new Nick Cave lp: Nocturama - anyone heard it?

Actually it just makes me think of Cinerama the band.

the ticket-price for the amsterdam show is 36 fuckin' €'s!!

more significant news from mute's site: Blixa is no longer with the Bad Seeds! i guess that kills all hope for more edgy (than Nocturama) releases in the future...

why doesn't he just go solo at this stage?

No More Shall We Part was great!

*befuddled* Man. I guess if Mick Harvey ever leaves then it's ALL over.

Which I loved, which tells you what kinda Nick Cave I love, which is why I digs me some "Babe I'm on Fire."

It's funny because that's exactly the side of Cave that I cannot understand- it's not even that I dislike it, it just leaves me cold. What's the point in something like "Babe, I'm On Fire"? Surely if we're gonna make a whole lotta violent noise (and I'm all for that), it's best to pack a mighty punch once and then have it done with, instead of going on and on and on until all the energy and impact is gone?

New album not as bland as No More...but until the last song, kinda tepid, I'm afraid. Babe I'm On Fire redeems it all though - a masterpiece!!

Nick Cave is one of my favorites of all time and I can think/talk v. boringly about this stuff all day long. But since you have spoken favorably of The Boatman's Call it is time to stop talking and start throwing punches. Here, let me just finish my whiskey first

(yes this is M Goats John by the way thank you for the kind words)

By the way, did any of you other nerd-os out there notice in the Babe I'm On Fire video that when Nick sings "The Christian Apologist says it," it shows him? anyone else find that a little weird? Perhaps his gift for opaque subtlety is waning with age?

Mercy Seat = truly great live, decent musically, but condemnable as the moment when Cave realized that he didn't have to bust his ass to make every single line count -- lyrically he'd been working at such an incredibly high level before Tender Prey, but beginning with TP the slippage starts to occur. Culminating in the execrable Boatman's Call ugh ugh get it out of my BRANE.

(could also have been the book of Mark, but I think it was Matthew)

Anyway, the existence of "The Ship Song" demonstrates the virtue, worth, beauty and melancholy of 'lovely' Nick and I will not have it slandered. The fact of Gene covering said song means there is no god and that I might as well ask Deanna to go on that killing spree with me.

The ship Song covered by Boo Hewerdine
The ship Song covered by Concrete Blonde
The ship Song covered by Denis Walter
The ship Song covered by Immaculate Fools
The ship Song covered by Subtle Plague
The ship Song covered by Swirl
The ship Song covered by Heather Nova
The ship Song covered by Gene
The ship Song covered by Leatherface

Am I contradicting myself by saying that Boatman's call is the best thing he's done since TP (with Henry's Dream a close second)? IMO it stands out from the rest thanks to its immediacy and it's rather humble approach

hey i like this record now

7 years of devoted listening finally pay off.

You're really going to make me listen to this again? I agree with the "should've been an EP" sentiment above, the 3 uptempto tracks are the best from the rest just draaaaaags...

*befuddled* Man. I guess if Mick Harvey ever leaves then it's ALL over.

ha ha

Liked nothing from this album bar Bring It On (more with the video) and Babe, I'm On Fire; shan't go back and listen again. (I didn't keep Lazarus, either.)

Nocturama? What the fuck?!!

BABE I'M ON FIRE tho

xpost that's great

"Babe I'm On Fire" is absolutely one his greatest songs and basically the moment that kicked off the direction for the future (Grinderman, et al), didn't Eddy say ending tracks predict the future.

"Wonderful Life" is good, "Bring It On" is good, "Right Out Of Your Hand" is pretty good, the rest is just...blah. Which to me is what's so funny about him acting like it is some universally reviled and hated record, like it is some weird and horrible mis-step, when really it's just boring. I wish it were a weird, horrible record! It isn't his "Lulu" it's his "Rock 'N' Roll Heart".

If there is an undervalued record in the Bad Seeds discog it's "No More Shall We Part" not "Nocturama"

Or "Dig Lazarus Dig"

"Dead Man in my Bed" is great too

This is the only Nick Cave album I ever sold. I kept "Bring It On", "Dead Man In My Bed" and "Babe, I'm On Fire". The obvious choices, really.

I just listened to "No More Shall We Part" the other day, and while it isn't nearly as strong as the preceding album, "The Boatman's Call", it shares a certain vibe and down-tempo feel which works as opposed to "Nocturama" which is just turgid.

i think Babe I'm On Fire is my favorite Nick Cave song

NMSWP was my first Cave record so I'll always have a soft spot for it.

same. the last few songs definitely drag for me now, though

NMSWP's biggest issue is too many songs, none of which are bad I don't think but the record could def stand some pruning

i think Babe I'm On Fire is my favorite Nick Cave song

― tylerw, Friday, January 18, 2019 1:54 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Well it is his most cod-Dylan epic

haha, yeah that's probably it ...

