Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
Nocturama
2003

genre: rock, folk
1. It's a Wonderful Life - 6:49
2. He Wants You - 3:30
3. Right Out Of Your Hand - 5:15
4. Bring It On [ft Chris Bailey]- 5:22
5. Dead Man In My Bed - 4:40
6. Still In Love - 4:44
7. There Is a Town - 4:58
8. Rock Of Gibraltar - 3:00
9. She Passed By My Window - 3:20
10. Babe, I'm On Fire - 14:45

For another one of the much less obscure folks you'll find in this thread, I'm gonna go with Nick Cave, and an album that for reasons that will soon become obvious just bothers me. So far as me and Sir Nicholas Edward Cave go, I'm not so sure if I've told you how it all began before. Basically, I wasn't so impressed when I'd first heard him, being the clueless, socially-awkward teenager I was when I heard my first Nick Cave song; the Ship Song. I thought it was corny beyond belief, especially the creepy-arse video that I saw with it. I forget what it was that brought me round, but I have a funny feeling it was this...



...which came my way via my brother. Anyway, long story short, down the years the man's been indirectly responsible for the direction my life's taken since. I practically worhsip the guy then.

As I've already said in another thread of mine, 2001's No More Shall We Part has always and forever will be my favourite Nick Cave album. I spent a lot of time doing a write-up for that, so I thought it'd be kinda neat to take down a word or two on its follow-up.

Nocturama's certainly a very different album from the two that came before it in two ways. For a start, there are a few moments which are lot livelier than a good 90% of what you'd find on either of them, pointing the way forward to the upcoming Abattoir Blues/Lyre Of Orpheus double-album. In terms of quantity though, the overall sound is fairly mellow and introspective again. Secondly, this album was written and recorded a lot more spontaneously than those before it. Months of planning, rehearsing, demoing and writing lyrics went into the Boatman's Call and No More Shall We Part, whereas Nocturama was pretty much all done on the spot, making for a red-raw sound and very laid-back approach to the production.

The results make for one of the definitive 'meh' albums. Well, that's not quite true, as some of these songs are among Cave's best, namely the passionate Bring It On (enjoy the video fellas) and He Wants You - a gorgeously syrupy romantic ballad that's enough to make the most IDM-hardened heart melt. Rock Of Gibraltar's another sweet lovesong, Still In Love's another very nice ballad and Dead Man In My Bed's a beautifully noisy band-wide freakout, although it must be said that none of them really stand up with the man's better works. Other than that, there's just a whole lot of mediocrity, with She Passed By My Window and There Is a Town being quite possibly the most boring songs Nick Cave's ever recorded. Where the songs aren't just plain uninteresting, they're definitely too bloody long, the worst offender of this probably being the closing Babe, I'm On Fire, which could have been one of the man's finest had it been trimmed down to about 2 or 3 minutes.

Basically, here's how the album would look had I been in charge of post-production;

1) Bring It On
2) He Wants You
3) Rock Of Gibraltar
4) Everything Must Converge
5) Still In Love
6) Swing Low
7) Nocturama
8) Dead Man In My Bed

^ The titles you don't recognise from the original listing being, of course, nerdily-namedropped leftovers from the sessions that really should've made the album.

In other words, find a way of getting those songs and don't bother with the rest if you're mulling over getting this. Definitely Nick Cave's weakest album by a long shot.