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84 of 85 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
As good a compilation as we're gonna get, August 19, 2001
Although Nick Cave is a definite album artist, and also not someone with numerous hits, an album like this is needed because he has a large catalog and all of his albums are good. Certainly one could complain that a song is missing here or there, but, all things considered, this is really a fine compilation. It isn't arranged chronologically, but this actually makes for a more cohesive listen, as they are arranged for effect, and the album's general sequencing of ballad/rave-up/ballad/rave-up is very effective indeed. Would you really want the album to start with From Her To Eternity, and close with (Are You) The One That I've Been Waiting For? I think the songs are chosen well, and most of the major ones are represented. Let's take it album by album:From Her To Eternity - This album was a masterpiece, but the title track is the only song that belongs on a compilation like this. Kudos. The Firstborn Is Dead - Tupelo is the necessary track, and one of Cave's all-time classics. It's here in an edited form, but that was necessary to fit it on the album. Kudos. Kicking Against The Pricks - Although this album is uniformly excellent, it was an all covers affair, and the songs are not Cave's. It was skipped over for this collection. No bones. Your Funeral, My Trial - Here we get my first quibbles with the track selection. Where the hell is Sad Waters? Many people consider this to be Cave's best song ever. It should have been included. The Carny... yes, of course; a great and necessary track. Stranger Than Kindness, now, I have always found this to be one of Cave's most overrated tracks, but it's a mainstay in his live set to this day, and appears on this album. It's good, yes, but nothing special. Maybe it's the fact that Cave didn't write it. I would've preferred Sad Waters in its place. Tender Prey - This is considered by many people to be Cave's best album, and representing it here are two of his finest songs ever. The Mercy Seat... what more can be said? Of course it's an edit here, but we can't have everything. Deanna is, of course, present as well. Kudos. The Good Son - This ballad-heavy album is represented by two fine songs, The Weeping Song, and perhaps Cave's finest ballad of all, The Ship Song. Kudos. Henry's Dream - Maligned by some fans and by Cave himself, but no one can argue with the inclusion of the extremely beautiful ballad Straight To You in this collection. Kudos. Let Love In - Red Right Hand, Nobody's Baby Now, and Do You Love Me?... all excellent songs. There are some great songs from this album not included here, but the whole album is excellent. You should buy it as well. Kudos. Murder Ballads - This is not an album that can be easily represented by a compilation. The two songs from it included here, Henry Lee and Where The Wild Roses Grow are not the album's best songs, and not representative of it as a whole. However, they were the two singles from the album, and it's most well-known songs. O'Malley's Bar is perhaps the album's standout, but such a song is forever barred from compilation existence (14 minutes of morbid poetry at its best.) One could make a case for Stagger Lee as well, but everybody knew this was as good as we were going to get. A semi-reluctant kudos. The Boatman's Call - This is one of my favorite albums of all-time, and I could make a case for some of the other songs, but Into My Arms and (Are You)...? were the album's two singles, and two of its best songs. Into My Arms is perhaps my favorite Cave song ever. Kudos. Overall, my only real gripe is the abscence of Sad Waters. Other than that, I think this is as complete and accurate an assortment as it could possibly be, as long as you stick to one disc. This is not a complete picture, but it gives a fascinating glimpse into the world of one of the most compelling, consistently brilliant, and underrated songwriters of the 80s, 90s, and beyond.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
the chariots of angels collide when Nick comes around, June 15, 2002
