They have NICK CAVE polls now? I want one!: The ILM Nick Cave Poll Voting Thread (#106 in a series)

<img src=https://happymag.tv/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Nick-Cave-Large-.jpg>;

OK, so since the idea for this poll was first floated way back when, Nick Cave has released some very interesting music. Admittedly, I haven't come to proper terms with all of those new songs, but it's nevertheless rather inadvertently fitting that this opportunity for intensive listening took so long to get off the ground. It will no doubt be fun/ exhausting to trawl back through these dense, rich catalogues.

So here are the ropes:

Part I (mandatory): Your Top 20 Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds tracks. As per usual, please present these in order from 1-20 and they will be weighted accordingly. Should you wish to submit an unranked ballot, please specify in the title or body of your email.

Part II (optional, but encouraged): Your Top 15 non-Bad Seeds tracks. This extends to The Boys Next Door, The Birthday Party, Grinderman, Nick Cave & Warren Ellis... Actually, I'm not familiar with any other Nick Cave-led projects beyond the ones I listed, but if you want to rep for something else that might qualify, go for it. Once again, present these in order or specify otherwise.

Part III (optional): Your Top 5 albums. In this category, you can vote for any Nick Cave-affiliated album, provided he is at the helm. EPs and soundtracks are fair game. Hopefully, we'll see some entertaining results.

Y'all can have till Tuesday, 15 December to record your ballots. Please submit to: nickcavepo✧✧✧@gm✧✧✧.c✧✧

Happy voting!

Let's try that picture again (it's been a while):

<img src="https://happymag.tv/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Nick-Cave-Large-.jpg";>

btw:

n i c k c a v e p o l l s @ g m a i l . c o m

Tuff Monks
Die Haut
Was the Peel session as the Cavemen?

Oh yeah, Tuff Monks! clean forgot about that. I really like that one song.

side projects off the top:

Tuff Monks - one single
Die Haut - one album with Cave as guest singer

the Ghosts... Of The Civil Dead soundtrack is by Nick, Mick & Blix, as is Hillcoat's To Have And To Hold a decade later

Cave did two duets with Anita Lane on the B-side of The World's A Girl 7": a cover of the Bedazzled title song, and a version of Je T'aime... Moi Non Plus that presaged Mick Harvey's two Serge Gainsbourg translated cover albums

Lydia Lunch's album Honeymoon In Red album is mostly backed by the Birthday Party* (and mixed by Foetus), with two Cave cowrite/duets, credited as Lydia Lunch And Her Dead Twin and as Lydia Lunch And A Drunk Cowboy Junkie

The Bad Seeds and VvV all played on/produced the What A Wonderful World single, but it was just credited to Nick Cave & Shane MacGowan (the b-sides were each singer doing one of the other's songs)

Cave has a handful of things just credited to himself too, nothing likely to trouble the poll iirc

and Nick Cave and The Dirty Three would like you to know that "0" is also a number

*bar one with Thurston, and one with Thurston and These Immortal Souls

btw I can understand if you want to limit the amount of work for yourself Charlie, but 20 main tracks and 5 albums might be a frustrating limit!

this is going to be really interesting, since he has such a wide-ranging and consistently good discography. i suspect my taste might be a little unusual in really favouring his late-period stuff to the point that ghosteen might be my favourite of his, but there's also a lot i haven't listened to in quite a while that i'm looking forward to digging into

xp@me: (like, there's 25-odd studio albums before you even get to sounddtracks and whatnot...)

Fair call on the albums. Let's extend that to a <b>10 album limit across the board.</b>

I'll stick with the current Bad Seeds tracks limit, since 20 songs apparently worked for the Bowie poll. I admit it might get tough (but will no doubt be more approachable for the fair-weather fans).

Opening post pic is too good to remain absent
https://happymag.tv/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Nick-Cave-Large-.jpg

thank you (I'll learn how to post pics in time for results).

np

lots of gaps in my Cave collection but I'll definitely get a ballot together

Hmm, I rarely participate in these polls, but I might do this one! I wonder if in the end it'll be a rocker or ballad that tops the list?

