Nick Cave : Classic or Dud ?

the first half is a peek into the alternate universe where instead of making the boatman's call he got really into electronic textures in the way so many bands did in the late 90s and tried to make something resembling trip-hop

bodes well for the long teased grinderman 3

"what doesn't kill you makes you........crazier" is a pretty classic nick cave capper

cool little album, kinda merges the arc of the last three albums into one

i prefer the moodier first half of the album though, it's more interesting than the second half which sounds beautiful but they did that territory better on ghosteen not too long ago. the first half at least goes to some interesting new places and doesn't mirror skeleton tree & push the sky away as directly

"white elephant" definitely my favourite

thanks for the heads up! also liked the first half better, and thought White Elephant sounded like self-parody :)

(obv Cave has always believed that self-parody is nothing to be frightened of)

Hmm, I wonder if "Weird" Al is even capable of self-parody, and how he would go about doing it? I guess like this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4wFviI79VA

lmao you and your thought exercises <3

For years Anita Lane was overshadowed by her collaborator and ex-boyfriend Nick Cave. Eleanor Philpot argues that we instead need to see the singer as an artist whose exploration of female sexuality was way ahead of its time.

I'm delighted she is getting a long, long overdue reappraisal.

I'm also delighted that Mute will be reissuing Sex O’Clock later in 2021, the album's first vinyl release

Sad update:

Goodbye lovely Anita, my most magical friend. Will be so missed. Love to all who loved her . 💔✨#anitalane pic.twitter.com/VL4smrGM9P

— Kid Congo Powers (@kidcongopowers) April 28, 2021

Oh no! So sad. Such a talent.

noooo ;_;

RIP

went out, found Boy On Fire on the shelf in the local chain newsagent. So bought it despite being broke, cos t was cheaper than I think I'd heard it was elsewhere. (Oh yeah had access beyond the front of the shop to the shelfs that people haven't been near since the start of the year.)
Then got home and heard that Anita who must feature heavily was dead. Sorry to hear that.

RIP. Had never heard her version of Sexual Healing before ( w / Nick Cave on backup vocals).

(Johannes Beck & Moritz Wolpert are credited as the "choir" on that. Barry Adamson plays vibes, though.)

Rob Sheffield obit for Rolling Stone.

Memories by Nick: https://www.theredhandfiles.com/tell-us-about-anita/

Standing on the street in a baby-doll dress, surrounded by sunshine, laughing and radiating a piercing beauty of such force you stop breathing.

I could not believe my eyes.

Later, at my kitchen table drawing things, she had a quickness of touch and a clear, light line full of humour, throwing each drawing away and starting another, charged with a rampant, unstable, fatal energy that would follow her all her life. My line, amateur and ponderous.

Everyone wanted to work with her but it was like trying to trap lightning in a bottle. Mick Harvey managed to coral her into the recording studio, but these precious offerings are a fraction of what she was.

She was the smartest and most talented of all of us, by far.

Walked into the most prestigious art college in Australia — on a whim — and talked her way into being given a place there. Bought an easel, some butcher’s paper, some crayons, put on a dress, did her hair and never went back in.

She thought the best ideas were the ones that never saw the light of day.

She was the brains behind The Birthday Party, wrote a bunch of their songs, wrote ‘From Her to Eternity’, ‘The World’s a Girl’, ’Sugar in a Hurricane’ and my favourite Bad Seeds song, ‘Stranger Than Kindness’, but was much more than that.

(more in the link)

I'm late to hearing it, but I think Carnage is a fantastic record and one of my favorites in recent years. The individual songs are great on their own, but this is a case of all of them being elevated by the overall running order - the back half being one extended comedown from the frantic peak of "White Elephant" is really, really well done.

Carnage is really great, I listened when it first came out and it didn't really do much for me, but I've been playing it a bunch the last couple of days & really getting into it

I almost didn't even pick this one up because I'd filed it mentally as another of their film score things, so glad I righted that, it really is terrific.

LP is due to arrive to me today so I am excited to listen to the physical thing.

Pro-tip: Cave on a recent Red Hand Files (which I don't even know why I read these anymore) did this deep-dive/close read of the lyrics for Carnage and I would say avoid it all costs becuz as much as I love the music & his lyrics he recently has been making me insane by explaining what songs are about specifically and imo, he has no fucking clue what his songs are about or he's just wrong.

Don't explain the songs.

...could you elaborate?

I cannot

Goodness I'd forgotten about this. I've barely digested Ghosteen. Is it a tough one to get into? I suppose it doesn't matter, I should get it.

It's not tough, mainly just pretty.

it's probably most similar to skeleton tree, but i prefer it to that

he has no fucking clue what his songs are about

what does this even mean

this? https://www.theredhandfiles.com/such-a-beautiful-sad-song-carnage/

oh wait - avoid clicking on that link at all costs!

https://pitchfork.com/news/nick-cave-and-the-bad-seeds-announce-b-sides-and-rarities-part-ii-share-song-listen/

oh this seems really interesting - there weren't much in the way of non-album tracks from the last few albums released so there's a ton of completely unreleased outtakes & alternate versions here it seems like

The limited edition 7-LP vinyl box sold out already. Knowing Nick and his one-night-only films and never-to-be-repeated online shows, I'll just get a copy when it gets a general release.

I had the original 3-CD version that went up the 2000s or something, and I sold it cos it was basically a black box with 3 CDs in it. No notes, booklet, nothing. It didn't feel any different from owning a bunch of burnt discs. So anyway, I can't wait to get it back on vinyl plus the new stuff for £140 haha.

opium tea from the first b-sides one is class!!

has anyone been to see cave & ellis on this tour yet? am i to expect a playthrough of carnage, or...? i bought tickets thinking it was the bad seeds!

don't think the tour's started yet. i would be expecting most of the new album + a bunch of bad seeds & maybe grinderman tracks in some sort of relatively stripped down form

they're performing with one extra musician & some backing singers, to give you an idea of how stripped down it'll be compared to the bad seeds

They added a load of extra dates, including Glasgow, but at £90 for any decent seat I'm going to give it a miss.

Nick has more thoughts about woke culture

https://www.nme.com/news/music/nick-cave-says-hes-repelled-woke-cultures-self-righteous-belief-lack-humility-2557386

Ugh.

stfu old man

“Antifa and the Far Right, for example, with their routine street fights, role-playing and dress-ups are participants in a weirdly erotic, violent and mutually self-sustaining marriage, propped up entirely by the blind, inflexible convictions of each other’s belief systems. It is good for nothing, except inflaming their own self-righteousness."

Actually Nick, one side is more propped up by the police. And it's not a marriage, you might be thinking of Batman and the Joker.

oh this is actually the same stupid one I saw before, at least he didn't write a new one

Yeah that's the one from 2019, which doesn't make it good or anything, I was just expecting an even dumber doubling down or something.

^^ same

nick cave and the bad screeds

oh sorry i missed the date :(

no worries, definitely worth another round of mockery

modern classics or dud?

https://i.imgur.com/TVoASfg.jpg

samples are here. I have to say I'm not encouraged

https://www.juno.co.uk/products/nick-cave-sings-the-modern-classics/846639-01/

ok actually the 2nd track sounds kinda good. "disco 2000" sounds dire. "sweetest embrace" sounds like kicking against the pricks style lounge classic, as does "suzanne" though honestly is there really call to cover "suzanne" some more, or "here comes the sun" for that matter

Are these new recordings or is this just a covers comp?