Obligatory
Now that I’m an Australian, it is required that I like Nick Cave. I suppose I ought to go back to the days of The Birthday Party, or even just the start of the Bad Seeds, but really, I’m only coming to this recently. I mean, I love “Into My Arms,” mid-period Bad Seeds Cave, one of the only three purchases I bothered to make on iTunes, but most often I’ve found him too dark and self-indulgent, that kind of moody, emo stuff. I saw the clip for the title track off his new record, Dig, Lazarus, Dig!, and on the strength of the one song took the chance and bought the album. It’s terrific, full of the kind of biblical allusions and religious philosophizing angst he’s best at, and full of groovy beats (man). This is some rock gospel at its best. I especially like “We Call Upon the Author to Explain.”
Next up: AC/DC. (Has any other band in the history of rock employed bagpipes? Okay, better use?)
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4 comments:
Nick Cave-- the Australian Leonard Cohen.
Face it, the Antipodes contribution to rock begins and ends with Olivia Newton-John.
She's from New Zealand.
In fact, there are many bands here that never got noticed (much or at all) in the States, although some of them did manage to attract a European fan base, but are nevertheless very good indeed. For every Men at Work (God help us all) or Midnight Oil, there are two or three bands like the Saints, the Died Pretty, the Lime Spiders, Tactics, X, Sunnyboys, Scientists, Radio Birdman, and so on, some of whom continue to perform, separately or together or in new combinations. And new bands come up all the time, like the Sleepy Jackson, or Bluebottle Kiss.
And Nick Cave is much darker than Leonard Cohen. The comparison is entirely based on the poetic quality of their lyrics and the fact they both sing bass.
How about Tuba in rock?
It's not a bad comparison I think, and Cave is noted as a massive Cohen fan. He would no doubt heave at the thought of being described as "emo" though.
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