I’m going 5. I have a few niggles about him (BDS stuff most recently but just in general he’s hardly perfect on stuff) but man I do love his music, and having seen a lot of different concerts from him and various support…man. What a guy.
Can we do Dirty Three in this too? They’re a 5 from me as well.
Has to be a 5 - not a perfect discography but too much good stuff in there not to. Managing to put out an album like Push The Sky Away so late into their career as well…
Torn between Red Right Hand and Into My Arms for single but had to go with the latter, the perfect song.
A very strong discography but would probably only be a 4 if it wasn’t for how completely elevated loads of the material is live.
Very good recording artist. One of the absolute best live.
Nick is a sensational artist, the music he’s been associated with, from The Birthday Party, to Grinderman, and with The Seeds until now is just absolutely excellent. Very few in music have such a long discography that remains so consistently brilliant.
He can do the slow piano ballads as good as anyone, he can do the fierce, snarling post-punk as good as anyone, the Bad Seeds even released an exceptional double album! C’mon, 35 odd years into your career, to release Push The Sky Away and Skeleton Tree – astonishing. Also Nick adores Lenny Cohen so he’s definitely well smart.
Remember my first experience of Nick Cave was watching Glastobury footage in my brother’s room on his tiny TV (1994?). Anyway he was playing ‘Loverman’ and, despite the fact that he was playing in broad daylight to a mostly apathetic crowd and despite the fact that the sound was coming out of the tiny tinny speakers of my brother’s TV I had never heard anything like it and I was totally entranced.
Strange to think that, 26 years later, I would still be massively into him despite the fact that both he and I have changed so much in the interim. So many bands I loved then that I’ve left by the roadside (either because they never evolved or they did and I didn’t enjoy the new stuff) but not him. The only other artist I can think with such a strong influence over me for so long is probably Low.
‘Into My Arms’ was first (and only!) dance at our wedding.