I predict The Mercy Seat for #1

Nick Cave and The Dirty Three would like you to know that "0" is also a number

in case you were wondering if anyone else would get the reference, I got the reference

I predict The Mercy Seat for #1

this seems like as good an excuse as any to finally listen to ghosteen

A+ poll title, kudos

My ballot will skew way too much towards the first few years of his career but screw it, I'm going to submit one, but will do a spot of late period listening first.

Oooh, it's on! Nice...

Haha, not much of a Nick Cave fanatic but I did sample Ann Magnuson saying "I want one" for one of my dance tracks.

it is just the fucking best, that line

these tracks we vote for can include cover songs, yes or no?

in terms of where they "go" on the ballot -- it is based on which Nick entity recorded them?

for example, if I wanted to vote for Nick & Bad Seeds' cover of "Tower of Song" from the I'm Your Fan compilation -- where would that go?

I really like Nick Cave and seeing him live a few years back was one of the best shows I ever attended (out of a thousand or more, most likely).

Yet his is so prolific that despite owning over half a dozen of his albums plus some Birthday Party stuff, I still don't feel "qualified" to opine here for some reason.

But I am already mentally bookmarking the Spotify playlist that this endeavor will almost assuredly spawn.

Cover songs are perfectly alright, yes.

If the cover is credited to Nick Cave and & the Bad Seeds, put it in the with the Bad Seeds tracks (not amongst the non-Bad Seeds stuff). So yeah, organise your lists according to who the songs are credited to.

Regarding the likes of Hee Haw, The Birthday Party, Mutiny and The Bad Seed

I'm guessing it'd be advantageous to think in terms of Hee-Haw and Mutiny/The Bad Seed as compilations these days, rather than frittering away (and potentially splitting?!?) votes on, aay, Hee Haw (the EP) or whatever?

^ "votes on, say, Hee Haw..."

yes, I think we can only vote for the individual, non-merged EPs in their original incarnations. good to get that point out there before the Mutiny/Bad Seed couplings start stacking up.

what do we think about live albums? I think they could be accepted.

Have just done a spreadsheet for fun to guide my listening, and I count 67 albums/EPs all up including live ones.

I'd say yes to live albums - I might not vote for Live Seeds, but it would feel wrong not to be able to vote it.

I'd say on tracks, the slower version of "Higgs Boson Blues" from the live from KCRW collection is the much superior version of that song.

Cave & the Seeds have been probably my fave (or close to it) currently working artist for the last 30-ish yrs, so I am in now deep research/reflective mode, will advise shortly

Taking bets now, will I be the only one to rank Nocturama #1? (Half-kidding, I might not put it first but it will be top 5 for me...)

I bet I am only ballot with Did Lazarus Dig era b-side "Accidents Will Happen" in my top ten! It is a good song but I also have freighted emotions cuz it is the first thing I played my newborn daughter by dint of alphabetical order and also she was er, an um...accident?

Hello i will be participating yes yes yes

THEY’RE READY

https://2c27809e61cd41c3b4f8d8995798bc09.objectstore.eu/media/750x/0.n4qm73vhwwyxde2bhwg7m0a4i-e373ec00821f0f44711a768826763159.png

ouch all I think of when I see that pic is "Far From Me"

Maybe the only artist with a long career where I've heard just about everything, almost all of it as it arrived in shops. "Tupelo" was the revelation. I can still picture standing in the friend's apartment, ashtrays and candles, spider plant and old leather sofa, as I was holding the LP jacket, just after she said "You've got to hear this song".

Also fun that this arrives so soon after the Cramps deep-dive. Both bands sit near the center of gravity for what I've wanted from rock music. They shared members, shared wit, and have a parallel obsessiveness and care for the discarded. It's hard not to include his covers, because as with The Cramps, some of them have lead me down long listening paths.

A lot of Bad Seeds albums disappointed me, and I'd have thought my list would be 80s heavy, yet it's shaping up evenly distributed though the decades.

Also, helpful guidance here

https://thehardtimes.net/blog/we-rank-the-albums-of-nick-cave-because-we-heard-a-girl-we-like-is-into-him/

A lot of Bad Seeds albums disappointed me,

they were always a "mix tape" band for me (along with The Cure) where there were so many songs I liked, but I wasn't super stoked on any one album. It's not like they had "filler" like some bands, just that there were songs I loved and songs that were just ok.

and I'd have thought my list would be 80s heavy, yet it's shaping up evenly distributed though the decades.

