A look back at "Henry's Dream" by Nick Cave

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/ff/Henrysdream.jpg/220px-Henrysdream.jpg

So when this came out, despite playing it to death, I kinda convinced myself (helped by NC himself) that this was the Bad Seeds sell out, Alternative Nation album.
Hearing it now, I can't belive how massive it sounds, full of color, madness and rage.
Like, "John Finn's wife" popped up this morning on my ipod and, damn, if that is not the epitomy of what his whole career had hitherto been hinting at.

that's weird to perceive this album as a "sellout", it's so intense and loony!

I actually had the same feeling about this record for a long time but I revisited about awhile go and was like "how did I think this record was a sellout?"

I think partially NC and Mick Harvey dismiss this record becuz they had such a horrible experience working with David Briggs (and does mark the last time they worked with a producer outside of Tony Cohen or Nick Launay).

But yeah, hard to think of a record whose first song features the line "and the fag in the whale-bone corset dragging his dick across my cheek" as a sellout.

xp
Well the production was cleaner than the ramshackle style of previous albums (part of why NC has always dismissed the record) and probably my 15 y.o. gothic self was pissed off with the exposure Cave was getting on 120 Mins/Lollapalooza with this album.

pretty sure "Straight To You" is my favorite NC song these days, this album is def in my top 5 of his

the only Nick Cave album I own. I have to be in a particular mood to listen to it, but more than anything it's just a great *sounding* record. Side 1 > Side 2.

idg how this is the "sellout" album when it was preceded by the dreary mawkish ballad-heavy mess of The Good Son

The follow-up live album from the tour of this album is fantastic, too.

Yeah Live Seeds is one of those rare indispensable live albums.

I've come to like it more over time (though I've always loved Papa Won't Leave you…), but it's still missing something for me – sounds a bit conventional against the roughness or chaos or falling-apartness of everything up to Tender Prey… wait, I've said this before:

tho Papa won't leave you is top 10 all-time Cave for me there's something I've never enjoyed about the album - production's a bit obvious or flat or something. I'd always enjoy I Had a Dream or Brother My Cup live, but on the album they leave me cold. I think of Tender Prey/Good Son as the transitional albums, Cave properly figuring out the strings/violence drama palette, and still untsoppable; Henry's Dream is more like signpost towards the autopilot - a fast one, a slow one, solid arrangement, keep lots of words coming.

But that sounds a bit harsh to me now. I'll listen again. & willem otm, Live Seeds is great.

yeah it's definitely the album where he loses the ramschackle raggedness - but in terms of songwriting, this is top-notch.

This record (and the previous 2) informs much of what he's done in the last 20 years. The mythic storytelling, sour ballads, and caustic rave-ups all in the kernel. Any album that contains both Loom of the Land and Jack the Ripper might beg for a more cohesive narrative, but he certainly worked all that out a few more records down the line. All-in-all, a fine jumble of coolness; yet, only shades of the brilliance yet to come.

I consider this one the masterpiece and it's interesting that he & the band, by some reports, think so poorly of it. Don't think he ever reached these heights again.

Also resulted in one of my favorite ever cover versions, the Walkabouts doing "Loom of the Land"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2FE2eJmy8k

Had completely forgotten I did the AMG review. And there's even a 'particularly fine' in it.

http://www.allmusic.com/album/henrys-dream-mw0000611477

the album cover is terrible, that's a big mark against it. Murder Ballads was always the 'sell out' one to me but everything from Good Son through No More Shall We Part got painted with the same brush kind of, simply because he did in fact get much more popular in there.

i love this album above all. songwriting is so visceral & focused & start to finish just so killer

i remember getting this when it first came out, and the "large" "majestic" (i suck at describing) production was really exciting. For some odd reason, I associate it aesthetically with "Bloodletting" by Concrete Blonde (I will rep for that album still). But I don't know if I've listened to the whole album in ... over a decade? It was the last Bad Seeds album I liked. I remember being disappointed that it didn't have a total aggro rave-up like The Witness Song from the previous album and a number of tracks on Tender Prey ... Papa Won't Leave You, Henry was the closest iirc.