THE BLUE NILE ‘The Downtown Lights’ (1989)
Five years earlier the shimmering pathos of ‘Tinsel Town In The Rain’ had marked The Blue Nile down as gnawed romantics, painting smeared pictures of Glasgow in the diesel-doused drizzle. ‘The Downtown Lights’ follows a similarly tragic trajectory, all sighing synths and tinselled emotions lifted from the ‘Hats’ album (on which the track ‘Let’s Go Out Tonight’ is too desolate, even for our moribund tastes). We’re choosing the six minute 31 seconds LP version so we don’t miss the moodswing towards the end where Paul Buchanan cries “I’m tired of crying on the stairs”, because that’s how we roll.