album // Kicking Against The Pricks
When Nick Cave's third post-Birthday Party album was released in 1986, it was greeted with considerable scepticism. The charge was that Cave had lost his creative impulse, for Kicking Against The Pricks is an album of cover versions. It now seems a shade ironic, this criticism, especially since the same critics heaped praise on Cave for Murder Ballads, which was predominantly interpretations of traditional songs. In many respects, this is Cave's most accessible album, and its choice of songs certainly keep the Bad Seeds exceptionally tightly-focused, giving this collection an almost alternative pop flavour.
The sleeve finds Cave adopting a showman-like character, and certainly his warm rendition of 'By The Time I Get To Phoenix' is in keeping with this persona. However, this is far from a Nick Cave Sings The Songs Of Yesteryear comp; rather this is a collection of the diverse influences which have made Cave a consistently engaging performer. He knows good music, and perhaps this album should be heard alongside his audio-lecture The Secret Life Of The Love Song, wherein Cave described what, for him, makes a perfect song. However, despite my personal favourite here, a seminal cover of Gene Pitney's 'Something's Gotten Hold Of My Heart', this is not a collection of ballads either.
What we do get are excellent renditions of tracks written or made famous by Muddy Waters, Johnny Cash, Jimi Hendrix, The Velvet Underground and Roy Orbison, covering bleak country and western, blues, sixties pop, and folk music bases. Cave reigns in some of his vocal excesses, as on the previous year's The Firstborn Is Dead, and the Bad Seeds - here made up of Mick Harvey, Blixa Bargeld, Barry Adamson, Thomas Wydler, with occasional contributions from former full-time Bad Seed Hugo Race and Birthday Party's Tracey Pew and Rowland S Howard - are on typically exceptional form, prepared to create driving punk heat (the original-busting rendition of VU's 'All Tomorrow's Parties') alongside the carnival folk whimsy of 'Sleeping Annaleah'. Their line-up is augmented on the former with some fine 'ostrich' guitar and vocals from Nick 'n' Mick's former bandmate, Rowland S Howard. 'Long Black Veil', a story of lust, murder and guilt could have been culled straight from the later Murder Ballads, an early indication of Cave's fanaticism with the genre. On the other hand, his sparse handclap-driven 'Black Betty' is an extension of The Firstborn...'s 'Tupelo'.
This album is undoubtedly adventurous and brave, despite being listenable, and captures Cave at something of a musical crossroads. Against his more recent material, this album makes a lot of sense, however the albums immediately following this were altogether darker, more in keeping with his 'King of Goth' crown. Kicking Against The Pricks almost serves as an indication to the long-term fan that in the future there would be a complete shift away from tempestous black rock; this is almost Cave whispering 'Don't be surprised' to the fan. Overlooked but essential.