Customer Reviews

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds: The Videos

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

If you have not seen this DVD, it must be restated that Cave and his bandmates admit from the very start that they do not like doing videos. So, if you presumably already have these songs on CD and many of the reviews lean toward the negative, why own this? Well, in my view, The Videos is a great collection precisely because it is so primitive and often silly. I don't like all the songs and would rather that others had taken the place of those I don't like, hence the four stars. But overall, this is a video that any Nick Cave fan should be eager to own because actually watching Cave perform adds so much more to the songs.
The following are my favorites:
1) Staggerlee---Cave in his most menacing stance. The dancing is so silly you may roll on the floor laughing.
2) Where the Wild Roses Grow---Manichean juxtapositions. Cave and Minogue play their roles to the hilt. And then there's that snake...
3) Into My Arms---The imagery is what gets you. Very stark.
4) Henry Lee---The video does not really fit the words, but you can feel the sexual tension generated by PJ Harvey and Cave.
5) Red Right Hand---Always a great song, sinister as Cave can make it.
6) Do You Love Me---Actually, I couldn't care less about the bozos he filmed in a Brazilian dive, but the performance is urgent and bursting with Cave's energy.
7) Jack the Ripper---Full of blood, brings the lyrics to hideous life.
8) Mercy Seat---Somewhat weak, but Cave looks the part of a loser who is about to be fried. Could have been a lot more graphic, but still a great song.
9) The Weeping Song--The set it comical (with the phony water and rocking boat, the guys swilling Retsina), the dancing stupid, and Blixa Bargeld with a voice tailor-made for a song like this.
10) I Had A Dream, Joe---Shows the band at its most manic. No acting per se, but lots of great shots of individual band members frantically playing and Cave working himself into an exhausting frenzy.

What didn't I like? They could have jettisoned What A Wonderful World and In the Ghetto for sure. They stink out loud, particularly that last,the aural stench of which still lingers in my ears.
Addressing one reviewer's complaint, one can skip the commentary before each song by selecting the songs one by one rather than playing the whole thing through. A bit of a pain, but its an option.
So, overall I ditto the mixed bag judgement of several reviewers but reiterate my recommendation of The Videos for anyone who is truly a Nick Cave fan. I plan to enjoy this DVD frequently and you may find that you will too as long as you remember the proviso that these videos are not the acme of the art.

Not much to say about this release. Fans of Cave have long been living off decaying VHS copies that they had either taped The Bad Seeds vids onto, or from the old original release. Thank goodness we now have them on DVD, including some extremely hard to find ones. What's cool is that nearly every video is introduced by a snippet sound byte from the band. The down side is only Nick (and sometimes guitarist Blixa) discuss the songs and videos, but their kept extremely short. About one or two sentences regarding the shooting of the video's, then they show them. Also, the majority of the introductions are basically variations on how much they disliked shooting video's.

The only other complaint I have is that video's from the two last albums are not present. Of course, 'No More Shall we Part's promo's can be seen on the 'God Is In The House' concert disc, so that's not a big loss. However, it would have been nice if they had included the vid for 'Bring it On', which has never had an official DVD presentation.

Still, they are the video's, and their finally on DVD. That alone warrants this DVD a 4 star rating.

Videos are, demonstrably, not a strong point for the Bad Seeds. Neither are they a point of interest for the band. If you are interested in inspired and objectively interesting videos, look elsewhere. However, if you like to watch Nick Cave dance around while Blixa Bargeld looks very pretty in the background, you've found your match. The commentary between the videos is entertaining and offers a glimpse into the minds of the otherwise taciturn Bad Seeds. This is a collection for the collectors, or the über-fans.

I love Nick Cave and his musical stylings and these videos are the best way to experience it beyond watching them live. Some of the videos here are better than others. Stagger Lee is great, campy fun, Red Right Hand is ominous and strangely creepy, while Henry Lee finds Cave and his former lover PJ Harvey giving themselves up to a one-take of visible passion and tension. Loverman (later covered by Metallica), is a loud hypnotic ride (literally) as the band gets filmed being put into a trance by a professional hypnotist.

Other stand out videos include the behind the scenes road trip piece, Wanted Man, the live, I Had A Dream Joe and the beginning of the Mercy Seat shot in stark black and white. The rest are underbudgeted yet still worthy of a look.

