From there, the fault lines make themselves more obviously known. At best, “Let’s Go Out Tonight” is the strung-out manifesto for a self-destructive couple; more likely, it’s a desperate plea to give everything one more shot, that one more night might relocate some sense of wonder. “Headlights On The Parade,” like “The Downtown Lights,” is the catchier side of Hats— and unlike most of the album, it’s where you could be lured into a sense of euphoria, as if it’s the moment where that wonder actually was recalled or reclaimed, that moment in a night out when you can temporarily fool yourself into thinking anything’s possible. The members of the Blue Nile met while they were students at the University of Glasgow. After graduating and easing into an uninspiring teaching gig, Buchanan says he and his friends turned to music in search of a career that they “could be instinctive about.” With Buchanan on guitar and vocals, Paul Joseph “PJ” Moore on keyboards and synth, and Robert Bell on bass, they recruited a drum machine as their fourth member. Tavakoli, Mina (20 November 2020). "Almost anarchy: The Style Council and the smooth sounds of sophisti-pop". The Washington Post . Retrieved 21 April 2021. Hats peaked at number 12 on the UK Albums Chart. [8] Three singles were released from the album: the first, " The Downtown Lights", was released in September 1989 and peaked at number 67 on the UK Singles Chart, followed by " Headlights on the Parade" in September 1990 which reached number 72, and " Saturday Night" in January 1991, which reached number 50. [8]

Hats (CD liner notes). The Blue Nile. Linn Records. 1989. LKHCD2. {{ cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) ( link) Pitchfork Staff (10 September 2018). "The 200 Best Albums of the 1980s". Pitchfork . Retrieved 24 April 2023. The results aren't far off from the romantic synth-pop that ascended the charts in the '80s...To listen closely to the Blue Nile is to become a part of the scenery. In this way, Buchanan’s metaphor about the time between albums comes alive. The long gestation of each record suggests, as in the early stages of a relationship, a sharpening of the senses, getting lost in a world that’s getting smaller around you. You want to do it right this time. The Blue Nile’s music also sounds like falling in love, slow and starry-eyed, with melodies that fizzle and glow like streetlights. By the time they released their sophomore album, Hats, in the autumn of 1989, Buchanan was 33 years old, and his songs, once littered with bold declarations of love, now seemed to be composed entirely of ellipses and question marks.

Sodomsky, Sam (27 November 2018). "The 1975's Matty Healy Dissects Every Song on A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships". Pitchfork. Archived from the original on 11 January 2021 . Retrieved 23 February 2021. Heim, Chris (15 March 1990). "Blue Nile: Hats (A & M)". Chicago Tribune . Retrieved 24 October 2015. I have the same Nimbus copy, bought in The Netherlands when I lived there. I just ripped it, and no problems. I'm listening on headphones as I type, no issues.Other moments are equally reserved for thoughts about escaping the concrete jungle, such as ‘Headlights on the Parade’. Though lyrically not as dense, the instrumental paints the tale symmetrically, via a locomotive beat and elastic bass that together carry a cross-country momentum. All the while, elevated strings and an uplifting piano brings the type of excited peppiness that comes from venturing out in search of fresh surroundings. s A Walk Across the Rooftops remains unique in its fusion of chilly technology and a pitch of confessional, romantic soul that ‘alternative’ types would usually shy away from for fear it wasn’t ‘cool’. It was always (at least) two things at once: in the years since, its peerless power to affect has accrued multiple layers of rueful resonance. a b Edwards, D. M. (31 January 2013). "The Blue Nile: A Walk Across the Rooftops / Hats". PopMatters . Retrieved 10 March 2013.

