It’s really about time they had their own thread. There are very few albums that capture a mood/atmosphere as perfectly as Hats does. One of the finest records ever recorded.
Shoot.
It’s really about time they had their own thread. There are very few albums that capture a mood/atmosphere as perfectly as Hats does. One of the finest records ever recorded.
Shoot.
Yes I’m pissed and crooning along to The Downtown Lights. Fight me.
I have Hats in MP3 format but I’ve never given it much time. The kudos it gets on here I should give it a proper listen. The praise is high. Could be an album to add to the listening club, I feel that might work and albums we have tried on there I do like the actual real listening and thoughts. Yep, that feels like a plan.
I’ve been retrospectively reading through your listening club thread as I’m normally busy on Saturdays. While Hats probably doesn’t hit the heights sonically of the albums you’ve chosen, I can think of very few records that can instantaneously transport me to somewhere in the way that The Blue Nile do on this record.
Love Hats, astounding record. Really like From A Late Night Train.
Yes, this has convinced me it should be included. I’d be listening quite blind, which is good I feel and gets the rawest response.
Added it for tomorrow evening, which is now today.
My brother just introduced me to The Blue Nile this Christmas by buying me A Walk Across the Rooftops on vinyl and Hats on CD. I have to say, I’ve no idea how this band managed to pass me by for so long. But it’s a major blind spot I’m so happy to have had corrected.
Funnily enough, I haven’t quite connected with Hats, but I absolutely adore AWATR and been playing it constantly this past month, it’s a truly wonderful album I can’t seem to get enough of. Must go back to Hats and give it more time, but I did really like ‘Headlights on the Parade’.
I walk across the rooftops
The jangle of Saint Steven’s bells
The telephones that ring all night
Incommunicado
I love them. Rooftops and Hats are simply two of my favourite albums, a pair of perfect 10/10 records. They elevate tiny, mundane moments and make them widescreen and magical, few people’s voices can express feeling and move me like Paul Buchanan’s can.
Much, much less keen on Peace at Last and High but they’ve still got at least a couple of great songs on each, I prefer Buchanan’s solo record to those, and then some great b-sides aside that’s it, hope we get to hear more.
Genuinely jealous of anyone discovering them for the first time.
A Walk Across the Rooftops is one of my favourite albums. Love love love it. Huge songs strewn with deft little cinematic/atmospheric touches. Hats is fantastic too, but the debut pips it for me on account of it being more consistent from beginning to end. Not a single dud on there, or anything even close to being labelled a dud.
First two albums are just fantastic. Music for people who get sentimental at the sight of a streetlight.
I feel like the songs on the others are still decent but something about the production or the sound selection makes them feel dated and a little cheesy.
I’M TIRED OF CRYIN’ ON THE STAAAAAIRS
gives me goosebumps every time
Hats is probably one of my favourite albums ever innit
A Walk Across the Rooftops and Hats are both basically perfect records. High is really great too - an underrated album. Definitely one of my favourite bands even though it is frustrating how little material there is.
I was really excited to get to see them live. It was at the Apollo in Oxford in 1996 and about ten minutes before they came on the woman sitting in front of me was violently sick all over everything around her, which made the evening slightly less magical than I anticipated.
One of my favourite bands. Two perfect albums. Paul’s solo album is only one step behind them too.
Doesn’t get much better than this;
Definitely agree with this about Peace at Last - it just edges a bit too close to the middle of the road. High is a much better record though - not quite up to the standard of the first two but still really good.
Aye one of the great romantic bands, 2 classic LPs.
Best song - Heatwave
I remember really enjoying reading Nileism by Allan Brown when it came out, interesting to get some detail about this mysterious bunch who only resurfaced every 8 years or so. I still don’t understand why they split.
Would LOVE them to have a HGATR
Hats had such a profound effect on me I actually went out of my way to avoid hearing anything else by them for years. Wasn’t until I chanced on a tidy copy of A Walk Across The Rooftops in a charity shop last year that I decided to discover more and gosh it’s gorgeous. I don’t think it will ever overtake Hats in my estimation but I do love listening to it to see how they got to the wide-eyed cinematic romanticism of Hats; built from the same pieces but somehow elevated into even higher melancholy splendor.
Guess it’s obvious from my avatar, but Hats is my favourite album of all time. I discovered it in 2006, at a very specific time in my life where I was slowly starting to realise that it was OK to be alone, and did a few trips around the UK, where I just walked the streets, discovering new places.
There’s a certain mood they create that I just can’t articulate, and I’ve never been able to decide if the lyrics are intentionally vague, or just invitingly universal, so you can totally compare them to your own life and experience.
I highly recommend the book mentioned above. If I remember correctly, David Fincher was a fan and wanted to work with them but it never happened.
I think my favourite track is either Headlights on the Parade, Saturday Night or Tinseltown in the Rain. But it literally changes every day.