40 Years Ago: The Blue Nile’s A Walk Across The Rooftops
Discover the most sophisticated sophistipop band — even Taylor Swift is a fan!
In the mid-1980s, even among those of us who liked this kind of thing, The Blue Nile were treated like a secret. In any American high school during this period, there were probably a fair handful of students who liked, say, the Smiths or The Cure. Maybe there would be one or two other kids who explored the weird-smelling record stores down by the university who also liked bands like Aztec Camera, Prefab Sprout, Lloyd Cole and the Commotions, or The Go-Betweens. We were the artsy kids, the future theatre school and English literature students who always went to coffeehouses and bookstores on our first dates. And among that tiny little cohort, few records were more treasured than The Blue Nile’s A Walk Across The Rooftops, which came out 40 years ago this week. This was not a record that you played for just anyone.
In 40 years, I’m not sure I have ever heard this album in the daylight. That would feel as wrong as seeing Godard’s Breathless in color.
How can I describe this album to someone who’s never heard it before? Well, if you’ve heard any of the bands I mentioned in the first paragraph, you might be expecting an elegant take on mid-’80s British pop — the sort of…