The Blue Nile’s career defies narrative. Like the music, the story itself is all ellipses. Yet as much as they favored gestures and leaving things not-totally-said, their albums remain complete ideas. These albums might not entirely reveal themselves, but they are there, waiting, for you to find your own meaning in them. With Hats in particular, the thing they left behind is pristine yet worn, a crystal covered in grime and tears but still shining through. The story about Hats, and the Blue Nile in general, is uncustomary, though it began normally enough: While attending the University Of Glasgow, Paul Buchanan, PJ Moore, and Robert Bell tried to start a couple different bands, none of which took. Eventually, they became the Blue Nile and, this being the punk era, set about trying to make music with the rudimentary gear and means they had at their disposal. In a roundabout way — through their engineer Calum Malcolm — they caught the ear of a hi-fi audio equipment company called Linn Products, which was in the process of starting a record label. Their debut, 1984’s A Walk Across The Rooftops, was the first release on Linn Records. Still a landmark, still high, still somehow intangible: The Blue Nile didn’t sound or function like any normal band. a b "The Blue Nile | Awards". AllMusic. Archived from the original on 22 March 2015 . Retrieved 4 July 2013.

In some ways, you can almost hear Hats as taking place in one 24-hour period, a final struggle to salvage a depleted relationship under the beacons of skyscrapers giving way to a dark night of the soul. “Over The Hillside” is the approach, a prelude that strives to locate rejuvenation on the horizon, that old iconography of that something else at the other end of the journey. “The Downtown Lights” is the welcoming fanfare, the poppier single that makes you feel embraced by the city, full of anticipation as much as broken fragments. Their debut album, A Walk Across the Rooftops, arrived in 1984 via the stereo equipment company Linn, who were looking to expand their reach by starting a label. (“Linn weren’t a record company and we weren’t a band,” Buchanan would later reflect in Elliot J. Huntley and Edith Hall’s biography From a Late Night Train.) Still, their unusual working relationship allowed the members of the Blue Nile to record in Linn’s studios and operate without a strict deadline. As so often happens with our first brushes of love, the band chased this experience the rest of their career. No pressure and no expectations—a creative process they could be instinctive about.

More importantly, as has been reaffirmed on this year’s stripped-down solo psalm Mid Air, Paul Buchanan’s enraptured voice and words capture the essence of hearts breaking and healing as well as anyone outside Tamla Motown’s heyday. a b Roberts, David, ed. (2006). Guinness Book of British Hit Singles & Albums (19thed.). London: Guinness World Records Limited. p.66. ISBN 978-1-904994-10-7. In more recent years, their name seems to keep reappearing — maybe not more frequently, exactly, but perhaps a new generation is finding them. Or, as impossible as it seems for anyone to sound like the Blue Nile, maybe their influence is more significant this time around. Artists with as much history as Destroyer and as freshly exciting as Westerman have been compared to them. The 1975’s Matty Healy has talked about listening to Hats constantly while crafting last year’s A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships; this year, Natasha Khan, an artist obviously well-versed in the ’80s, mentioned discovering them for the first time while working on the new Bat For Lashes album Lost Girls. Pure Bathing Culture covered the entirety of Hats last year; they were joined by Ben Gibbard on a couple songs. A couple months later, fellow Scots Chvrches offered their own rendition of “The Downtown Lights.” And Buchanan still reemerges as a co-writer from time to time, most recently on Jessie Ware’s Glasshouse in 2017.a b Thigpen, David (17 May 1990). "The Blue Nile: Hats". Rolling Stone. No.578. New York. p.149. Archived from the original on 2 October 2007 . Retrieved 1 October 2015. Holden, Stephen (30 July 1990). "Review/Pop; The Blue Nile's Mystical, Majestic Ballads". The New York Times. New York . Retrieved 7 February 2023. People tend to flag up The Blue Nile’s Scottishness, as if geography and accidents of birth were responsible for artistic vision; but surely, again like Hopper, the dreams and tears here are universal. The city streets, cars, rooftops, rain, couples and love documented and expressed so delicately throughout the seven songs are potentially everywhere, any time, “caught up in this big rhythm”. This is why the band stood out then and hover above now; both everymen and angels.