I'd start with The Best of Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds. It compiles hits from his first album, From Her To Eternity, through his tenth album, The Boatman's Call. Give it some time to grow on you and if you like what you hear, then start checking out some of his albums covered in the compilation. The only album from that time period that The Best Of doesn't cover is Nick's cover version frenzy, Kicking Against the Pricks, with such memorable tracks as Johnny Cash's "Long Black Veil" (originally recorded by Lefty Frizell), Glenn Campbell's "By The Time I Get to Phoenix," Tom Jones' "Sleeping Annaleah," Leadbelly's "Black Betty," and the VU's "All Tomorrow's Parties." If you're looking for Nick's tear-stained cover of Elvis' "In the Ghetto," it appears on his first album, From Her To Eternity. His 1997 live album, Live Seeds, is a pretty good live collection of songs from the same time period.

Favorite albums after the Best Of collection include No More Shall We Part, Dig Lazarus Dig, and the 2-disc Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus. Abattoir/Orpheus is more hit-or-miss, but has some great tracks on both albums. Nocturama, the album Nick released after No More Shall We Part, is kind of a stinker, imho, and generally considered to not be one of his better ones by most fans.

You might also enjoy Nick's side project band, Grinderman, which just released their second album earlier this year.

Here's a couple more Nick clips to give you a taste of his flavor.

"In The Ghetto"



"Tupelo" (one of my favorite Caves)



Grinderman, "No Pussy Blues"

:love:

Are you angel? :rofl:

If you're Nick Cave, I'll be anything you want me to be.

Dude can't drive apparently.

:love:

Holy crap I completely missed that. I love Ed Kuepper but besides them sharing a love of heroin I never would have imagined him crossing paths with the Bad Seeds.




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Here's how I personally got into Cave.
"The good son" was playing in a record store; it played all the way through, then I went up and asked who it was, and promptly bought it.

After that I got "Henry's dream", and these two albums made me want more, so then it was "Let love in" followed by "Murder ballads", after which "The boatman's call" was released, so I was up to date then. I grabbed "No more shall we part" when it came out, and think it's a great album, but have been less impressed with some other recent efforts, such as the double "Abbatoir blues/Lyre of Orpheus", "Nocturama" and "Dig! Lazarus! Dig!" which I really didn't like.

I bought his earlier albums too, just to have them, but haven't really taken the time to get into them, if I can, though "The mercy seat" off "Tender prey" is one excellent song.

Do you have the first Birthday Party album that they released initially as Boys Next Door? It's different to earlier Boys Next Door and later Birthday Party.

i actually prefer the Birthday Party stuff to the Bad Seeds stuff

and no, I don't have any Boys Next Door

I don't have it either. As I say, I came via "The good son" and more or less went forward from there, just dipping back to complete his catalogue up to (or back to) "The firstborn is dead", but no further back than that.