Nick Cave : Classic or Dud ?

Classic? Beyond classic, fucking godlike more like. Try the _Live Seeds_ album, _Kicking Against the Pricks_ or _Let Love In_.

There's been a real shift in how Cave is perceived. When I first started reading the press he was always treated as this borderline nutter goth smack freak, now he's an Important Figure, and in between there was this oh-it's-another-Nick-Cave-album period, which would always qualify the "He's good" with a big "But". I think that got it right, pretty much.

A handful of stunning tracks though - "Mutiny In Heaven", "Tupelo", "The Mercy Seat", "The Ship Song", "Do You Love Me?", "Stagger Lee". So surely not a dud.

The Good Son proved the leonard cohen territory was his ie a very well structured running sequence, and ambience that almost saves also-rans like "weeping song",
but he dropped the ball on Henry's Deam so badly that i really haven't been able to bother much since

I mean there are a few songs on Let Love In, but for me that's as patchy as the album that preceeded it (Henry)

i believe he can only do so many really good ballads though, and that he's revisited those same ballads so often with the recent albums

i say there're have been so few rock songs that i can count them -- "The good son" & "the hammer came down", "Long time man", "Jangling Jack", "John Finn's wife" -- that's one or at most two good rock songs for each of those albums ! (oh "papa won't save you Henry", "who will be the witness", "jack the ripper", "weeping song" all lousy songs, such rock-by-numbers stuff, will not save him)

go back to your funeral my trial for the whole range, great title track ballad through the true freak-show feel of "The Carny", (better than anything the residents had produced for oh, so-long), and then the great whine-o-drone of "long time man" and the succinct birthday party punch of "scum" -- a classic album, from when Cave had to produce decent stuff to keep his job and maintain and propogate his reputation

"Murder Ballads" a great Aussie cash-in for then career dwindlings of Kylie and Nick (and what an unexpected couple !! proving they're both really show-biz and contenders for legit. rock star -- i thought Cave had some outsider cred -- maybe this was needed to break the concept to new audiences ?? it worked i suppose, but just a big-budget re-rendering of "long time man" idea to me)

ok the birthday party and early bad seed stuff didn't get the easy pay-checks the concept and oomph of their mere presence deserved as real-life art in the public eye, so
good luck to him for those initial flashes of real brilliance

maybe he'd be best served by a "greatest rock songs" and "greatest 'love' songs" double greatest hits, and then save those good songs for singles and forget the nine-yards albums

(ie you should not produce a whole filled out album if you don't have enough good songs)

I've only heard three Cave solo tracks: his cover of Neil Young's "Helpless," which I love, his cover of the Beatles, "Let It Be," which I despise, and that song "I'll Love You Till The End Of The World," which is pretty nice. I'm guessing people would recommend The Good Son as the place to start checking out his solo work? From Her To Eternity?

I trust many of you already know what my full first name is.

Mmm hmm.

So, um, what about my opinion regarding Nick Cave? Well, when you're able to selfishly claim that song for yourself, what other answer can you have but CLASSIC? All those naysayers can just kiss me. And Momus? I happen to like Kylie Minogue, too. She comes from a magical little place with little elfin fairies who spread their pixie dust all across this land. What do you say about Kylie's collaborations with the Manic Street Preachers? MSP also like Kylie.

But back to Nick Cave. Classic. A surprising one, too, considering how little I actually care for country. But I like this brand of graveyard country rock. And damn, I need to play "City of Refuge" now.

What do you think of The Bad Seeds? Surely you must like them... ?

I'm going to listen to my namesake song again.

I may be new and not know shit but I do know I don't like this kid at all.

No, I really like it as well.

whatever

What do you think of The Bad Seeds? Surely you must like them... ?

no

The last record of his I bought was "Murder Ballads" and I didn't really like it much and at the time was getting into some different music. I've been curious about the last three, but not enough to search them out.

Did you check out Aereogramme by the way?

Haven't liked much since Dig, Lazarus, Dig, and this is ok but I still think I'm done.

But curious about how his brand diversification is coming along and fucking hell his t-shirts are £50?

I'm obviously out of the loop but when did they part ways with Mute?

I think Dig, Lazarus, Dig was the last album on Mute.

This is good but it reminds me a bit of Tenacious D.

This is their label now! You can download their accounts and everything. Probably linked to a distribution deal with a major, is that how these things work nowadays?

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/08097565

this one's quite good once it gets going, reminds me a bit of abbatoir blues/lyre of orpheus which remains my favourite

it looks like they have a 'partnership' with PIAS for this album, after carnage was released through AWAL and the previous three were completely on their own label (though surely with a distribution deal with a major or something behind the scenes)

I am not really in the mood for Nick Cave right now and have probably been slow drifting out of the zone since Mick Harvey left the Bad Seeds... but I'm sure I will look back in 10 years in a reevaluative mood and feel this is fine or better

Abattoir Blues / Lyre of Orpheus definitely the last one I was knocked out by

Wow, for me the new song is so awful it transcends parody.

I concur, the last Nick I loved was the 2nd Grinderman LP. He's on his own artistic journey but it's not one that I find compelling. I guess I just miss the intensity and vague danger of his old work.

He’s deeply in love with himself as an allegorical fabulist, but the stories are trite and boring (cf his novels as well). Coupled with the Christlike pose struck in his goodwill-to-all-men missives … nah. Hope you enjoyed the coronation pal.

his lyrics have always been the worst thing about his art and it's basically a wonder that i can tolerate them at all really

outro sounds horrible

Daughter got sent a pre-sale link for the new arena tour, only seats available to her a hour in were back row of the side seating near the back so possibly the worst seats in the whole place. ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY FOUR POUNDS. Before fees. Fuck that shit.

my partner got a standing one for £75 which i think is about the same as last time, maybe £5-10 more.

which is still expensive imo!

