Best Nick Cave Album...Poll Ends May 14

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Boatman's Call is one of the best records I've ever heard.

Poll Results

Option	Votes
Your Funeral...My Trial	8
Kicking Against The Pricks	6
	5
Let Love In	3
The Boatman's Call	3
Abbatoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus	2
From Her To Eternity	2
Henry's Dream	2
The Good Son	2
Tender Prey	2
Live Seeds	1
Murder Ballads	0
No More Shall We Part	0
Nocturama	0
The Firstborn Is Dead	0
Grinderman?	0

― Bimble, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 05:36 (seventeen years ago) link

For Her To Eternity.
it goes down slowly from that point on for me

― Zeno, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 05:39 (seventeen years ago) link

(and Birthday party is better than everything he ever recorded solo)

― Zeno, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 05:39 (seventeen years ago) link

I took the blank option to mean "don't like Nick Cave".

― Groke, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 09:46 (seventeen years ago) link

Kicking Against The Pricks is kinda fun, in a sick way.

― JN$OT, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 09:48 (seventeen years ago) link

Agree with Zeno here.

― Marcello Carlin, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 09:49 (seventeen years ago) link

hearing the boatman's call first confused me into thinking i liked nick cave for the longest time. i've got time for murder ballads too but his schtick elsewhere makes me cringe with embarrassment on his behalf.

― lex pretend, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 10:12 (seventeen years ago) link

Tender Prey!!

― baaderonixx, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 10:23 (seventeen years ago) link

I voted for Kicking Against The Pricks, which I bizarrely actually put in my top 10 the year it came out (as much for Blixa Bargeld's contribution as for Cave's), and it is therefore easily the only Nick Cave LP I've ever remotely cared about since he left the Birthday Party (including the boring new one.) (Also probably helped somewhat that Nick didn't write the songs.)

― xhuxk, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 10:26 (seventeen years ago) link

the bad seeds records sound nothing like the birthday party though. not overly keen on henry's dream or the last two. I'd say everything up to and incluing the good son is beyond reproach. murder ballads up to no more shall we part is a good spree too. Lex, surely murder ballads is the most brazen specimen of Cave schtick? I think i'll go for your funeral my trial for it's glassy eyed eighties chilly-ness but it's effectively a 7-way tie for me.

― cw, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 10:40 (seventeen years ago) link

your funeral has the best nick cave sole career song ever:
stranger than kindness

― Zeno, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 10:41 (seventeen years ago) link

I went for "Your funeral..." - probably influenced by hearing him do "Sad Waters" for the first time in forever at ATP on Sunday.

I could easily have chosen half a dozen others, though if pushed I'd put Boatman's Call 2nd and From Her To Eternity 3rd. Kicking Against The Pricks is maybe my favourite covers album by anyone.

― onimo, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 10:48 (seventeen years ago) link

It's a toss-up between Your Funeral and Tender Prey for me. Unfortunately the old rock cliché about losing it when you stop being a junkie seems to apply to Cave. I certainly like some of his albums of the past fifteen years, but none of them have the visceral impact of his eighties material. I stopped automatically buying his latest album at No More Shall We Part. Nocturama was Cave-by-numbers, I haven't heard the Abbatoir or Grinderman ones, I've sort of lost interest.

― underpants of the gods, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 10:54 (seventeen years ago) link

I'm having a really hard time having to choose between The Firstborn Is Dead and Your Funeral My Trial.

― StanM, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 11:06 (seventeen years ago) link

I've never heard so much admiration for Your Funeral, but it's always been my favorite. I too gave up at No More Shall We Part, avoided Nocturama. But Abbatoir and Grinderman have really brought me back. I enjoy them more than anything since Tender Prey. I feel like he's finally worked through his desire to be classy, which started with "Foi Na Cruz". The whole 90s, he was a bit lost for me, though I kept trying and found plenty of moments that held my interest ("Idiot's Prayer","Loverman".) Murder Ballads got on my nerves, and really started making me doubt the earlier stuff. "Love Letter" is a beautifully crafted song. And I despise it.