At the beginning of the dvd, Cave admits that he and the band do not like doing videos. And this shows, but with wacky mixed results. On the high (in a down and dirty way) end, "Stagger Lee," which is the opening video, is funny, profane, and tongue in cheek. It also rocks. "Into My Arms," is spare and beautiful, its black and whites stark as if filmed by Bergman. On the lush end, with first class production values, is "Where the Wild Roses Grow," a beautiful and disturbing duet acted out on the river bank with singer Kylie Minogue (and an ever present snake). Cave's voice is a remarkably strong instrument -especially when it comes to dark stuff.

After that, there seems to be a large middle ground, with a number of videos admittedly done on the fly. Particularly good is "Henry Lee,"a one take effort by Cave and P.J. Harvey. She's got a terrific voice, and obviously these two were hot for each other at one time. It also helps that the song is a good one. Another duet, with Pogue front man, Shane McGowan, is kind of sad. Cave is in great voice, but McGowan is a burned out case, and it shows. "The Weeping Song" is bizarre and cheap with its choppy plastic water and Zorba dancing, but also fun. "Mercy Seat" is a surprising failure. You'll like the version done on "God is in the House" much better (as is the case with a number of the songs shown on both dvds). At the absolute bottom is "In the Ghetto," which has to be one of the worst videos ever made. The camera slips in out of focus, and Cave admits that at that time in his career, it was a mistake to send him the money for such efforts, since he usually would spend it on "other things." (He must of gave some of those "other things" to the guy with the camera.) Amusingly, the band tells you its own take before most of the videos on the dvd, and they are often their own harshest critics. Actually, the best, most polished videos I've seen by the band, appear on "God is in the House," (which appear apart from the concert). I'm still glad I got this, but its interesting to see how the Bad Seeds have evolved - and it has been for the better. Right now they are clearly one of the best bands out there.

This is a collection of videos with commentary from Nick Cave and the band. This collection also highlights what for me was their most creative period. The videos range from the simple band on a soundstage to the more arty pieces. Some of the most notable videos could stand alone as their own film shorts (i.e. Where The Wild Roses Grow and Red Right Hand). The commentary ranges from the informative to the humourous. I do not think the band has been able to match the material on this collection since.

Nick doesn't even like making videos. Rent don't buy this one. It's much more worth your while to buy a live performance DVD.

What is annoying about this title is that you have no way of just playing the videos one after the other without the little bits of commentary between. It's interesting stuff to hear the first time, but when you see it over and over again, it becomes annoying. There should be an option where one can just play the videos one after the other with no interruption. Of course, the videos themselves are as good as the music, which varies wildly from religiously centered songs that seem to suggest a hard kernel of faith to songs that seem to celebrate, or at least dryly relate, violent incidents. Despite the fact that Cave moves quickly from angels to demons and from the grotesque to the sublime, there is a consistency in voice and in the writing that gives not only this collection but all of his released music as a whole a consistent and complicated backdrop, so though as it is with all great "artists" one begins to be able to understand the whole of the artist only through beginning to understand the wide range of his or her work, laying before one the vast landscape of a mind.

Well, what can be said that hasn't been mentioned in the other reviews? Pretty much nothing...

The photo quality of the videos is very grainy, mostly due to the fact that they were all mostly filmed on low-tech gear (my, how technology has changed in the past few years) except for the video done with Kylie Minogue. The difference is very apparant.

Audio quality is fairly interesting as well. I don't know if the problem is on my end, or if it was a manufacturers defect with the encoding on the disk, but the sound (particularly the bass) has a lot of pops to it. I also purchased the God is in the House DVD, and had no problems with that particular audio facet. I also found spots to where the tempos changed mid-play.

I would have rated this product lower, but I figured in the fact that the video recording gear came from the Stone Age...

All in all, a good purchase still for any Nick Cave fan. Many of these videos are nigh impossible to find anywhere, so if you MUST have them, buy this DVD.

I have been a fan of Nick Cave since he was with The Birthday Party but had never seen him perform and had never seen any music videos. This is a real treat for fans and a good intro for the uninitiated. It's also very fairly priced for all the entertainment you get out of it.