Photo: Alamy
This 1986 album, entirely comprising cover versions, shows Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds playing with the duality of their sound. There’s the bombast of their take on The Velvet Underground’s ‘All Tomorrow ‘s Parties’ running counter to Jimmy Webb’s legendary ‘By The Time I Get To Phoenix’ with a softer, but no less southern gothic, country sensibility.
This being only the band’s third album meant they weren’t ready to relinquish the outsider status yet.’Sleeping Annaleah’ may be performed as a waltz, but it’s one rooted in a kind of dreadful pugatory.
‘Hey Joe’ and ‘I’m Going To Kill That Woman’ , with their churning intensity, both point to the future violence and madness lurking within ‘Tender Prey’, ‘Henry’s Dream’ and ‘Murder Ballads’. The album cover ironically posits Cave as some kind of crooning lounge singer in his crisp tux; but he was still using heroin, and still wilfully perverse, almost falling off his stool on Channel 4 live music show ‘The Tube’ after performing a particularly vituperative version of ‘The Singer’. He was nowhere near the elder statesman of gloom who’s endlessly charming on American chatshows these days.
This reminds me just how far the band have ploughed into the mainstream lately, and how they’ve smoothed off the rough edges. I really hope they’ll return to this kind of strange, wilder experimentation again soon. This album is timeless, wild and beautiful, endlessly wrongfooting the listener.
Hit The North 