Pretty certain nothing I vote for will be post-1996, so ...

his “later years” ie the past 20 years or so has some really great treasures, highly recommend listening to any from that list

also: PSA: if you blew off Nocturama and No More Shall We Part as boring like I did when they came out, they really reward revisiting imo

I am sure you're right - there are definitely songs/albums that I didn't connect with when I first heard them (this is going back 20-30 years tbh) that later I came to love, so I figure the stuff from the later years will eventually.

count 67 albums/EPs all up including live ones.

a bit fudgy because several live albums are compilations, but I'm calling this 18 live releases, not counting the Shell Shock opera that Cave wrote (the libretto), the album of which was recorded on the premiere performance.

ffs i mean it either is 67 or it isnt

lift yr game sic

:D

LOL.

So from the above (XXXXXXP), The Birthday Party LP and the Hee Haw EP are fine. But no-one should be getting into messy vote-splitting territory with the 13-track Hee Haw which collects the contents of both, yeah?

that sounds right to me, although it's gonna be tough to cram both Mutiny! and The Bad Seed into my top 5 (well maybe 10)

20 tracks might kill me but i am up to the challenge

sorry to dip in last minute, but is there still time to submit something? i am a level B nick cave + pals fan, looking forward to the roll-out and it would be awesome to be rooting for a few faves in particular!

yes, I'm keeping it open for a bit. not because I'm super busy or anything, but so that everybody has a chance to submit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P23a2-L7Ixc

still working on mine, but will submit before i go to bed (1 to 3 hours from now)

voted!

going to bed!

Nice — thanks!

Still pretty loose on calling time on voting. Let’s say 24 hours from now ?

Also, question:

Should I split the votes for Do You Love Me & Do You Love Me (Part 2)? I think it was pretty clear in the end as to which version voters were preferencing in their ballots.

For the Neil Young poll they combined “Tonight’s the Night” and “Tonight’s the Night (Part 2)” fwiw. Maybe breakdown splits if you go that route?

actually, Tonight's the Night is a great point of reference. Think I'll combine 'em & as you say, spell out how the votes landed.

I love em both so I’m ok with combining!

could we have until Sunday to vote?

sent

I was actually hoping to start the rollout on either Friday or Sunday. the only reason being that things might get tight for me if we get too close to Christmas (it's going to be a quick roll out in any case).

Can you bang one out by Saturday morning, sarahell ?

And running after Xmas, nearer the height of ILX's EOY shenanigans, is... less than ideal. The voting period has been generously proportioned methinks. #UnsolicitedOpinions

Yeah - Saturday I can do -- thanks!

No problem!

So of course this means, you can all keep submitting till Saturday. and the rollout will be very shortly after that.

Well, I wasn't planning on sending a ballot as I'd say Nick's post-Birthday Party work is pretty minor in importance to me, but I was able to manage 20 songs barely, and probably included a lot more covers than most of you. As good as the BP were - if not quite a top ten post punk band overall, still possibly the very best of the really noisy side of art-damaged post punk - I find his self-important bellowing less intriguing without Roland and Tracey channeling his intentions into truly nasty intensity (which Nick only matched live). None of the bad seeds albums really hold up for me from start to finish apart from Kicking Against the Pricks, which is one of the all-time great covers albums, ranging as it does from sometimes headscratching song choices and production ideas that illuminate both the singer and the songs, to heartfelt tearjerker oldies like Long Black Veil and By The Time I Get to Phoenix that for my money accomplish better what he would seem to be trying to do with most of his hard to distinguish mopey underwritten droning ballads that make up seemingly 60% of his recorded output afterward.