After all these years, this remains my only Nick Cave cd but I still play it frequently whenever I need to cry, brood, or otherwise get freaked out...Nick Cave is an acquired taste, often it's too much for me to handle, but it's darn good...many of Nick's songs seem to be possessed with a sickness, very gothic tunes for murders, cynical strangers, lonely souls, and shadowy devils seem to be his standard... That said, on with the basic layout... You get Nick's most known songs...the spooky, haunting horrofests that travel into the most morbid regions of your psyche..."Red Right Hand" is by far the most accessible of these as well as the most accessible song period out of his whole catalog, and no wonder...it is a brilliant mixture of 60s-style organs and arrangements and his smoky croon, telling the methods and plans of Mr. Lucipher himself...it seems to act as an omen more than a celebration. "Tupelo" is pure insanity reflecting apocalyptic imagery while staying away from Biblical judgement seeming to commend the fact that evil will prevail with his saying that the bird will carry "the burden of Tupelo", the music genuinely unique, a feirce rumble and growling demon vocal that only they could pull off. "Stranger Than Kindness" is a wandering trudge thru the remnants of a world that has ceased to exist, reflected in both the sparce country-style rock and the ghostly lyrics. "The Carny" is another unforgettable classic, it [pulls] you into its twisted Flannery O' Connor-esque cavalcade of cicrcus freaks with its dueling vocals and enchroaching 'carnival passing thru the nine gates of hell' music, it gives you a sense of supernatural karma and peril as the dead carny comes back from the grave to get revenge on the ones that abandoned him. While not the scariest, "From Her To Eternity" is certainly frightening, the cathartic guitars and deranged singing and pounding piano clashing together in spasmodic energy to portray this man's devotion to a girl he is obsessed with... ...the freight doesn't end there. It continues with no less effective but still notable titles such as "Do You Love Me?" (wild story of a doomed relationship caught behind howling choruses and spiralling road music), "The Mercy Seat" (frantic, intense, wonderful epic about falsely-accused man in jail getting further and further towards the electric chair, the slamming march-style music complets this effect), and "Deanna" (a Beach Boys song on acid, as some other reviewer noted elsewhere, unlike other CAve songs this celebrates the disturbing violence rather than convict or simply observe it)... THe other half of CAve's collection is devoted to morose love ballads drenched in sadness, despair, and bliss...there's my favorite, "Strait To You", a Dylanesque signal from the approaching apocalypse that promises his girlfriend that he'll be there even when the chariots of angels are colliding; "Nobody's Baby Now", one of his most down-to-Earth creations that serves as a relatively simple tribute to a deceased lover; "Where The Wild Roses Grow", a somnambulant rose-coloured sway that is more of a sign that "all beauty must die" as the protagonist murders his love; "Into My ARms", another simpler ballad that gives its credit to singer/songwriter Leonard Cohen; the mellow dirge "Henry Lee" with Polly Jean Harvey on vocals, telling the unsettling tale of betrayal and murder like the Roses song; "The Ship Song" is one of the more accessible, another Cohenesque track that reflects a complete apathy and bliss with the state of things; "Are You THe One I'm Waiting For?", with its loungy act and tender vox, is also great. All the aforementioned songs could've been released collectively as an album of love songs, which I think was already done with THE BOATMAN's CALL. The only other mellow song which doesn't fit this colletion of romance is "The Weeping Song" which trades dialogue from a father and his son, trying to find out the nature of the sorrow that has plagued Cave's mind for so many years. All the pretentious reviewing aside, this is mixed bag of all the many chaotic emotions of Nick Cave & tHe Bad Seeds, finding their own place in your ears and mind before the 70-some minutes is complete. An unstable and haunting journey, yes, but one worth traveling on. So sit back, breath in the smell of coffins from the booklet, and watch the world's bridges be burned.
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24 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Drunken Preacher, February 26, 2000
It's late. You take a shot of whisky. You find yourself looking around the bar, bits and pieces of memories past float though your mind.You see her face. You smell her hair. Part of you wants to cry out for her love, but that last shot is now whispering to you, telling you to forget her. Maybe you don't have a choice. Nick Cave is the preacher who not only speaks TO us, but who speaks FOR us, as well - for the late night romantics. "Straight to You", "Nobody's Baby Now", "Into My Arms" and "The Ship Song" all reach in and touch something deep inside. "Where the Wild Roses Grow" is one of the most haunting and UNUSUAL love songs I've ever heard - a murderous love story. "The Weeping song" is an epic tale. I've always been surprised that not many people have heard of Nick Cave. That's a shame...
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~ Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
~ Nick Cave
~ Nick Cave
~ Nick Cave
~ Nick Cave
by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds 
