Murder Ballads [Explicit Lyrics]

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Nick Cave's been writing songs about killing and other evil things since he first surfaced in 1980 as the Birthday Party's pale, skinny, goth-punk Jim Morrison. But the murder ballads that provide this set's title are different, tantalizingly deliberate. Sure, there's plenty of trademark Cave here, but Murder Ballads is a fascinating concept album that uses the narrative ballad form of the English folk tradition to tell of murder: random deaths, passion crimes, and killing sprees, all in one package. Cave clearly thrives in this genre, and he produces some of his sharpest and most facile writing to date. "Song of Joy," a genuinely scary campfire mystery of a murdered family and an unnamed killer, chillingly weaves clues into the lyrics, while "Where the Wild Roses Grow" is a narrative duet in which killer (Cave) and victim (pop star Kylie Minogue) reveal parallel tales. Cave even shows his knack for adaptation on Bob Dylan's "Death Is Not the End": he recontextualizes a song of heavenly comfort into a sort of zombie "We Are the World" (featuring Minogue, PJ Harvey, Shane MacGowan, and others) in which "death is not the end" of pain and suffering. Above all, Murder Ballads should be heard as a work of pulp fiction--as sensationally funny as it is harrowing. The already violent traditional song "Stagger Lee" becomes gangsta folk, so ridiculously packed with obscenity and brutality it would make the Geto Boys cringe. And Cave's (unintentional?) point to would-be censors--that bad-ass songs existed long before rappers polluted the airways--should not be missed. --Roni Sarig --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

Murder Ballads
Average customer rating:

soundtrack for a dark room

bad seeds most popular..BUT i think:

Faces of Murder

The stuff that nightmares are made of

Totally overrated

Murder Ballads
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
Manufacturer: Reprise / Wea
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music
Hardcore & Punk | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music | Vinyl Records | American Punk | British Punk | Emo | Garage Punk | Hardcore | Post Hardcore | Proto Punk | Punk | Punk Revival | Punk-Pop | Riot Grrl | Ska Punk | Straight Edge
Post-Punk | New Wave & Post-Punk | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music
General | Rock | Styles | Music
Pop Rock | Pop | Styles | Music
Similar Items:

The Boatman's Call

Let Love In

No More Shall We Part

Tender Prey

Abattoir Blues / Lyre of Orpheus

ASIN: B000002N5S
Release Date: 1996-02-20

Tracks:

Song Of Joy
Stagger Lee
Henry Lee
Lovely Creature
Where The Wild Roses Grow
The Curse Of Millhaven
The Kindness Of Strangers
Crow Jane
O'Malley's Bar
Death Is Not The End

Amazon.com

Nick Cave's been writing songs about killing and other evil things since he first surfaced in 1980 as the Birthday Party's pale, skinny, goth-punk Jim Morrison. But the murder ballads that provide this set's title are different, tantalizingly deliberate. Sure, there's plenty of trademark Cave here, but Murder Ballads is a fascinating concept album that uses the narrative ballad form of the English folk tradition to tell of murder: random deaths, passion crimes, and killing sprees, all in one package. Cave clearly thrives in this genre, and he produces some of his sharpest and most facile writing to date. "Song of Joy," a genuinely scary campfire mystery of a murdered family and an unnamed killer, chillingly weaves clues into the lyrics, while "Where the Wild Roses Grow" is a narrative duet in which killer (Cave) and victim (pop star Kylie Minogue) reveal parallel tales. Cave even shows his knack for adaptation on Bob Dylan's "Death Is Not the End": he recontextualizes a song of heavenly comfort into a sort of zombie "We Are the World" (featuring Minogue, PJ Harvey, Shane MacGowan, and others) in which "death is not the end" of pain and suffering. Above all, Murder Ballads should be heard as a work of pulp fiction--as sensationally funny as it is harrowing. The already violent traditional song "Stagger Lee" becomes gangsta folk, so ridiculously packed with obscenity and brutality it would make the Geto Boys cringe. And Cave's (unintentional?) point to would-be censors--that bad-ass songs existed long before rappers polluted the airways--should not be missed. --Roni Sarig

Customer Reviews:

soundtrack for a dark room.......2006-12-18

The painting on the front of the CD is clearly NOT a Bob Ross, for there is just no way that Bob Ross could adequately paint up some Nick Cave. The main problem has to do with the fact that there are no 'happy trees' in Nick Cave, and none especially in _Murder Ballads_. If there were, they were burnt down long ago. This disc may be one of his most popular, which gets some die-hard 'fans' to doubt it, but the tracks on this disc are soundly dark and violent and tender. Aside from a fine ensemble Dylan cover at the end, with PJ Harvey and Shane MacGowan among others, I find myself clinging to tracks like "Lovely Creature" and "Song of Joy," and "O'Malley's Bar" is its own western movie AND soundtrack combined.

