Image of Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds courtesy of Andrea Barsanti
#18 Dig Lazarus Dig!!! by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds (Mute Records)
Prior to picking up Dig Lazarus Dig!!! this year, I didn't know much about Nick Cave. I was introduced to the Australian singer through the Wim Wenders film Wings of Desire - his songs appeared in the film, and he makes a brief cameo (with the Bad Seeds, I think). I can't be sure - in my mind, I am conflating his cameo with Lou Reed's, which may have something to do with my liking this album a lot. I also owned a cassette of the soundtrack to Wim Wenders' Until the End of the World, which contained a Nick Cave song called "(I'll Love You) Till the End of the World". It was a good song, and I was even more impressed with another Nick Cave song I heard a couple years later on a CMJ sampler CD called "Red Right Hand". It was weird, though - I liked all the songs I heard by Nick Cave, but I never really felt any impetus to learn more. I blame this on "goth".
Not goth people or goth fashion or goth music or gothic architecture - just the concept of "goth". Nick Cave's first band, the Birthday Party, was one of the pioneers of the goth sound in the early '80s (late '70s?), and I could see that he was associated with the movement from my first exposure to his music. I tend to avoid certain genres of music - goth, hardcore, ambient, IDM, new jack swing - because I associate them too closely with a single mood. Maybe it's the pragmatist in me that wants to gravitate toward music that is more utilitarian - I want to be able to enjoy an album regardless of my mood. Nick Cave's music appealed to a certain drama-prone, macabre part of my psyche, but I thought it wouldn't be good music for daily listening around the house, so I stayed away.
Lately, I've been hearing really good things about Nick Cave's recent work, particularly Lyre of Orpheus and the recent releases by his Grinderman side project. But it was good that someone helped me break through by giving me Dig Lazarus Dig!!! as a gift - I didn't have any baggage attached to whether my purchase would be worthwhile, so I just gave it an unbiased listen. And it's really really good. It's definitely less "crying in a sepulchre under a full moon" and more "wandering in the desert in a soiled tuxedo with an empty bottle of Scotch", which helped me get over some preconceptions. And the songs have a lot of variety and nuance, exploring a variety of seedy characters and questionable locales. Cave rails against literary giants, threatens his enemies by moonlight, makes sleazy advances on young girls, and pines for lost love, all to great effect. The throbbing bass and propulsive drums are a constant, but the instrumentation is fresh and varied throughout the album. Check out the burbling synths and buzzing organ in the intro to "Today's Lesson", one of my favorite songs from the album.
It's definitely time for me to go back and explore the oeuvre of Nick Cave, particularly his highly-regarded '80s records. Where to start? From Her to Eternity? Should I go straight to 1994's Let Love In? Let me know if you think there is a good starting place, although I think that Dig Lazarus Dig!!! has given me as good a start as I could have hoped for. Part of me still shies away from the melodrama that saturates Nick Cave's approach to songwriting - it's not really dish-washing music - but this album is good enough to puncture some of my unfair preconceptions. My sincerest apologies to all the goths in the house.
"Today's Lesson" by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
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