Loading tweets...
This week’s album is The Best of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Throughout the week, you’ll hear music from this magnificent Australian artist. The week will end with a special in which I play the CD in full starting at 10:00 PM US Eastern time on Saturday December 3, while I fill in for Wes Derby. The run-through of the album will start in the second hour of the show and will likely take us into the third hour.
In order to understand Nick’s greatness, I feel I must give you a bit of background on him. For more in-depth reading, feel free to run a google search, or click on the links below.
Nicholas Edward Cave was born in Warracknabeal, Australia on September 22, 1957. He started his musical career by forming a band called The Boys next door, with high school friend Mick Harvey. The band later changed its name to The Birthday party in 1980. As The Birthday Party, the band moved to London, enjoying modest success until their eventual break-up.
Following the group’s break up in 1983, Nick started writing a film script that would later become the prison movie Ghosts…Of The Civil Dead. He then formed the first line up of the Bad Seeds. The band, according to sources, took its name from the 1956 movie Bad Seed by Mervin LeRoy. The debut album was released in 1984, entitled From Her to Eternity.
Nick then moved to Berlin, where he wrote his first novel, And the Ass Saw the Angel. This would serve as the launching pad for the next bad seeds album, 1985′s The First Born is Dead.
The single, “Tupelo”, based on the John Lee Hooker song of the same name, encapsulated Nick’s biblical fixation, blending the birth of the king with old testament mythology in one go.
The 1986 incarnation of the bad seeds then did a set of covers for the album, Kicking against the Pricks, including Tim Rose’s “Hey Jo”, Velvet Underground‘s “All Tomorrow’s Parties”, and the definitive rework of Gene Pitney’s “Somethings Gotten Hold of My Heart”. Following that, the EP, Your Funeral, My Trial was released, after which came 1988′s Tender Prey, with the single “the mercy seat”. The same year, Nick’s book, King Ink, was published, and the band appeared in the film Wings of Desire.
Nick then moved to Brazil, and in 1990, The Good Son was released. In 1992 came the seventh album, Henry’s Dream in 1993, their only afficial live cd, Live Seeds, was intended as a celebration of the ten years of the bad seeds existence, and is sold with a photo book containing photographs from the 1992/1993 tour. 1996′s Murder Ballads explored Nick’s infatuation with the language of violence and allowed for further bold experimentation in musical styles. Also on this album we find collaborations with Kylie Minogue, and P J Harvey on the singles, “Where the Wild Roses Grow” and “Henry Lee”.
Nick soloed on the sound track, Songs In the Key Of X, for the show, The X Files, with “Red Right Hand”, and can be found on a hidden track, “Time Jesum Transeuntem et non Reverendum”.
That same year, Nick and the Bad Seeds wrote the score for the 1996 film, To Have and to Hold, Nick’s second anthology, King Ink 2 was released, and he was short listed for MTV’s male artist of the year but turned it down, saying “thanks, but no thanks”
In March 1997, The Bad Seed’s tenth studio album, The Boatman’s Call, was released. This album was the musical opposite to Murder Ballads.
1998 saw the release of “The Best Of“, and a book of photographs from the 1992/3 tour.
Albums from then on include 2001′s No Longer Shall We Part, 2003′s Nocturama, 2004′s Abattoire Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus, and 2005′s B Sides and Rarities, a 56-track, 3-CD set of b sides, rarity’s and songs from film soundtracks.
I wanted to give you all the history of this Australian legend. He is still doing what he does best , making music, and will hopefully continue to do so for a long time to come.
The album of the week, The Best of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, is only a small knot in Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds‘ history.
For more information about Nick Cave and his many projects, visit his Wikipedia page.
