Australian-born Nick Cave had a long career (almost 10 years) of live performances and albums before he became widely known as Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, band members including the same people he played together from the very beginning (The Birthday Party). Not considered mainstream but with significant fanbase, he is now a very notable and influential singer/songwriters in the world.
Nick Cave’s songs are never mediocre; they are either extraordinary, imaginative, purely brilliant or outrageously repetitive but with eclectic lyrics at all times. He is outstanding for introducing the “murder”concept, not in one album only but in the entirety of his work. Not every single song talks about killings however (this would end up idiotic) but a macabre atmosphere of (self)destruction and decadence, is omnipresent.
“Your Funeral My Trial” is the first mature album, where Nick Cave seems to have found his personal sound, spooky as ever but now clearly sophisticated. The next album “Tender Prey” gives us the first memorable song, “Mercy Seat” (standard song in his Best collection) and the impressive “Sunday’s Slave” with its clever piano melody. Important songs follow scattered in his albums: the dramatic and brilliant “The Weeping Song” and “The Ship Song” (from “Good Son”), “Straight to You” and “Papa won’t leave you, Henry” (from “Henry’s Dream”), the epic “Red Right Hand” (of which I prefer the live to the studio version) and “I Let Love In” (from “Let Love In”), the hit “Where the Wild Roses Grow” but without other significant songs in the same album (from “Murder Ballads”), “Into My Arms”, “Lime Tree Arbour”, “People Ain’t No Good” (biting and true), “Brompton Oratory”, “There is a kingdom”, “(Are you) The One That I’ve Been Waiting for”(from “The Boatman’s Call”).
In “The Boatman’s Call” Cave’s songwriting style had so much developed that the time was ripe for a masterpiece. “No More Shall We Part” is the one Nick Cave album that I can listen to without skipping any of the songs, unlike the rest of the albums which contain moments of brilliance along with several uninteresting songs. Strangely, the quality of the sound production in “No More Shall We Part” is not as detailed as in the majority of his albums, it seems like this is not a very high-budget album.
The last four albums “Nocturama”, “Abbatoire Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus”, “Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!” fail to claim my interest, the tormented atmosphere is always present but the songs cannot be compared with his previous work. One song that stands out is “Spell” from The Lyre of Orpheus.
Although he released several albums (all the Birthday Party material and the first five Bad Seed albums) during the 80s, the sound does not resemble the typical 80s sound. The effects, the keyboards, the guitars, the whole arrangement is that of the 90s and Nick Cave is in this case a pioneer, definitely ahead of his time.
His bass and seductive voice is an asset, perfectly matches his songs although it is not so much the voice of a singer but that of an interpreter, slightly faltering at times. The later is present even in some of his studio albums where it could have been prevented with the help of the recording software or doing more takes of the voice part. He prefers, however, to sing genuinely and mainly within the limits of his natural voice.
The interaction with the distinguished musicians that he played or still plays with, seems to have been crucial for his music development, songwriting and general style. The vocals and presence of Blixa Bargeld (Einsturzende Neubauten frontman) are impressive as he adds an even darker mood to the band. One actually has the feeling that Blixa and Nick fulfilled themselves through their co-operation; Bargeld has produced more sophisticated songs for Neubauten since he has started playing with Cave, and Cave wrote his best songs while Blixa was in the band. This is definitely not a coincidence.
Nick Cave lives on because he has created (and restlessly creates) his personal mythology and philosophy incorporating elements from the vast sources of folk, blues and rock n roll music, lighting the way for new musicians (whether he intends to or not) showing what they have to do if they want to produce meaningful songs.
Post a Comment
Read also
- Queen-Freddie Mercury The 24th of November was the 19th anniversary of the death of the front man of Queen, Freddie Mercury. Undoubtedly Queen is a group with a large diversity in their music. We can see it in the Innuendo album, in the Night at the Opera? There aren’t many of their albums that you can disregard. [...]...
- Tori Amos Born Myra Ellen Amos in 1963 and after studying classical piano during her early years (considered child prodigy but having her scholarship discontinued because of her interest in rock and pop music and her dislike for reading from sheet music) Tori Amos set out to become a pop songwriter. At age 21 she formed the [...]...
- Michael Jackson and the media hysteria 25 of June 2009. One of the most famous artists of the international music scene, Michael Jackson, died after a long period of medical treatment. Thousands of his fans around the world feel devastated as Jackson was their idol, the man with the multiple talents, dancer, showman, singer, songwriter was their inspiration. Almost everybody has [...]...
- Einsturzende Neubauten We could described them as an industrial-dark ambient, West Berliner band with both English and German lyrics. Unlimited experimentation together with visible influences of minimalism is what Einsturzende Neubauten have to offer. If you like listening to a rhythm section that does not only consist of real drums, bass guitars, keyboards etc, but samples taken [...]...
- Hedwig and the Angry Inch Hedwig is the brainchild of Stephen Trask and John Cameron Mitchell and their band Cheater, struggling musicians of the middle 90s in New York. Influenced by the drag-punk culture and performing in the Squeezebox club, Trask and Mitchell (in cooperation with the band members) developed the concept of Hedwig and eventually made it to the [...]...
- August 2009:David Bowie David Robert Jones, one of the most famous international musicians born in London in 1947. Since the age of 9 he showed interest for the arts and music and quickly became a multi-instrumentalist. He started performing with bands, experimenting with different music styles and his evolution in music came a few years later with some [...]...
Our blog, the "Free Voice Network" is looking for your active participation. Now you can publish your own articles/stories….
Be informed about new articles…
Loading ...
21/05/2009 @ 04:53
Yeah, I really like nick Caves shows. I am his fan.
16/05/2009 @ 11:21
australian artist huh?
i nver heard that name so far…
i’m curious about his music..
14/05/2009 @ 09:46
Love the post! great writing!Keep up the amazing job! I wish you all the best!
Much Love
LordsGirl