Lovely Creatures – The Best Of Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds (Mute/BMG)

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If he wasn’t already legend enough, Lovely Creatures: The Best Of Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds cements Nick Cave place in rock and roll history as the most exciting and most creative artist of the past thirty years.Looking back and the early days of the band, when Cave and fellow musical partner-in-crime Mick Harvey emerged from The Birthday Party in 1984, one wouldn’t have placed much faith on the new band lasting through the decade, let alone even surviving. They were caught up in all the excesses of the underground rock and roll lifestyle of the time and their live performances, some of which are documented on the DVD featured in the Deluxe Edition of this set, show a front man and a band seemingly barely able stay in control.

But, as the following thirty years will prove, Nick Cave was very much in control, keeping his extraordinary band together, while simultaneously becoming a skilled and passionate songwriter, not to mention, a riveting performer.

This Deluxe Edition of Lovely Creatures presents us with three CDs full of Cave classics, arranged in chronological order along with a 39-track DVD that jumps back and forth from the unhinged early days to the more elegant later performances. Interspersed are short interview clips also seemingly randomly arranged. The effect is like watching various Cave clips on Youtube, and indeed, it looks like some of the videos have been taken from non-professional sources that may have originally been posted on the channel.

With a band like the Bad Seeds, there is a tendency to want to categorize their sound…their wild, untamed early years…their more restrained, mature, later years. But in reality, the band is just as capable, and just as likely to rock out now as they did in 1985, and just as frenetically…just check out a few of the tracks chosen here from 2008’s Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!. They have not mellowed out.

In addition to the music and the videos, the Lovely Creatures package features a thoughtful essay by Nick Cave archivist Kirk Lake, 20, or so pages of assorted photos and plenty of info about each track. Every album is represented, along with a few rarities from the “B-Sides” collection, although there is nothing here that hasn’t been released before.

And while Mick Harvey and Blixa Bargeld are long gone, Nick has kept up the quality and chemistry of the band with Warren Ellis and long-time members Thomas Wydler, Martyn Casey and Conway Savage.

As anyone who saw them in January at Vector Arena will tell you, they remain a potent, powerful band and Cave himself is still pushing himself as a performer and a songwriter.

I can’t think of another artist who has been as consistently prolific, challenging and satisfying over the same period of time as Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds. This new collection only drives that point home and sets us up for what is hopefully many more years of incredible music to come.

Marty Duda

 

Marty Duda
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