
The Blue Nile – Hats LP

Description
Originally released in 1989; “The Blue Nile’s second album ‘Hats’ is the band’s most beloved tome – repped by Black Midi’s Geordie Greep and covered in full by Pure Bathing Culture. Its best-known track, ‘The Downtown Lights’, was recorded by both Annie Lennox and Rod Stewart, and even mentioned by Taylor Swift on her last album ‘The Tortured Poets Department’, for what it’s worth. But the recording process wasn’t easy, by any means; Paul Buchanan, Robert Bell and Paul Joseph Moore had released their first album on Glasgow hi-fi company Linn’s newly minted record label in 1984 and were immediately tasked with writing a follow-up. After two stressful years in the studio, plagued by writer’s block, they were sued by Virgin Records, who’d licensed the band’s records from Linn. They abandoned the studio and went back to Glasgow with little to show for their labor, but it was the move they needed to make – in 1988, the trio headed back to Castlesound and recorded ‘Hats’ in just a matter of weeks.
The album still stands out in stark contrast to so much ’80s pop. Buchanan and his bandmates were able to write clean, meticulously produced electronic love songs that somehow avoided the bombastic pitfalls that plagued their peers. The reverb’s tidier, the synths more subtle and the vocals more nuanced. It’s hardly surprising that ‘Hats’ didn’t connect a wider audience when it was released, mostly appealing to critics and other artists – it was just way ahead of its time.” -boomkat