Nick Cave is described by Allmusic as “one of the finest songwriters of the post-punk era, whose hybrid of blues, gospel, and rock complemented his dark, literary style and baritone vocals”.  After fronting a band called the Birthday Party in about 1980, Nick Cave assembled a band as a sort of post-punk super-group; and this band, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds has released 15 albums in the 30 years since. 

The album that I have, Tender Prey (1988) is their sixth album.  I was introduced to Nick Cave through the video for the opening track on this album, “The Mercy Seat” that I saw several times on the MTV late show 120 Minutes.  After a mostly mumbled introduction, the song is primarily the chorus repeated powerfully with savvy lyric changes; but I would have enjoyed the song if it extended to twice its 7-minute length.  The other songs on the album build on this novel take on religion.  

Ned Raggett in Allmusic has unending praise for this song:  “The album boldly starts out with an undisputed [Nick] Cave masterpiece – ‘The Mercy Seat’, a chilling self-portrait of a prisoner about to be executed that compares the electric chair with the throne of God.  Queasy strings from a Gini Ball-led trio and Mick Harvey’s spectral piano snake through a rising roar of electric sound – a common musical approach from many earlier [Bad] Seeds songs, but never so gut-wrenching as here.  Cave’s own performance is the perfect icing on the cake, commanding and powerful, excellently capturing the blend of crazed fear and righteousness in the lyrics.” 

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A film featuring Nick Cave recently premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival.  Called 20,000 Days on Earth, it portrays a 24-hour period in Cave’s life (fictionalized).  The film won two awards at the Festival and was praised by the Jury as “being arguably the most exciting film in competition. . . .  This is documentary storytelling at its most visionary and mind-blowing”.  

The title is taken from a calculation that Nick Cave made of the number of days in his life to that time.  I have a financial calculator that I use in my work which counts the number of days between two given dates.  I had hoped to mark my own 20,000th day, but I missed it.  

(November 2014)

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Items:    Nick Cave