{"id":276,"date":"2005-05-13T01:39:39","date_gmt":"2005-05-12T23:39:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.greenman.co.za\/wordpress\/?p=276"},"modified":"2005-05-13T01:39:39","modified_gmt":"2005-05-12T23:39:39","slug":"nick-cave-b-sides-and-rarities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenman.co.za\/blog\/?p=276","title":{"rendered":"Nick Cave B-Sides and Rarities."},"content":{"rendered":"

One of IOL’s farewell presents to me was Nick Cave’s latest release, B-Sides and Rarities<\/em>. I’m a Nick Cave fanatic as it is, but with this album I’ve listened to nothing else since I got it a week ago. I’ve just put Cave’s Abattoir Blues<\/em> on now for some diversity!<\/p>\n

I had some trepidation – rarities and B-sides could have been drivel of the sort that didn’t even make it to his awful Nocturama<\/em> album. Instead I’ve been blown away. I’m savouring the experience, and have only listened to the first CD (over and over) and the 2nd CD (once so far).<\/p>\n

The diversity of Cave’s work is phenomenal. He is surely one of the greatest songwriters alive. Murder Ballads for example is worlds apart from the followup, The Boatman’s Call<\/em>. His raw and harsh early work (which I tend not to be in the mood for as much) stands in stark contrast to the lyrical ballads of albums such as No More Shall We Part<\/em>, which on first hearing I thought was awful. However, it’s now one of my favourites. Perhaps I’ll feel the same about Nocturama<\/em>, but that was followed up so soon by the excellent double CD, Abbatoir Blues<\/em> and the Lyre of Orpheus<\/em> that I’ve barely listened to it.<\/p>\n

Volume I features work up until 1994, and begins with three enjoyable acoustic versions of songs from Tender Prey<\/em>. The excellent Rye Whiskey<\/em> presages some of Cave’s later work, which is perhaps why it wasn’t released on any of the albums at the time. The Train Song<\/em> certainly doesn’t match up to its A-side, the Ship Song<\/em>, nor does Cocks ‘n Asses<\/em> to The Weeping Song<\/em>. But the album soon picks up again, with the rollicking fun of God’s Hotel.<\/p>\n

I’ve only listened to Volume II once, so my opinions are liable to change. It has a large number of songs written around the time of what was the start of Cave’s most creative period, which includes Let Love In<\/em> and Murder Ballads<\/em>. Blixa Bargeld replacing Kylie Minogue on Where the Wild Roses Grow<\/em> is great (though Kylie’s voice is a much more convincing innocent victim than Bargeld!). The two B-sides to Where the Wild Roses Grow<\/em>, The Willow Garden<\/em> and The Ballad Of Robert Moore and Betty Coltrane<\/em> are fantastic in their own right, though I understand why they were not chosen for the final Murder Ballads<\/em> album. The radio-friendly version of O’Malley’s Bar<\/em> is slightly annoying though, all the fucking’s hidden by some instrumental screeching. And the phrase bloody big cock<\/em> just doesn’t work quite as well as the original. But the final two songs on the disk are superb. Time Jesum Transeuntum Et Non Riverretum surely deserved an earlier release on a full album, and the Scream 3 version of Red Right Hand is a Scream.<\/p>\n

Volume III covers his ballady period from Boatman’s Call, on of my favourite periods, so I look forward to that one too. You can read more reviews of the album on Amazon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Thanks IOL! I hadn’t even known it was in the pipeline!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of IOL’s farewell presents to me was Nick Cave’s latest release, B-Sides and Rarities. I’m a Nick Cave fanatic as it is, but with this album I’ve listened to nothing else since I got it a week ago. I’ve just put Cave’s Abattoir Blues on now for some diversity! I had some trepidation –… Continue reading Nick Cave B-Sides and Rarities.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-water-personal","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenman.co.za\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenman.co.za\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenman.co.za\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenman.co.za\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenman.co.za\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenman.co.za\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenman.co.za\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenman.co.za\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenman.co.za\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}