So turn down the lights and break out a couple of bottles of your reddest wine. I'm going to be listening to this one all through Christmas.

bad seeds most popular..BUT i think:.......2006-10-18

One of their not-that-great cd.

the songs: Stagger Lee,Henry Lee,Where the wild roses grow and O'malleys bar are the only good songs on the album..the rest is just borrowed from other bad seeds records.

Lovely Creture - i hate the choir of girls lalalalalalala thing,yuck.

The curse of millhaven is just a faster henry lee melody..its not even good lyrically..

The kindness of strangers,i guess is quite alright,but i dont like the name,it's too similar to Stranger than kindness from Your funeral..my trial album.

Death is not the end is alright..but nothing more..a plus to Shane MacGowan.

Buy The good son instead..

Faces of Murder.......2006-07-17

4.5 stars

Watching Cave's amazing movie, _The Proposition_, last week brought me back to this highly noteworthy release in Cave's catalog. This is because _The Proposition_ is like one big, long murder ballad; like the album, it alternates between brutality, lyricism, a confusing mix of the two, and other emotions besides. I came close to wearing this CD out when I bought it at its release ten years ago (I know that's not supposed to be possible), but in the decade since it got lost in the mix of the rest of Cave's huge catalog (I'm especially partial to _More Pricks Than Kicks_, _From Her to Eternity_, and _The Boatman's Call_).

I have to say that _Murder Ballads_ definitely stands the test of time and is one of his best releases of the '90's. After the lukewarm _Henry's Dream_, Nick and the boys really hunkered down in the studio to create a truly distinctive piece. Its only true weakness is the ho-hum cover of Dylan's "Death Is Not the End" at the end of the CD. Otherwise, these are songs you can return to over and over, while always pulling some new sort of sensation out of the experience.

Starting with "Song of Joy," we hear the band spinning the kind of atmospheric psychoticism that they began to move away from more and more around the release of _Tender Prey_ (which, surprise, brought them more commercial success than ever before). What I'm suggesting here is that this song and a lot of the rest of the album is like a successful fusion of the bands more-ragged Birthday-Party-inspired Southern Gothic craziness exhibited on _Your Funeral My Trial_ with the slicker stuff like _Tender Prey_. Oh and "Song of Joy" is an absolutely terrifying beginning to this CD.

"Stagger Lee" is kind of a murder blues, much like "Crow Jane" and "O'Malley's Bar"; the band sets up a vamp and Nick just waxes evil over the whole thing. You'd be hard-pressed to find songs like these anywhere else.

The highlights of the album are the lyrical moments, all of them featuring female singers like PJ Harvey and Kylie Minogue. "Henry Lee," "Lovely Creature," and "Where the Wild Roses Grow" all manage to wrest considerable pathos from the most morbid of subject matter and this has everything to do with Cave's compositional skills, both on the keyboard and with his pen. The soaring duets also add to the uncanny effect. Absolutely indispensable listening.

With the release of _The Proposition_ to compare and contrast to this CD, we can rightly call Nick Cave the Master of the Macabre Love Lyric. Granted, there isn't much proper competition, but there is certainly something very noteworthy about exploring the sublime in the subject of death. On this album, Cave and the Seeds put it all out there. On _The Proposition_ he took it to epic proportions. Cave's got a lot of juice in him yet; one can only wonder what spin he will put on the faces of murder next.

The stuff that nightmares are made of.......2006-05-05

After "Let love in", the ultimate ode to lovesongs, loverman Nick Cave traps us all with his tongue-in-cheeck collection of murdurous hymns. Legends, myths, fairytales, rainy serial killer-stories, and even a Dylan cover, all are filled with dead bodies, buried underneath the soil, floating in a stream, wrapped in electrical wires or scattered across the floor of O'Maley's bar.
But these tales of vengeance, lust and mayhem aren't to be taken too serious, and fortunately so. Nick Cave likes to fool his listeners every now and then, and the black comedy genre, which is often filled with irony or cynism, is the right medium to trap your fans.

"Song of Joy" tells the tale of a man who wanders from place to place after his family got brutaly murdered. But there are hints that the narrator isn't what he appears to be, either. Add some quotes from John Milton's "Paradise Lost" (a refference also to be found in the 1994 serial killer movie "Se7en") and it's that Apocalyptic, end or the world-feeling Nick is bringing us, as he has done so many times before.

