Day 0848 - The Boatman's Call

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds "The Boatman's Call" (1996) - got it

Cave had described the experience of making previous album "Murder Ballads" as 'a holiday'.   It was an album of twisted stories with gorgeous arrangements that Cave could lose himself in.   

"The Boatman's Call" is completely the opposite.   The cover once again features a picture of Cave, this time a bleak black and white rendering.   The songs are all painfully personal, alluding to breakups (Cave had recently divorced his wife and had a brief relationship with PJ Harvey), religion and a generally cold view of the word.   The Bad Seeds, responded to these songs with sparse arrangements (in some cases, just a piano backing Cave's deep croon) putting Cave even more in the burning spotlight.

The result though is a beautiful collection of songs that somehow manage to take pain and sadness and make something from it (like a rainbow after the fall if you want a trite analogy).   "Into my arms" may be one of the most beautiful songs written by anyone.   "Brompton Oratory" is a suitably hymn-like song for the church of the same name in London (I've been, it is a beautiful building).
"People Ain't No Good", "Where do we go but Nowhere" and "(Are You) the One That I've Been Waiting For" tell tales of heartbreak that almost seem to revel in the pain they're exorcising.

The next few Bad Seeds would move away from this kind of bare honesty back into a more narrative and sometimes character-driven form of writing, but this album is rightly held up as one of the best in the band's canon.

Day 0472 - Heartattack and Vine

Tom Waits "Heatattack and Vine" (1980)

 
After 5 or 6 albums leaning on his downtrodden barfly troubadour persona, Waits started changing it up here. There are one or two songs where he still slur-croons clever couplets over a loungey jazz piano, but the guitar starts to play a much bigger role in his compositions, and Waits starts exploring his bluesy yell-mixed-with-Cookie Monster vocal that would come out full force in later albums.

For a guy who used to put out albums every year or so in the 70s; the 80s onwards have been increasingly sparse as far as his musical output goes (with the exception of his dual releases 'blood money' and 'Alice' in 2002).  Maybe that's due to an increase in acting roles and soundtrack music... or maybe he's just been enjoying life outside of the 'business.