Idiot Prayer

I was recommended this on Tidal last night.
Ok, from a previous thread, Nick Cave raises opposing views; for me the songs I know sound excellent. The acoustic is good, production values clear, and the man shows some emotion.

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I’ve been following his career since the Birthday Party days, right through The Bad Seeds and Grinderman. Like a good old wine, he gets better and better with age. He pours his heart out on everything he does.

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I agree… he shares a lot with Paul Weller in that respect Tony. Ive never followed Cave and know very little about his work but IP is a stunning piece of work, very timely in the current climate.

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What a voyage of discovery you have ahead of you in that case, his back catalogue is phenomenal

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Been a fan for about 27 years so far and this recording hit me in the feels. It’s a thing of beauty.

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Nick Cave’s music has been quite varied over the years. If you liked Idiot Prayer, good albums to try next might be Push the Sky Away or Skeleton Tree.

Or you could just dive into the self titled Grinderman album! Absolutely fantastic album!

Have fun!

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I find this to be such a visceral expression of personal grief that I find it extremely hard to listen to. Dunno if I’ll add that to the Beginner’s Guide to Cave. But personal opinion.

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If you get a chance to see him live, take it. I saw Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds at Brixton Academy in 2004 or thereabouts and it still raises the hairs on the back of my neck.

His ability to put raw emotion (and I mean every emotion, from heartfelt love, deepest grief/sorrow right through to repressed sexual tension) is unparalleled and the Bad Seeds are amazing at communicating it. He is absolutely unafraid to express any emotion which is very confronting but electrifying at the same time.

Check out Grinderman on Jools Holland, that performance teaches all the other performers a thing or two about communicating emotion.

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This popped up in my Tidal suggestions. Never really listened to Nick Cave before.
I was very impressed, a good find. But such a dark listen - I found it a hard listen.
I’m sure I will return to it in due course - but need a little more hope as 2020 draws to a close.

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Uncle Nick ain’t known for his upbeat tunes.

I’d add The Boatman’s Call and Ghosteen to that list as well

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Listening to this on vinyl.
It is like a breath of fresh air to listen to something that, IMO, has not been over engineered or over produced and does not have everything in the mix including the kitchen sink.
To hear a grand piano and solo voice in such a large cavernous space gives me goose bumps.

I also have Ghosteen and Murder Ballads on vinyl.

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I like Skeleton Tree but I think it is musically pretty challenging. I’d point newcomers to ‘Push The Sky Away’, ‘Ghosteen’ and ‘The Boatman’s Call’. The latter features heavily on ‘Idiot Prayer’.

The majority of ‘No More Shall We Part’ is also quite close to the piano-led ballads that feature on ‘The Boatman’s Call’. I’m not so keen on albums earlier than that, or indeed most of Abbatoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus.

Cross fingers but we are due to see him in Leeds in May. Cancelled from this year.

Bruce

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I am a late comer to Nick Cave & Bad Seeds
I have been listening from Push The Sky Away onwards and Grinderman. I havent yet heard Idiot Prayer.
I only played Ghosteen a couple of times, I have to say I found it uncomfortable and I’m a tad cynical about such public outpouring of grief.
Anyway, I digress. All the above have been on vinyl and sound fine. I was interested to explore further into the back catalogue and bought a re issue LP of Abbatoir Blues/Lyre Of Orpheus, the SQ to my ears is awful sounding like a horridly compressed MP3. My further exploration to date started and stopped here, is it meant to sound like that or are the re issue LP back catalogue duffers?
Cheers

I agree that particular album doesn’t have great SQ. Do give The Boatmans Call a try - better music and SQ

I will, thanks. I’ve started trying out streaming so I will give that a go. Which album has Red Right Hand? I enjoyed that track from Peaky Blinders

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It is from Let Love In. Which also happens to be my favourite Cave album.

There is also another version of the song that was made for Scream 3. That can be found on B Sides & Rarities.

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Boatman’s Call is available as a re-master (2011) which has pretty good SQ.

Bruce

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For those wanting to explore the back catalogue a bit there is a greatest hits compilation that was released not all that long ago called Lovely Creatures - The best of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.

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That’s where I first heard them and bought the first album