Artist: Band
Career: formed in 1974
Language: English
Genre: classicist pop
A little bit of Costello (actually a lot of Steve Nieve-esque keyboard work), a bit of XTC, maybe some 10CC or Police in there, some Dutch cabaret. None of those bands or genres count among my favorites from the 70s or 80s (I don’t even like two of them), but the Nits have something all their own. They’re one of those continental European bands that at first strike you as quirky, until you realize they’ve just made their own framework and why should they fit into the American/British pop fashions? Nothing quirky about it, just a great, personal and original style.
For me, it was my first encounter with Dutch institution the Nits, but I’m quite certain I’ll get into their 70s and 80s albums before long. In 2000 they released this double disc retrospective and it’s filled to the lid with weird, infectious, wonderfully melodic pop music. I’m not a fan of ‘80s synthesizer sounds and production qualities, and yes, at times here it creates a distance between me and the music, but mostly, like Prince, it’s done so imaginatively that I accept it, I even get a kick out of it. There aren’t many bands that pull that off.
For me, this centers around the last stretch of the first disc, with a number of short, explosive pop songs – I think from their very early days (they have that hungry sound). No doubt that ‘Tutti ragazzi’ would’ve been a worldwide hitsingle for any band less geographically challenged, but those bands couldn’t have written this (and anyway, I think the Nits had only one hit even in their homeland). And on this compilation ‘Tutti ragazzi’ is followed by similarly irresistible singles like ‘Young reporter’ and ‘Umbrella’. But elsewhere on these two discs and 44 song you get the longing ‘JOS days’, nostalgia put into sound. These discs keep throwing up treasure spin after spin.
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