So for me this is a Birthday Party poll (and you gotta vote for Shivers in there somewhere) with a bonus challenge of picking what you would keep from his later career. Don't get me wrong, it's a career that offers way more than the astonishingly lame diminishing returns of 95% of post punk bands past their 2nd or 3rd album; he's no Mark E. Smith or Talking Heads or Sonic Youth or Mekons or the Cure, but 20 songs I like is way more than, say, how many songs I like by later reformed Wire, reformed Gang of Four, post Swell-Maps Epic & Nikki, and post-Juju Banshees, all added up and combined. So he gets points for perseverance. And while I feel he has a lot of underwritten material and little quality control or ability to drastically vary his sound apart from occasionally wanting to get a raunchy rockin' sound without really bothering to have good riffs or a decent rhythm section that adds any interest, the bare bones of his compositions do sometimes make me marvel at some moments of sublime beauty I wouldn't expect from the weird looking caveman-poet dude from the birthday party. Moments that recall 1960s bacharach, like the ba-ba ba-ba vamping backing vocals from Slowly Goes the Night, or how the sliding steel that opens his beautifully unmannered and centered improvement CSNY's Helpless presages the riff from Fade Into You.

What's so interesting - it used to be frustrating, but you know you get older and your tolerance for boring music goes way up - is how what makes a good Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds track good is so utterly unlike the ecstatic pleasures of the vastly superior band where he got his start. When he found the groove in Swampland to integrate his shriek into like a squawking Dolphy solo, or just barely grips the octave up at the end of the chorus of She's Hit, he's an inspired singer employing the awkward instrument of his voice in the service of the demented dramatic situation he's trying to evoke. And he's finding all these interesting things to do with his voice and lyrics in songs that have such memorable grinding yet catchy Fall-like repetitive songs that then have the juddering bass and skronk turned up higher than the Fall seemed to even understand was possible. It reminds me a bit of how different the pleasures of New Order are from Joy Division, but you have an obvious reason for the difference there... Nick did sort of commit an artistic suicide or at least an amputation when he decided he needed to kill off or cut out his demented songbook of fantastic early triumphs, never to play any of them in his ensuing 37 years, and only to occasionally summon that sound in a lumbering tuneless echo in (my opinion) boring albums like Dig Lazarus Dig and Grinderman. One can imagine if he had not renamed the band, that he could grandly baffle an audience with a solo piano dirge rendition of King Ink, or sometimes close a show with a raveup revival of Hamlet Powpowpow that would have no reason for existing without the bass riff that seems to float over the skitting melee of the drums and vocal outbursts at seeming fisticuffs with each other. It's good that such things don't occur to him, they would be a travesty in a way. Or correct me if I'm wrong and he does play a few of those tunes... Jennifer's Veil would certainly be sturdy enough for him to 'cover'.

I think you're selling Roland and Tracy really short there, they weren't just "channeling his intentions" and that's why the name didn't continue and why his solo work is different. imo.

Rowland & Tracy were both such astonishing talents that any music bearing their names was going to be a vehicle for their individuality no matter their adherence to completing a particular sound or aesthetic.

I agree with you mig that Cave frequently underwrites & is lax on quality control. but I do think the miss is as important as the hit when it comes to assessing his work. that is to say, there are moments when a more studied approach hits all the anticipated high points, moments when he almost strikes a chord despite apparent complete indifference, moments when he misses the mark altogether etc.. it makes his music a wild & unpredictable thing to behold most of the time, which I think works in his favour.

I think you're selling Roland and Tracy really short there, they weren't just "channeling his intentions" and that's why the name didn't continue and why his solo work is different. imo.

this is elided by the name never changing again despite his interests and the personnel changing repeatedly imo (except Grinderman! but Dig Lazarus obviously fits into the same mode of interest in between the two albums).

Blixa quitting after the trilogy of Boatmans/No More/Nocturama -on the grounds that it wasn't the band he'd joined - underscores how that phase could have been well-served as solo records (esp since he did small-band and solo shows then) or The Nick Cave Quartet or s/t, then returning to the Bad Seeds name for Abattoir Blues.



anyway, voted!

good point and it kinda makes me think of Tom Petty

i checked and he has played birthday party songs with the bad seeds but pretty rarely. a few were common in the first few bad seeds tours, and "wild world" was a staple on the nocturama tour, but otherwise birthday party songs have only been rare one-offs.

indeed. first time i saw him in '85 "wild world" was the encore but in all the times i've seen him subsequently i'm fairly sure i have never heard a birthday pasrty song performed. i missed the nocturama tour.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2Ni5SXn96Q

oh, and apologies to the mighty tracy for somehow adding an e to his name upthread.

thanks for extending the deadline, charlie. ballot sent!

btw, still lolling at this:

POLLIN doo dah doo, doo dah doo, doo dah do

argh. quote, not bold. sorry

all the poll title suggestions deserved to be in bold tbf

An Aus TV program this week alluded to the fact that "even Nick Cave" licensed a song for TV advertising. Pretty sure I never saw this ad circa 2013. And am kinda puzzled by the choice of that song to sell regional tourism, in SA, of all places.