Next stop: "Stagger Lee", a delightfully obscene tale about a trigger-happy guy with itchy killer fingers and a smoking gun. It's sung in a kind of half spoken-word-like manner, much in the way Nick's famous "Red right hand" from the "Let love in" album was.
"Henry Lee" is the real ballad here, or shall we call it duet. P. J. Harvey and Nick Cave sing together this intimate little graveyard song.
Another duet follows, but this time it's the more widely known "Where the wild roses grow" with Kylie Monigue as both co-singer and victim of this tragic love story that ends in death and dismay.
"The curse of Millhaven" is simply all fire, lightning and chaos and with a length of 7 minutes, one of the bigger murder sprees.

The disc end with the the entire cast (Cave, Minogue, Harvey, Shane MacGowan, Blixa Bargeld) each singing some lines from Dylan's "Death is not the end". But not before "O'Maley's bar" is finished. Lasting more then 14 minutes and with some 36 plus strophes, this is the song in which both Nick Cave as his nameless narrator go `all the way'. Shooting his dumdum-like words to the audience as easily as the protagonist of this gruwesome story is shooting his bullets at all the visitors of the local bar, Nick Cave definitely must have a big wide grin on his face while performing this one.

Nobody survives in these collection of 10 musical thrillers, except the listener, who, like the audience in a movie theatere, sigh in relief after the the bad guy is shot, the demons are hushed back to their dwellings, and the end credits roll across the screen.

Lights on. Curtain closes.
And all that we're left with is each other, alive and well, ands a worn-down theatre floor scattered with popcorn and empty coca-cola bottles.

Totally overrated.......2006-02-07

If Metallica's beer-drinking lead singer called this one of his favorite albums because of its "gory details", then you know something must be wrong.
This is one of Mr.Cave's weakest albums not only because some of the lyrics are simply too cheesy to take them seriously(unless you're a goth teenager), but also because Cave made this record just to have fun with his buddies and girlfriends. The band never went on tour to support this album; they were exhausted after the Lollapalooza and Henry's Dream tours. They needed to relax. And that is exactly what they did in "Murder Ballads".
The only good thing about this album was the fact that Mr.Cave and his Seeds got a wider exposure here in the U.S. without having to sell out.
If I'm giving "Murder Ballads" two stars is simply because "Stagger Lee" is way too cool. Specially live.
Check out Your Funeral, My Trial, Tender Prey, or The Good Son if you really want to know what made Nick Cave and the Bad Seed legends.

Average customer rating:

Peggy Seeger ...

Heading for Home
Peggy Seeger
Manufacturer: Appleseed Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Folk | Styles | Music

Traditional Folk | Folk | Styles | Music

General | Bluegrass | Country | Styles | Music
Similar Items:

Love Call Me Home
Love Will Linger On
Almost Commercially Viable
Odd Collection
Peggy Seeger: The Folkways Years, 1955-1992 - Songs Of Love And Politics

ASIN: B0000CD5HA
Release Date: 2003-10-07

Tracks:

Heading for Home
Country Blues
Jackie Rover
Dear Companion
Oma Wise
John Gilbert is the Boat
John Riley
Soldier's Farewell
Jenny's Gone Away
Generous Lover
Henry Lee
Fatal Flower Garden
Girl of Constant Sorrow

Album Description

As acclaimed for her socio-political compositions as for her bottomless repertoire of Anglo-American folk music, Peggy Seeger revisits her traditional roots on "Heading for Home," her 20th solo album.

Aside from the opening, self-penned title track, a meditation on mortality, the other songs on this CD are revived from America's past, including a handful never previously recorded by Peggy. Among those accompanying Peggy's vocals, banjo, dulcimer and guitar are her sons, multi-instrumentalists Neill (formerly of The Bible) and Calum (a Van Morrison sideman), who co-produced the CD, her daughter Kitty on backing vocals, and brother Mike, solo artist and founding member of the New Lost City Ramblers.

The spare instrumentation highlights Peggy's ageless, unaffected vocals on an assortment of songs about love, lust, war, murder, friendship, poverty, class inequality - the compositions may date from the past but are still alive and relevant today. Peggy's prominent, rippling banjo gives many of the songs a tinge of bluegrass and "mountain music," closing the circle between their oft-British origins and subsequent American adaptations.

Like her half-brother Pete and brother Mike, Peggy Seeger simultaneously preserves and extends the situations and plainsung emotions of traditional folk music while emphasizing the undying connections between roots music and modern-day life. "In my head, I try to be constantly involved with the people who made the songs, and to understand why they made them," Peggy told Dirty Linen magazine recently. "Folk music is its own person. It doesn't need us to bring along our individual egos to do something with it."

Customer Reviews:

Peggy Seeger ... .......2006-10-18

Peggy Seeger has enough talent for three people. Her singing and banjo playing blend very well together. She can sing like a bird and it just seems to flow out so easily. Music samples can't do her justice. When playing this on my stereo system I love to crank up the volume. Peggy has recorded 20 solo albums and contributed to more than 100 other recordings. This is a great CD and and you'll soon find yourself singing along with the tunes.