The Blue Nile, A Walk Across the Rooftops and Hats (Virgin Records, 2012, Collector's Editions)

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Justa few months ago, I reviewed The Blue Nile frontman Paul Buchanan’s solo album Mid Air for my blog, so I was totally excited when brand-new Collector’s Editions of The Blue Nile’s first twoalbums, 1984’s A Walk Across the Rooftopsand 1989’s Hats, arrived in mymailbox this past week.  Whenyou’ve spent over two decades listening to music that’s as indelibly crafted asthese two albums are, the songs set up residence somewhere inside you, and bothof these albums by the quietly lauded Glasgow trio of Buchanan, Robert Bell,and Paul Moore are, without reservation, contemporary classics.  Despite its aura of enchantment, themusic is so unassuming and real that calling it genius almost isn’t enough.
Thetrue cause for excitement for longtime devotees of The Blue Nile is the bonusdisc that’s included with each remastered two-disc set, both of which feature agenerous handful of rarities, remixes, B-sides, and live tracks.  With these two albums in particular, itfeels like a bounty, considering that the original track-list for each recordwas only seven songs per album, clocking in at a running time of just over halfan hour.
First,a little history on how these two unique, enigmatic albums cameabout.  At the dawn of the 1980s,as electronic technology and synthesizers were beginning to dominate themainstream music industry, a company called Linn had manufactured a drummachine that it sought to find a band to promote.  The Blue Nile became that band, and its first two albumswere recorded as a sort of showcase for Linn’s drum machine.  Though released five years apart, theband’s debut and its sophomore effort garnered enough critical acclaim andmodest commercial success that Virgin Records picked them up and delivered thedistinctive, contemplative sound of The Blue Nile to a wider internationalaudience.
Ilove the story of how I first discovered The Blue Nile as a teenager living inthe sprawling Midwestern suburbs of Cincinnati, Ohio.  Aside from the city’s best pop radio station, Q102, my onlyother link to the greater world of pop music at that time was the lone copy of Billboard magazine that sat on the shelfin Waldenbooks every week at our local shopping mall.  I’d spend an hour browsing through it from cover to cover,poring over the music charts and new releases.  Once, late in 1989, I spotted a tiny, text-onlyadvertisement somewhere in the back pages of the magazine.  “Call this toll-free 1-800 number,” itsaid, “and we’ll send you a free promotional copy of The Blue Nile’s latestalbum Hats on cassette tape.”
Ihad no idea who The Blue Nile were, but I called the telephone number, left myname and mailing address on their recorded answering service, and the freecassette showed up about a month later. Hearing those songs for the first time was a strange experience for16-year-old me, who’d grown accustomed to the ’80s pop/dancemusic of the era in which I came of age. This unusual music by The Blue Nile was dark and moody, pulsing andvaguely shimmering, a stretch for me to connect with back then; to my young andunsophisticated ears, the songs sounded as far away as the country of Scotland did.  Without articulatingit to myself entirely, somewhere in the back of my mind I thought, “File thistape away for future reference, and come back to it in a few years when you’reready.”
Fast-forwardto my college years in Boston, when I finally worked my way backwards in TheBlue Nile’s catalog and purchased an import CD of A Walk Across the Rooftops at Tower Records on Newbury Street.  Listening to the remastered versions ofthe seven songs again now, I’m struck by how eccentric and reserved they are atonce.  Specific locations arerarely mentioned in The Blue Nile’s songs, opening them up to a universe of associations, but the palette of motifs is consistent and palpable:  rain, traffic lights, railroads, citiesand countrysides.  Love-weary orecstatic people traversing diurnal landscapes.  All long-standing, reliable images and themes, and that’s helpedto make The Blue Nile’s albums so durable.  Just when they’ve lulled you into a meditative state of drumbeats and guitar hooks and piano notes, they’ll toss in a lyrical surprise;“caught up in this big rhythm” of Los Angeles on “Tinseltown in the Rain,”suddenly “there’s a red car in the fountain.”  The jubilation of a pure pop track like “Stay” is temperedby the solemn, downbeat urban portrait of “Easter Parade” (“I know you,birthday cards and silent music / Paperbacks and Sunday clothes… / And then thepeople, all running forward”).
Thefinal two songs on A Walk Across theRooftops, however, have always gripped me most.  “Heatwave” blends Buchanan’s pleading vocals with bothcosmic and earthly concerns:  “Youlive beneath another star / You are pretending love is worth waiting for / Youalways breathe another air / The rivers in the distance must be leadingsomewhere.”  The album’s closingnumber, “Automobile Noise,” constructs a lightly industrial soundscape aroundits commentary on the meaningless yet hypnotic swirl of capitalist pursuits,“Climbing a ladder to all the money in the world / Watching it blow across thewire.”  Rare bonus songs like“Regret” and the previously unreleased “St. Catherine’s Day” provide the albumwith a gorgeous denouement here.
Hatsis, in my estimation, an even more perfect album overall.  I’ve occasionally played it in myclasses when I’m teaching about blues. The songs on Hats are far fromblues music sonically, but their lyrical roots and somber rhythms are based ina similar idiom.  Structurally, Hats is one of the finest pop albumsI’ve ever heard, and it might well be the top contender for the very finest.  Its seven tracks seem to move throughthe seven days of the week, starting with a late Sunday night train ride on“Over the Hillside” and ending with the understatedly joyous celebration of“Saturday Night.”  The album distinctlyetches out a trajectory through time, maybe even through a work week, and justas in our everyday lives, “Saturday Night” is its reward (“Quarter to five, whenthe storefronts are closing in paradise”).
“TheDowntown Lights,” the second track on Hats,is probably The Blue Nile’s most famous song, in part due to Annie Lennox’s dramaticrendition of it on her 1995 album Medusa.  A quintessential encapsulation oflonging that both embodies and transcends its own era, the song projects itselfinto a nighttime skyline, drifting over the exquisite loneliness ofmetropolitan life:
“Theneons and the cigarettesTherented rooms, the rented carsThecrowded streets, the empty barsThechimney tops, the trumpetsThegolden lights, the loving prayersThecolored shoes, the empty trainsI’mtired of crying on the stairs…”
Thatpotent crescendo segues into the slow-drip seductiveness of “Let’s Go OutTonight,” which the late Isaac Hayes once covered in a soulful 11-minuteversion.  “Headlights on theParade” whisks Buchanan and Company back to the main thoroughfare in theirhometown of Glasgow, perhaps explaining that song’s shift to up-tempopercussion and sweeping orchestral flares.  One of the package’s previously unreleased bonus tracks,“Christmas,” nestles deep into archetypal Blue Nile territory with delicatebleeps and swoons, amidst images of twinkling holiday lights.
Atone point Paul Buchanan had considered titling his recent solo album Minor Poets of the Seventeenth Century,and it would have been an appropriate move, in light of his own lasting andpoetic songwriting sensibilities. Of all the records that get re-released with deluxe Collector’s Editiontreatments these days, the two 1980s albums by The Blue Nile are easily amongthe most warranted and most overdue reissues.  The new audience that will gradually discover and experiencethese extraordinary songs for the first time absolutely deserves to be found.