But Grinderman, with it's over-distorted amateurish guitar playing, has really got me excited again. As did the laughably over the top gospel stuff on Abattoir/Orpheus. ("I awoke with a Frappicino in my hand...") None of this is worth comparing to the B Party, which was above all a collaboration, and only tangentially relevant to anything Cave has attempted on his own. I feel like his strength has always been in juxtaposing the literary and avant with out-and-out bad taste. Heartfelt Christianity vs. hedonism, appreciation of Southern folk forms vs. a condescending European regard for the primal, raw noise vs filigree. He's finally getting back to that.

All Cave records have some duds on 'em, but "Hard on for Love", "Long Time Man" "Stranger Than Kindness"- that's when he was hitting the mark the most.

― bendy, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 11:31 (seventeen years ago) link

Yep, can only agree with bendy's post, right down to the disgust for "Love Letter". I do like "Foi Na Cruz" though. The Good Son is the only album for me where he's been really succesful with his ballad/crooner persona. He should have stopped with it right there. At the time of release I really liked A Boatman's Call, but now it kind of rings false for me.

― underpants of the gods, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 11:53 (seventeen years ago) link

Bend utterly OTM

Stranger than Kindness is indeed far and away his best song. One of my fave by anyone, really.

― baaderonixx, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 12:05 (seventeen years ago) link

If I had to pick a Cave solo album it'd be From Her to Eternity, but I actually like Henry's Dream a lot too. Agree with the poster that said that Birthday Party is much better than Cave solo.

― Reatards Unite, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 12:08 (seventeen years ago) link

Normally I'd suggest that live albums shouldn't be included, but Live Seeds is so utterly flawless (in many instances, the band actually improves upon the studio renditions, especially on the Henry's Dream tracks) that it handily wins.

Second place for me is the undeservedly maligned The Good Son

― Alex in NYC, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 12:59 (seventeen years ago) link

Cave (at least until The Good Son) >>>>>>> Birthday Party (apart from "Jennifer's Veil")

― baaderonixx, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 13:08 (seventeen years ago) link

the band actually improves upon the studio renditions, especially on the Henry's Dream tracks

Yeah, particularly in the 90s, Cave seemed to release a lot of his material before it was fully formed. That willingness to throw it out there is what makes the good songs so good and the others so iffy. Touring brings out the dynamics in the songs. There's cliches in his backing (hammering lowest few notes on the piano, Blixa ripping strings) that don't get their full power in the antiseptic world of multitracking.

― bendy, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 13:34 (seventeen years ago) link

Oh my god, Abbatoir Blues knocked my socks off, I played it regularly for months. The gospel singers really work, and the lyrical content is top-notch (except that bizarre poem at the end). Easily his best work, infinitely better than the dull Nocturama. Where he goes next is a mystery - Grinderman has a couple of great tracks and the rest doesn't do anything for me.

― Mr. Odd, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 14:04 (seventeen years ago) link

i voted for boatman's call but I don't know that I believe that, it was just my gut reaction to vote for it. probably actually the good son. but it's kind of a draw.

who will vote for nocturama?

― akm, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 14:08 (seventeen years ago) link

the good son

― Charlie Howard, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 14:35 (seventeen years ago) link

one year passes...

i am sorry that i missed this thread ;_;

... my vote would've gone to "Your Funeral...My Trial," doom and darkness done right as a thing of beauty.

― Eisbaer, Tuesday, 29 July 2008 09:18 (sixteen years ago) link

The Good Son, prob.

god he was so awesome live on the Abbatoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus in Brisbane. Would def pay shitloads to see him again

― wilter, Tuesday, 29 July 2008 09:23 (sixteen years ago) link

Dig Lazarus Dig!!!!

Ok...maybe...maybe not...I've only heard some of it..but I like it a lot.

― Aja, Tuesday, 29 July 2008 09:34 (sixteen years ago) link

nine months pass...

I'm sorry I don't remember doing this poll. But I'm glad I did.

