Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - B-Sides and Rarities

Genre rock Publisher Mute Records External Links Official Site Mute Records

The oeuvre of Nick Cave since the demise of the Birthday Party has become such an unwieldy beast that I must thank the kind souls at Mute who put together this mostly pleasing compilation. Of course, it also means that I can't really be churlish when I find tracks missing, such as his unexpectedly resonant reading of "In the Ghetto." Quibbling aside, B-Sides and Rarities is much more comprehensive than one could expect, mostly thanks to Cave's longstanding relationship with Mute. This allows tracks that would otherwise never see the light of day to be heard.

Of course, the dirty blues that Cave carried over from the Birthday Party to the early Bad Seeds is much more easily discernible, which is probably the reason why the tracks are not in chronological order. Normally the ordering of tracks would chronicle an artist's development; in this case, it would only point up the ever-heightening cheesiness of Cave's work.

Disc 2 begins with a misbegotten cover of "What A Wonderful World," a duet with Blixa Bargeld that seems to have been recorded on a dare. Thus commences Cave's rediscovery of the traditional songs that he recorded in his early days with the Bad Seeds, only this time around there's a knowing wink that's practically audible. It spoils the proceedings no end, and it's fitting that this era brought Cave his biggest hit, a duet with Kylie Minogue called "Where the Wild Roses Grow." A kind of sequel to "Knoxville Girl" (which also appears herein), "Where The Wild Roses Grow" is post-ironic to the extreme, a fact only compounded by Kylie's earnest vocal. On this CD, the demo version, featuring the ever-dependable Bargeld, is included instead. It adds an aura of genuine creepiness sorely missing from Cave's work around this time. The rollicking, easygoing "There's No Night Out in the Jail" begins a clutch of songs that shows what can happen when Cave casts off the shadow of gloom that has in recent years descended into self- parody.

Soundtrack songs like "Red Right Hand" and "(I'll Love You) Till the End of the World" are problematic in their own right, feeling as if they were recorded using a Nick Cave Song Generator program of some sort (if it doesn't exist yet, it will soon enough). I long for the times when Cave was genuinely scary, but I know that in these days of mall Goth culture, to wish them back would be an exercise in futility. That's why this compilation is both a delight and a sad reminder of how Cave lost his edge.