The trio, Paul Buchanan, Robert Bell, Paul Joseph Moore, aimed for, in their own words, “absolute authenticity”. They were trying to make more of the serendipitous discovery they had made on their debut. The sounds from their instruments matched the bustle of the city when coupled with a certain rhythm track - for instance the guitar on “Tinseltown in the Rain” sounded like traffic outside their window. After management wrangles prevented them from entering the studio, they recorded most of Hats in five days. The wait was worth it. They widened the panorama, picking out the city clustered lights, fire escapes and lonely figures sulking in the doorway, producing a veritable epic. The three of them may have recorded it in a negligible amount of time, but they freely admitted they had been working tirelessly for six years up to that point. “Over the Hillside”’s opening drumbeat evokes, for me at least, an image as iconic as Bladerunner’s Vangelis scored intro, scanning the horizon with a keen eye. Its slowed down, sparse quality, eases the listener in as if you are being shown a vista of the vast city, that swallows up and spits out humanity, before you fully drop into the maelstrom. “Workin' night and day, I try to get ahead, but l don’t get ahead this way / I’ve tried and tried to make good sense, what’s the good of trying it all again?” sets the tone as the song climaxes with an harsh industrial clank; perfectly conveying the sense of the metropolis being a living, breathing machine, as ominous as it is sprawling. Monumental is one word to describe the second track, “The Downtown Lights”. It glistens and sparkles, as it utilizes all the 80s synth touches people seem to be ashamed of, with a dreamy sense of awe and beauty. You can imagine the stars are out tonight, along with the evening crowds, speeding traffic and rows of shining street lights. When Buchanan sings 'Nobody loves you this way" it is no idle boast, more a sighed declaration of fanaticism. Then it seems to get bigger, the pace quickens, and finally the song builds to a breathless crescendo topped off with Buchanan howling at breaking point: “The neons and the cigarettes, the rented rooms, the rented cars, the crowded streets, the empty bars, the chimney-tops, the trumpets, the golden lights, the loving prayers, the coloured shoes, the empty trees, I’m tired of crying on the stairs. . ." In contrast “From a Late Night Train” is Hats' quietest moment and lowest, bottom scraping emotional ebb. It is, however, as brilliant a rendering of a train trip home as you will ever hear. You can imagine yourself scanning the rolling countryside and the darkness closing in while you ponder a life crashing around the ears, muttering “It’s over now, I know it’s over now, but I can’t let go,” till the tears cascade like a waterfall. The trumpet sounds a soft lament, equating the train’s horn with the slow tear of a breaking heart while a soft depressed synth key imposes the feeling of hurtling forward. As bleak as an Arctic snowstorm, yet utterly compelling. The final track “Saturday Night” and its repeated query “Who do you love? Who do you really love?” sets a final optimistic tone. “Love is Saturday night ... She loves me,” represents the tentative return to grace, perhaps the re-ignition of the cycle, as the up tempo instrumentation reinvigorates the listener. You can envisage the same rigorous soul searching if it ends in disaster yet again, but the note of optimism ends the album on a high. It could, of course, be a delusion, brought on by a tired and spurned lover, but hope is an irresistible intoxicant. The promise of redemption makes the album all the more bittersweet. You could say Hats is the reflection that comes over us during the darkest hour before dawn. As NME reviewer David Quantick put it: “The songs deal rather well with that 4 am sort of feeling”. As I’m typing this up at 4.23 in the morning I know what he means all too well. It sums up the drift and re-evaluation performed when the world is emptied of noise and action. Facing down the demons seems all too natural an act. Pop is a term of derision now, shorthand for manufactured formulaic fluff, but this represents its apex, since this is far from the typical indie or rock album. The total absence of guitar solos, thunderous drumming and the need for speed - all the markers for music we're supposed to find the most exciting - only emphasizes its perfect organic whole. It is appropriate the band had no fixed roles in the studio, each member playing whatever they felt most comfortable with; the only certainty being that Buchanan's fragile but powerful delivery would pack the extra melancholic punch. His voice may not be the greatest but its straining at the seams only serves the songs better. Buchanan, who penned all the titles, admitted it was an album born of personal ruin. “It was a desperately bad time for us. Fundamental shifts took place in our personal lives during Hats. And so I’d say that the record’s about reassurance. That’s why ‘It’s all right’ crops up in the lyrics so often.” But every song on Hats is about love. As Buchanan admitted, “All of our songs are love songs.” It’s a simple concept brilliant explored and executed with the sort of intensity that burns its mark into your psyche. An album of hopeless romanticism, its message is life is a struggle but the magic can still happen. It solidifies the goo of feeling you are afraid of confronting, whilst dignifying your sadness and taps into the a re-assurance that sings universal, that no matter how bad you might feel or how heartbroken you are, you are not alone. So what happened next? Rod Stewart and Annie Lennox covered the “Downtown Lights”. Buchanan moved to L.A and dated the actress Rosanna Arquette. They never played live or appeared on TV until 1990 and have made only three tours since. Peace at Last, their 1996 album, was more of the same but in comparison to its glittering predecessors, a mild disappointment, bringing their recorded output to thirty songs. And surprise surprise, there is no sign of an imminent fourth Blue Nile album. Yet sometimes they pop up in the most unexpected of places: Craig Armstrong’s re-arrangement of “Let’s Go Out Tonight” with Buchanan on vocals, for instance, played accompaniment to the end of a first season episode of Six Feet Under; its desperate refrain: “Pray for the light”, perfectly summing up the emotional crises suffered by each character. The song's central premise, that of a man holding on by the fingertips and trying to repair the shattered relationship with his girlfriend when all the signs point to disaster, could not have suited the Fisher family's struggle to form, keep and save their personal relationships better. For some diabolical reason Hats is deleted in the US, so I urge you to beg, steal or borrow from those lucky enough to own a copy or scour the net for an import. Most bands think they are duty bound to produce an album every two years, thus invoking the Law of Diminishing Returns and sullying their reputations forever. The Blue Nile showed that getting it right was the most important thing. If only more groups could have followed their example.
Olav Bjortomt – Stylusmagazine.com
No comments:
Post a Comment