Totally agree I’ve found it a completely overwhelming experience, beautiful lyrics beautiful music. It’s helped me with what I’m going through.
I can forgive the SQ for sake of the overall experience.
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This album improves on repeat listens and is definitely a moving experience. Would love to see this performed live. Whatever issues there are with the recording don’t take away from the experience. It’s also nice to have another rock album vs the ambient type albums. Those are great as well but normally too slow for my mood.
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Wouldn’t this album have been just brilliant and an absolute masterpiece.
All this tosh about - oh that is how Nick wanted it to sound.
For some of us it is.
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Based on what?
Why would an artist with his abilities release something thats faulty?
This has passed a lot of critical listening and sound tweaking in this form. It may not be to everyone’s liking but that does not change the fact that the artist crafted it this way willfully.
And he got it wrong - nobody is perfect - he made a mistake that’s all.
Look at rock n roll history it is littered with these catastrophic errors. That is why we see so many albums getting a remix.
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That may or may not be, and those who like what he did think he got it right, so it is very much in the eye of the beholder, so to speak.
But be that as it may, it was stil released the way he intended with the sound he wanted in that moment. Time will tell if it was a mistake or not.
So far it seems its leaning to him getting it right in the opinions.
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agree it’s poor, there’s nothing creative or artistic about a bad sounding album
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I had ruled this out on the very simple basis that he had exhausted his range of topics and memorable tunes but well done everybody. You have awakened my interest snd when I’m back home I shall find some time to give this a listen.
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Listen deeply to the lyrics and the overall feeling of the album. Try not to get sucked in to all the BS about the sound quality.
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I find the definition of “well-recorded” to just be audiophile BS i.e. beautifully eq’d; lovely instrumental separation; sound stage; accurate timbre etc. Couldn’t care less. If it’s really “about the music” then none of those things matter and none of them have ever mattered. Done well they can of course enhance the experience and make you appreciate how good your system is and how good the professionals involved on the receding were, including the musicians, but most of the emotionally engaging music we love (and if you’re not listening for emotional engagement then why?) hits home because it’s emotionally engaging and not because the reverb tail at 3 minutes 17 is jaw dropping or you can hear the ambience of the room. I don’t even buy the “keeping the mistakes in” which is its own form of BS. It’s either a great song with a great arrangement or it’s not. Give me Da Doo Ron Ron over DSOTM every single time. I can “appreciate” both but there is only 1 I love.
I always think the Trinity Sessions by Cowboy Junkies is a magnificent exemplar of when all this BS combines. I do not care about the fantastic production. The amazing ambience of the church is irrelevant. “Ooh, echo. Well done.” I do care that songs like Blue Moon Revisited and To Love Is To Bury are astonishing and remain so even decades later.
Hardly the first time this has been an issue for Cave. Many found the ambience of Skeleton Tree to be too rough. I thought it one of the most devastating cycles of song I’d ever heard. Even now I need 5 or 10 minutes to reviver after playing it. Equally when Ghosteen was allegedly to have topped it I found the production to be prissy; the songs to be unfinished and unfocused. I didn’t dislike it because of the production. I disliked it because I thought it was 2 or 3 decent songs largely padded out with sketches and B-sides.
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Mike
Great post, although don’t agree re Ghosteen which remains one of my favourite ever albums!
Wild God; still not sure about it musically, and I think his voice is straining in places. This is not a production issue but a fact of his vocal range that at times I find a bit intrusive. I still prefer his more restrained and sombre albums, but I am finding bits to enjoy in this new one.
I couldn’t make any of his UK dates when they were announced. I have a feeling that hearing Wild God live might have transformed my view of it.
Bruce
I remember reading something about his voice being impacted by the strain of losing his son, which was really clear on Skeleton Tree. Personally I found Wild God to be a long way to how he sounded on the albums before.
I read that, but I thought he had found a darker, lower tone in those albums that had more texture and personally I liked that.
Each to his own, thank goodness. A fascinating artist (and man).
Bruce
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Yeah there is enough variety in his career indeed.
My personal favourite is, and seems it will always be, Let Love In. Most probably as that was how and when I found Nick Cave.
But don’t think his evolution and life is leading him in that direction again.
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He is getting on (67 now) and voices do change. However, I don’t hear his voice as ‘straining’. I hear it as a full emotional connection with the material - giving it his all if you like. That’s why I find this such a devastatingly brilliant album. As @mikehughescq says, the production values have sweet FA as to whether an album is brilliant or not
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Agreed!
There are a lot of emotions pouring out in the last few albums. If I have to stand back and objectively judge I’d say that they are better artistically than something like Let Love In, but I do find them a lot harder to listen due, cause they are so emotional and I feel myself quite shaken at the end of each one.
My favourite song on the album is Frogs. He was recently asked about the meaning of the song and this was his reply in The Red Hand Files:
I love this response for its beautiful core, cut through with a large dose of black humour. To me, Nick Cave belongs to that select group of musicians who deal with ageing, mortality and loss in a profoundly different and engaging way. I would include David Bowie and Leonard Cohen. I wouldn’t include David Gilmour in this group - his latest is technically brilliant ( and I’m going to see him at the RAH) but it is a variant on what he normally does and is emotionally uninvolving. Others will profoundly disagree but that is one of the great things about music - we don’t all need to like the same things. What speaks to one person may not speak to another
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As ever with these things I don’t ever fully give up on them. I like to go back and see how or whether my perspective changes. Some of my most loved albums took me months to get into and in some cases years. Sometimes I don’t change my mind at all. Only an idiot trusts their own judgement all of the time.
I expect I will go back to Ghosteen. I’m happy to concede that in part my initial reaction was that in terms of what needed to be said it was all done with Skeleton Tree. There is definitely a part of me which doesn’t see the point of Ghosteen all other considerations aside.
It’s a lovely answer and indeed the first time I’d read anything on the Red Hand Files. Maybe those who don’t approve of the recording quality could ask a question - why is the recording of Wild God so poor - signed they who put recording quality above the music.
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