NMSWP might be my favourite Nick Cave album. At least some time. I bought Nocturama on vinyl, and I can't remember when I last listened to it.

No More Shall We Part also my first Cave record. Also just one of the first records I bought on my own, period, so it means a lot to me. I heard it in a bar recently, still knew quite a lot of the lyrics...

The arrangements are so great.

My first Cave was Bad Seeds Live, since I saw him on the I think 1994 Lollapalooza, and the set drew heavily from Henry's Dream, iirc. And the Live album I figured would split the difference. I can't remember if Let Love In had come out. The craziest thing to me is how often in the ensuing years I saw him play in relatively small venues, then suddenly, bam, he's playing huge places and tickets are hard to come by.

Bad Seeds Live rules

I like NMSWP but it seems like the album where he tried really singing a lot and at times his voice sounds weird to me, at least on the title track. I like 15 ft of Pure White Snow a lot. Don't care to hear God is in the House again though (he played it live an awful lot around that time).

Nocturama clearly his weakest album IMO.

"Hallelujah" is the track on NMSWP that I keep coming back to, one of his greatest ever songs.

I’ve had “until the End Of The World” in my head all day and was sad to see it’s missing from the soundtrack on Spotify

I find myself listening to "Gates to the Garden" and "Darker with the Day" most often. it's a great end to an album.

My first Cave was Bad Seeds Live, since I saw him on the I think 1994 Lollapalooza, and the set drew heavily from Henry's Dream, iirc. And the Live album I figured would split the difference. I can't remember if Let Love In had come out. The craziest thing to me is how often in the ensuing years I saw him play in relatively small venues, then suddenly, bam, he's playing huge places and tickets are hard to come by.

― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, January 19, 2019 8:21 AM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I feel like Let Love In had just come out around the Lollapalooza tour (or, as I go check, earlier that spring) I knew who they were and probably had heard the Birthday Party at point but I don't think I knew a lot of Bad Seeds material. I just remember Nick coming onstage, dark glasses, seemingly 15 feet tall, in the middle of the blazing Minnesota summer afternoon sun and going "I wanna tell you about girl" and just pinning the crowd back for the next 30 minutes or so.

"God Is In The House" is a great song but I'm glad he didn't go down the path of being the alternative music Randy Newman.

"No More..." is where i checked out. Felt like the point where his more pedantic and verbose tendencies took over. "God is in the House" one of the most irritating examples of that.

> alternative music Randy Newman.

Thanks for articulating why he lost me for a while. I'd rank Abattoir/Lyre, Grinderman and much of Skeleton and Push the Sky Away among best he's ever done. Seems like no matter what Cave does, there's a sizable segment who will acclaim it, but he has several intersecting audiences at this point, and they come for different things.

randy newman rules though

tbh I think Murder Ballads is his only true low point despite containing two or three great songs

"No More..." is where i checked out. Felt like the point where his more pedantic and verbose tendencies took over. "God is in the House" one of the most irritating examples of that.

same here

I'd say "Murder Ballads" (most self consciously) and maybe "Let Love In" marked the end of the Bad Seeds' formative selves. "The Boatman's Call" and "No More Shall We Part" imo marked the introduction of "serious" Nick Cave. Next few albums were maybe transitional, with some delirious highs in the likes of "Abattoir/Orpheus" and "Dig!" and Grinderman. Latest iteration of Cave is his most somber. I suppose it's not a coincidence that he should develop and change depending on his most prominent right hand man, too, from Blixa to Mick to Warren. I watched his most recent concert film on a plane, and it was really striking whenever he dropped in an old classic amidst the different kind of intense new stuff.

When did he (as far as anyone knows) totally go clean? I want to say that maybe had an impact, but I suspect like fellow junkie Steve Earle the link between output and, er, input isn't as clear as one might think.

As far I understand he got clean sometime during the long lay off between Boatman's & No More, around when he married Susie Cave.

there may have been some usage this century, but his major clean-up was between Boatman's Call and No More Shall We Part, so he kept making the exact same music he was making at that period

(also Blixa was never a right-hand-man, Mick was the writer/arranger right up until Warren edged him out. Blixa's band role was as the best friend and substance buddy, though, and Warren's assuming of both roles was probably what qualified him for the credit that Mick had never received.)

xpost