I always knew that I never got around to buying Kicking Against The Pricks, but the fact that I never owned Your Funeral My Trial is really bothering me now. I thought I had all the early Nick Cave stuff aside from Kicking.

I will report back later.

― Smart, Long, Lifephones (Bimble), Sunday, 3 May 2009 03:56 (fifteen years ago) link

Also, I find it rather amusing that Firstborn Is Dead got zero votes.

― Smart, Long, Lifephones (Bimble), Sunday, 3 May 2009 04:00 (fifteen years ago) link

City of Refuge

― Smart, Long, Lifephones (Bimble), Sunday, 3 May 2009 05:27 (fifteen years ago) link

I prefer the stuff he did throughout the '90s to anything else really. Maybe that's because I first discovered him '89/'90 and followed his career from there, I dunno.

But apart from No Pussy Blues, Love Letter and a few other tacks, I've not been into anything he's done this decade.

― DavidM, Sunday, 3 May 2009 08:28 (fifteen years ago) link

Well, I gave Your Funeral My Trial a listen last night. I was surprised how dark and goth it was. I kept expecting him to hit me over the head the way he does sometimes, but instead he just kept on moping along. Most of it seemed very good. I didn't quite get to the end of it though, had to go to bed.

― Smart, Long, Lifephones (Bimble), Tuesday, 5 May 2009 16:43 (fifteen years ago) link

papa wont leave u henry is the OWNINGEST nick cave song btw

― What funky dudes; I'm voting for them. (cankles), Tuesday, 5 May 2009 18:34 (fifteen years ago) link

Been trying to understand what exactly NC has lost in the last fifteen years and, while I still can't really put my finger on it, re-listening tonight to "A Box for Black Paul" I'm thinking this today would have come out as a campy ironic dirge - while back then it sounded so effortlessly vital.

― baaderonixx, Tuesday, 5 May 2009 20:47 (fifteen years ago) link

cankles is OTM, that song is incredible & on that tour was 2x incredible

― worm? lol (J0hn D.), Tuesday, 5 May 2009 20:48 (fifteen years ago) link

the man's still got it live in any case

― baaderonixx, Tuesday, 5 May 2009 20:56 (fifteen years ago) link

from 2002 I think - since I remember him playing this one on that tour

― baaderonixx, Tuesday, 5 May 2009 20:57 (fifteen years ago) link

while I still can't really put my finger on it,

I think you put your finger on it with "effortless". I hear a lot more effort starting with some of the tracks on Tender Prey (i.e. "Slowly Goes the Night"). And he's gone back and forth between carefully crafted and effortless abandon, but the first four records just seemed to flow out of the band.

I can't fault him for it; it's amazing that the Birthday Party's brainy primalness continued so long into his solo career. And he can still tap it, just not effortlessly.

― bendy, Tuesday, 5 May 2009 21:10 (fifteen years ago) link

hands down best performer I've ever seen, no competition

― worm? lol (J0hn D.), Tuesday, 5 May 2009 21:12 (fifteen years ago) link

I'm playing "Your Funeral My Trial" today. Absolutely fantabulous stuff, but "Sad Waters" is especially dope.

― More Goth Than Your Grandmother (Bimble), Sunday, 17 May 2009 18:40 (fifteen years ago) link

Scum sorta rips off the Fall no? I dig it, though!

― More Goth Than Your Grandmother (Bimble), Sunday, 17 May 2009 18:47 (fifteen years ago) link

strangely missed this. would probably have given "the first born is dead" its solitary vote but am glad "your funeral my trial" one the love. "stranger than kindness" is my fave ever bad seeds song.

― stirmonster, Sunday, 17 May 2009 20:06 (fifteen years ago) link

OH yeah, Stranger Than Kindness was another absolute stand-out on this record.

― More Goth Than Your Grandmother (Bimble), Sunday, 17 May 2009 20:07 (fifteen years ago) link

Did the spark leave when he got clean?

― StanM, Sunday, 17 May 2009 21:23 (fifteen years ago) link

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