Anticipating their new album that came out today, I've been on something of a Nits trip lately. (It's more pleasant than it sounds, I promise!) Since I think these guys should and could be better known, I thought I'd spread the gospel a little bit.

Throughout their almost five decades of existence, Nits (or The Nits) have been critically acclaimed, yet have never really conquered the charts. There are various likely reasons for this. For one, they exist in that difficult-to-market realm of "art pop" and have continued to reinvent themselves and their sound from album to album. As a Dutch band, they have also never had the backing of a major British or US label, and although the songs are primarily in English, perhaps the singer-lyricist Henk Hofstede's accent has also sounded too non-native for the masses.

If you do know Nits, you most likely know them from their minor 80s hits Nescio (1983) and In The Dutch Mountains (1987). Those two songs capture their 80s style pretty well in terms of their sound and lyrical content, and the videos are also great examples of their visual style.

These two songs came out during what was actually their second distinct musical period. Their first four albums, released between 1978 and 1981, were riding the new wave wagon, a good example of which is the song Tutti Ragazzi (1979). But I would say that it was with 1983's Omsk where Nits really started to display their full potential and began to solidify into a core three-man unit of the aforementioned Hofstede, drummer Rob Kloet, and keyboardist Robert Jan Stips who had produced their earlier albums but now joined the band fully. There have been other members over the years, but these three are the main contributors; Hofstede with his voice and story-like lyrics, Kloet with his wide range of beats and rhythms that cross musical genres, and Stips who brings in a particular depth and space in which the songs can breathe freely.

In addition to the two tracks I mentioned earlier, other songs from their 80s and early 90s output that I would recommend as an introduction include A Touch of Henry Moore (1983), Sketches of Spain (1986), Radio Shoes (1990), and Giant Normal Dwarf (1990).

There has always been an undercurrent of melancholy to Nits's music, but it tends to be balanced with their quirky sense of humour. In the 90s, however, the melancholy started to take over, and Hofstede's lyrics became increasingly focused on the human condition while the music dropped some of its overt playfulness. Some wonderful pieces from this period include Cars & Cars (1992), Mourir Avant Quinze Ans (1994), Three Sisters (1998) and Ivory Boy (2000). This period also witnessed a major change in the lineup, as Stips departed the band in 1996. He joined back seven years later, from which point onwards they have been a three-member band.

While the evolution of their style has been gradual, I would say that by the late 2000s, Nits had moved into their fourth major period. Whereas their influences have always clearly included artists like the Beatles (the band's name is sort of a nod to them), Talking Heads, Leonard Cohen, Paul Simon and Bob Dylan, I feel Nits have more recently toned down some of their earlier experimentation and focused more on the qualities that made their influences such great songwriters. From this latest period, take a listen to The Flowers (2008), Distance (2009), Love Locks (2012) and Flowershop Forget-Me-Not (2017).

This brings us to today's album, Knot, which is something like the group's 25th studio album. Or maybe 26th. Or something else, depending on your definition of a studio album. In any case, as I understand it, this new work was largely parsed together from hours of improvisation, and it does sound like that. The eleven tracks feel like mood pieces, fairly static paintings, captured moments. But I have of course only given the album a handful listens so far, so this is an early impression still. In any case, here's the album opener Ultramarine (2019).

I hope this little write-up will be of interest to some of you and that perhaps the linked music speaks to you on a level that pushes you to dig in deeper. If you use Spotify, the "This Is Nits" playlist is a pretty good next step to take.

If you do take a listen, I'd be curious to hear what you think of the music. Or if you knew Nits before, I'd love to hear what you think my little introduction here missed, misinterpreted or should have emphasised more. And what's your view of the new album?

Rather than post this new season's episodes individually as they came out, I decided to wait until it was complete before I submitted anything. The final episode came out yesterday, so here is the season in its entirety. Enjoy!

Here are all the episodes in order:

What Makes the Perfect Thanksgiving Meal? | Making Perfect: Thanksgiving - Prologue
Brad and Andy Try to Make the Perfect Turkey & Cranberry Sauce | Making Perfect: Thanksgiving Ep 1
Molly and Carla Try to Make the Perfect Mashed Potatoes & Gravy | Making Perfect: Thanksgiving Ep 2
Chris and Rick Try to Make the Perfect Stuffing | Making Perfect: Thanksgiving Ep 3
Claire & Christina Try to Make the Perfect Thanksgiving Sides | Making Perfect: Thanksgiving Ep 4
Claire & Brad Make the Perfect Thanksgiving Pie | Making Perfect: Thanksgiving Ep 5
The BA Test Kitchen Makes the Perfect Thanksgiving Meal | Making Perfect: Thanksgiving Finale

p.s. The reason this is a text topic is because it turns out the BA playlist of this season, which I originally submitted, is out of order and so I decided to delete that and resubmit this.

My use case:
I watch videos (YouTube) and listen to audio (Podcasts) as a major part of my weekly media intake. I would love some sort of generated Tildes Playlist . IANADev, but it sure would be nice if Tildes was able to parse, scrape, and categorize media posted as topics and in comments. Then present them to me with a date filter, and allow separating audio only and video media. Maybe something like tildes.net/?tag= but at tildes.net/playlist. I guess it would be nice to be able to sort media by tag as well.

Possible other use case:
Accessibility?

I see that some videos are already being tagged "videos." So there already is some organic interest in this special category, right?

What do you all think, is this useful?

From a dev perspective, is getting that correct enough difficult? Does Embedly categorize audio only and video?

edit: in the playlist view, there should of course be a link back to the topic or comment where the media was found. Also, @Deimos, I certainly don't want to take Tildes away from the text-first/only direction of the site, but sometimes I am doing stuff conducive to audio/video media intake like cooking, driving, etc. It would be cool to be able to easily consume it then, and come back to comment later.

(Someone posted a thread like this but for triple-a videogames rather than software and people said no so I wonder if software is gonna be different.)

If you would or not, why? If you would, how much? What would be the side effects of this change if it was applied on a mass scale? What would be the potential drawbacks?

Edit: Can also apply to video-sharing platforms or forums or instant messengers any software as long as it serves a general purpose and complies with what's mentioned above.