Retrospective Review - 'Hats' - The Blue Nile

Review: The Blue Nile - Hats

1989

Label: Linn / A&M

The Blue Nile

In October 1989, The Blue Nile released 'Hats' - a sprawling, sophisticated 40 minutes of ambient synth pop, twinkling with starry-eyed drama; which in spite of not having any chart hits or selling particularly well at the time, has left its fingerprints all over modern pop. Understanding the enduring influence of this album, you need only to look at some recent name drops by Taylor Swift, covers by the likes of Rod Stewart, or even the rather more on-the nose-facsimile of the Blue Nile's 'Downtown Lights' in The 1975's 'Love It If We Made It'.

'Hats' is an incredibly cinematic album. It's a bleary city rolling by through the lense of a fogged backseat window, endless street lamps scrolling overhead, neon lights twinkling off puddled side streets... How do I even begin to write about a haunting classic like 'Hats'? It exists in a place, a mood, and you just have to let it envelop you.

There's no avoiding it, this is a big feelings album - love, longing, loss, resolution and redemption. While it's at times bristling with the possibilities that keep love alive, it's also defeated, plaintive and pleading - bursting into crescendo with euphoric, devastating rally cries. They are all serenades at their core, covered in the shimmering glaze of a rainy pavement leading back to some long-lost love.

Album Artwork - 'Hats'

The album and its characters live in a setting. It sounds like night there. Smoky noir. Big coats. Shoulder pads. City lights. One can assume it's raining... All the while it exists in this place, the lyrics wistfully dream of escaping it, filled with youthful dreams of a better life. The songs flicker on like tired street lamps before Paul Buchanan's voice centres itself - world-weary and heavy for the 33 years under his belt in '89. The stories of the characters he creates sit between the lines of verses - in the lowercase romances that ordinary people have, from glistening beginnings to beaten, confiding overtures of love losing its shape in front of your eyes. It's high stakes emotion in-amongst grounded domesticity, "I'm tired of crying on the stairs" juxtaposed against wide-eyed sparkling synth rolls and throbbing, resolute bass lines. There's hard won, real emotions here, told with a stark brevity that does nothing to diminish the impact - a simple pleading refrain to go out together is weighed down in the fraying ends of a relationship, buoyed with the hope that just one good night might save it from total collapse. A sweeping and beautiful gut-punch.

There's hope to be found in 'Hats', you just have to squint a little through the Glaswegian rain and you'll see it. Probably written in neon lights.