CPI Archive 2008: THERE was a time when music and art collided. A time when Andy Warhol designed album covers for the Velvet Underground and the Rolling Stones. A time too when the New Romantics paraded their wares like made-up Dandy Highwaymen across Ireland and the world.
Like all new movements however, an unavoidable natural force was constantly at work. Dragging the music deeper and deeper inside its own theory, leading it by the nose to a stylistic nth degree - when the sound collapses in on itself and it becomes a pale parody of what it once was. In the early aftermath of this New Romanic apocalypse came The Blue Nile. Without the frills of Spandau Ballet or Adam Ant, the Nile possessed something altogether more tangible. They had heart. Over the next two decades, this heart would serve as a sort-of musical quality control. Forcing them to bin moneymaking albums that just weren’t right - making them always tell the truth to the fans and more importantly to themselves. The result of this heart is a 25-year career with just four records, including a massive eight-year gap between Hats and Peace At Last, but also a discography of unquestioned quality. “I think that the audience wants you to do something that’s true. Otherwise when you are writing emotional music there really is no point. I mean there are always other considerations, but the truth of the matter is that once you get into the process of writing the song, the song becomes the boss. Not the band and certainly not the record label,” says Paul.
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