£144 is insane.

They might have started there but dynamic pricing and ticket bots just pushed them through the roof.

She's going to try again on general sales on Friday and has set herself a £100 upper limit, which is still too rich for my blood.

Is visiting Europe possible for her? See a great city, get slightly cheaper Nick Cave tickets?

That's an option, or she could just get over it. </caring dad>

xp my first show was a few years back at an outdoor show at castle in the Austrian countryside and i can’t imagine wanting to see it anywhere else, let alone a packed theater.

He’s deeply in love with himself as an allegorical fabulist, but the stories are trite and boring (cf his novels as well). Coupled with the Christlike pose struck in his goodwill-to-all-men missives … nah. Hope you enjoyed the coronation pal.

yeah...for me the process is when I was younger I considered him a great lyricist. then two things happened: he got older and so did I. the fiery pyrotechnics of his younger writing gave way to his version of mature writing, but he's not really as good at that, and the pyrotechnic stuff ("Mutiny!" and most of the first Bad Seeds album typify what I mean by that -- hyperverbal excited stuff dense with lurid imagery) I'd kind of outgrown, though I can still get a kick out of it. I'll go to the mat for him as a performer, I think he has few peers and even continues to grow, but as a writer that's just not what I'm into as a grownup. it has taken me years to admit this.

We got standing tickets for Glasgow and they were about £72 each all told, with excruciating fees of course.

She must just be unlucky with Cardiff then.

I didn't look at seated prices at all, but the presale standing allocation did seem to sell out quite quickly.

Foi Na Cruz was the beginning of the end for my liking him. Everything Birthday Party & the first four Bad Seeds albums (Tender Prey maybe, if there's room left) = desert island, the rest: not so much (even though there were some good tracks here and there, it just wasnt the same anymore) - I'm not hating on artists who get clean or start a family, it just how it turns out that "the tormented artist makes the best art" cliché didn't come out of thin air.

Foi na cruz is one of my fav bad seeds songs. Power ballad!!!

I love that you love that :-)

I'm the opposite, finding the best parts of the 21st-century albums what works best for me ("Higgs Boson Blues" and "Push The Sky Away" and more). The lurid earlier songs, maybe because I first heard them in audiences with frat-like guys singing along to "Stagger Lee," feel more distanced from the violence and death in the lyrics, and the most recent ones treat them as tangible.

As a lyricist I find him well-intentioned but ultimately pretty mid (as the kids say). When his music was more furious he could at least fake his way into matching it (see: Grindeman, which pretty effortlessly reverts back closer to formative form), but his more subdued current mode (I assume; I haven't heard the new one) brings the focus squarely on the words, and imo they're just not as compelling as intended. Which is odd, because I do often find him pretty thoughtful and perceptive and intelligent, even funny, it's just not translating to the albums.

Rain your kisses down upon me
Rain your kisses down in storms
And for all who'll come before me
In your slowly fading forms
I'm going out of my mind
Will leave me standing in
The rain with a letter and a prayer
Whispered on the wind

It's been happening for awhile, but he's seriously treading into late Scott Walker territory

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

idk i get the comparison but it has none of walker's bleakness so it's a completely different feeling, it's grandiose and beautiful

some pretty great bass from greenwood here

yeah i guess I was just thinking of his crooning and obtuse lyrics, but it's definitely a different vibe

(also I think a lot of Walker's later output was grandiose and beautiful in its own way)

To my surprise I kinda like it

love it and def. hear walker, and just generally a more baroque pop vibe than I've heard from him much before.

After one listen in... Maybe he was shooting for Scott Walker and hit Ferry instead?

Haven't listened to the new tracks much - just waiting for the album & I'm interested for the first time in a while - but hadn't heard and just enjoyed this Cave/Mick Harvey chat from a couple of years back.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIfdR-ond5c

38 years to the day since Kicking Against The Pricks came out.

The recent Colbert appearance was quite good, I thought:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8qmV6MYCF4

((✊))

most of the album is pretty good but "o wow o wow" is kinda terrible

kinda wish it went more in the direction of being abbatoir blues/lyre of orpheus 2 which is what the best stuff here is reminiscent of

kinda wish it went more in the direction of being abbatoir blues/lyre of orpheus 2 which is what the best stuff here is reminiscent of

― ufo, Thursday, August 29, 2024 9:53 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Yes, and like everything post Skeleton Tree it feels a bit undercooked

Having said that I liked it way more then I was expecting

most of the album is pretty good but "o wow o wow" is kinda terrible

Haha this song is something, though I think I loved it

ghosteen wasn't undercooked at all, it's one of his very best, but this has nothing on it

I think this is good? If maybe a little samey, which they have been for a while now. Really like Cinnamon Horses. Need to spend more time with it.

O wow O wow is amazing

Struggling with the excess of choir on this record. I mean, a little really goes a long way

coming back to say again how great O Wow O Wow is....

The stringsy choir god touches reminds me not so much of Lyre/Abattoir but rather recent Sault and their own twist towards eccentric gospel. Not specific motifs, but the same freewheeling collage of styles, gooves and narratives. Cave’s approach isn’t working for me but he isn’t falling back on formula.

thanks for recommending O Wow O Wow, it really is great