May 2009: Nick Cave

May 01

Posted by: Michael R. Willow in 2009, Blog, Tributes

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 one of the most important 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.

Rating: 6.0/6 (5 votes cast)