Line #18 Music/Nits


1	Dutch art-rock band founded in 1974. Known in much of Europe as [[OneHitWonder One Hit Wonders]] for their 1987 single "In The Dutch Mountains", but well-regarded enough to maintain an extensive touring schedule across the continent and sometimes further afield. They have a significant following in the Netherlands (naturally), Scandinavia and pockets of Canada (where they benefitted from being championed by Music/BarenakedLadies).
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3	'''Discography:'''
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5	* ''The Nits'' (1978)
6	* ''Tent'' (1979)
7	* ''New Flat'' (1980)
8	* ''Work'' (1981)
9	* ''Omsk'' (1983)
10	* ''Kilo'' (1983) (mini)
11	* ''Adieu Sweet Bahnhof'' (1984)
12	* ''Henk'' (1986)
13	* ''In the Dutch Mountains'' (1987)
14	* ''Hat'' (1988) (mini)
15	* ''Urk'' (1989)
16	* ''Giant Normal Dwarf'' (1990)
17	* ''Ting'' (1992)
18	* ''dA dA dA'' (1994)
19	* ''Alankomaat'' (1998)
20	* ''Wool'' (2000)
21	* ''1974'' (2003)
22	* ''Les Nuits'' (2005)
23	* ''Doing the Dishes'' (2008)
24	* ''Strawberry Wood'' (2009)
25	* ''Malpensa'' (2012)
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27	Collaborations:
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29	* ''Hjuvi - A Rhapsody in Time'' (1992) (with The Netherlands Radio Symphony Orchestra)
30	* ''Dankzij de Dijken'' (1995) (with Freek de Jonge)
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32	! Tropes associated with Nits:
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34	* AnimateInanimateObject: A restaurant, of all things, in "An Eating House".
35	* BookEnds: ''Giant Normal Dwarf'' opens with "Radio Shoes" about the start of a quest to find the eponymous footwear, and ends with "The Infinite Shoeblack" (which is written in the same meter) which documents the finding of the shoes.
36	* BottleEpisode: ''In The Dutch Mountains'' was the musical equivalent - all the songs were played live in the studio, direct to two-track.
37	* CaptainObvious: "I can live without a finger, I can live without a toe / But a head is necessary" - "J.O.S. Days"
38	* CosmeticAward: "Mountain Jan". Jan spends years studying the behaviour of electrons, and is honoured by having a mountain named after him, "somewhere in Antarctica".
39	* EverythingIsAnInstrument: a pedestrian crossing on "Zebra", bicycle parts (natch) on "Bike in Head"
40	* FakeOutFadeOut: In live performance, "Cabins" has a false ending. (The quite different original recording simply fades out.)
41	* ForeignLanguageTitle: They perform in English, so any of their songs with titles in other languages are this - sometimes the title is in the song, but the song is otherwise in English.
42	** ''Adieu, Sweet Bahnhof'' (both a song and album) has the three words of its title in three different languages.
43	* GenreMashup: Particularly when they play live, but there are some unusual genre-melds in their recorded output too, like "Cabins" (new wave meets systems music) and "Sleep (What Happens To Your Eyes)" (synthpop meets lieder).
44	* GenreRoulette: when they're not rushing headlong into eclectic territory, they'll play with this quite a lot, ranging over new wave, pop, rock, jazz, avant garde, classical, folk and beyond.
45	* InMediasRes: the retrospective ''Nits Hits'' starts in the middle of their career and moves forward chronologically, then the second CD starts in the middle again and works backward to their oldest material.
46	* LongSongShortScene: There are live recordings of the complete song "The Singing Telegram", but the studio version on ''Henk'' just comprises the EpicInstrumentalOpener and starts fading out as soon as the vocals arrive. They did record the whole thing but decided that was the only bit they liked enough to include on the album.
47	* MrsRobinson: "Robinson"
48	* NewSoundAlbum: they're known for doing this with almost every album, to the point where critics and fans are disappointed if they ''don't''.
49	* RealWorldEpisode: "Nescio" does this with the central character of the classic Dutch short story "De uitvreter".
50	* RearrangeTheSong: Like New Sound Album, they make a regular habit of this. Some songs get a whole new arrangement for every tour.
51	* ShoutOut: At least half their songs revolve around shout outs of one kind or another - to people, works of art, books, landmarks...
52	* SillyLoveSongs: A noted aversion, they write very few love songs generally.
53	* SpellMyNameWithAThe: Played straight until 1990, then averted with the official name now being NITS (usually in capitals, too).
54	* StepUpToTheMicrophone: Robert-Jan Stips sings lead on a few tracks; Joke Gereats sang the live-only "Telephone Song".
55	* TheSomethingSong: "The Long Song".
56	* TrainSong: "Adieu, Sweet Bahnhof" and "The Train".
57	* WarIsHell: Several songs including "Sketches of Spain", "Mourir Avant 15 Ans" and "J.O.S. Days"
58	* WithLyrics: Inverted. "Walter and Conny" has lyrics, but they've never been officially used and the song is always played as an instrumental. A demo with the lyrics has been bootlegged.

Context Music / Nits