I thought he had expressly said out of respect for his muse he wasn't going to lease songs for ads. Following that up with talking about how his music had personal associations for people like what they would want to get buried to, married to, and soundtrack other significant life events with.
Would have thought that would predate 2013 too.

the (original?) "my muse is not a horse" manifesto was about refusing to attend the MTV Awards, but I think there's a basic policy of *only* licensing Red Right Hand. it's been in TV shows since the X-Files in 1994, been the theme for multiple TV shows, been in multiple adverts, various films since Dumb & Dumber in 1994, re-recorded twice for Scream 2 and Scream 3, and was covered by Pete Yorn (instead of licensed) for one of the Hellboys because Cave felt like Scream kinda had title to it by then.

okay turns out that O Children from Lyre Of Orpheus was used in a Harry Potter movie

you have to figure he'd say yes to that, even there was otherwise a policy against licencing, just for the incongruity

i saw that Harry Potter movie in the theaters & had to contain my amusement/surprise lmao

People Ain't No Good was used in Shrek 2.

ok, I have a feeling all the votes are in?

can i ask -- and this is mildly embarrassing -- how to include images in my posts for the rundown ? I think the process has changed since I last ran one of these polls a few years back (Roxy Music or Queen).

Release The Bats was used in Kevin and Perry Go Large to s/trk the inside of Kevin's trousers
Shivers in Dogs in Space Nick singing though its a Rowland song of course.

how to include images in my posts for the rundown ?

for a quick reference, you can click "Show Formatting Help" just below the "Add a Post" box on ILX, and it'll give you the format you need. for a very sloppy "guide", i also made a couple posts the other day with images showing how to do it via imgur:

see this post, and if something doesn't make sense let me know and i can help!

yeah, Nick actually appearing in the film and singing tends to suggest he's given his approval (cf also Civil Dead, Johnny Suede, Himmel uber Berlin)

(Dogs director Loewenstein also got to use Mercy Seat in his John Birmingham Felafel adap, in two versions - and had Rowland cover Iggy)

think there's a basic policy of *only* licensing Red Right Hand

lol no

uh I still haven't voted yet, I could get you something by tonight (California time) but if I missed the boat, then so be it

Still time, sarahell ! Tonight your time is ok !
Thought you may have already snuck your vote in.

Thanks so much for your help with formatting, Karl !

thanks will do!

I'm looking forward to this. My grasp of Cave's solo oeuvre still feels patchy despite immersion last month. As a yoof I largely tuned out after Murder Ballads and not much turn-of-the-century stuff made my ballot upon catching up. Later dirges did though! I feel like I'm principally a Birthday Party fan really, but a weird one in that I really like them as a herky-jerky pop group and sometimes get a bit impatient with, say, Junkyard. So I'm anticipating a few "interesting--didn't realise that was so beloved" type moments...

I sent my ballot --

took until Sunday afternoon after all :)

OK cool, I think we're ready to go.

I'll kick this off in an hour or so.

oh damn, glad i'll be here for the very beginning! :D :D

TOO LOW

what is the most doofus nick cave fan? i am that guy in this poll, yelling out for the obvious hits

I feel like this poll must have attracted way more votes from 'strayans (ex-'strayans?) than the Go-Betweens did. Pretty sure I was joined overwhelmingly by Euro/American folk for that one, in terms of submitted ballots anyway. Then again, maybe there were just more ballots overall here?!?!

Which reminds me: I forgot to even consider voting for Tuff Monks!

The Tuff Monks is literally a piss-about jam that got bootlegged - with fifteen slots for side projects, it probably can stand to make room for more considered stuff (though I went quixotically tactical on my side-ballot tbh)

Rollout happening here btw: I ain't down here for your love or money, I'm down here for your POLL: The ILM Nick Cave Poll RESULTS Thread (#106 in a series)

Covers listening and voting thread rolling over here: TOWERS OF SONG: a Nick Cave Sings Covers listening thread and poll