Cave at his (almost) best (The Best Of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Nick Cave)

Member Name: liquidio

Product:	The Best Of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Nick Cave
Date:	16/05/09 (2 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Unique songwriter, touched by genius

Disadvantages: Misses out some gems

Nick Cave is a unique songwriter and one of the few who could reasonably be called a genius. This is not the opinion of an undiscriminating fan - some of his work is not my type of thing - but even where the song is not something I like it's always plain to see the skill and art in its construction.

A very dark body of work, Cave mixes in themes of love, violence, lust and seediness but always with a clever melody to back it up. The Bad Seeds are a band that do not always have the tightest arrangements but you can hear the interplay and the sheer love of playing together as a band in all their songs.

The best tracks include 'Red Right Hand', a haunting border-town cautionary tale, 'The Mercy Seat', a frantic call for redemption with echoes of Greek tragic discourse in its lyrics, and 'The Weeping Song', a heavy, melancholy lament.

My only complaint is that I would disagree with some of the selections... A track like 'Deanna' does not hold up to some of the other tracks in the vast Cave back catalogue.

Summary: A great introduction to one of the world's best songwriters.