boffo's Full Review: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - The Videos
This tape is collection of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds' Videos up to and including the 1997 album The Boatman's call. This brings the total of videos up to 20 and the running time to 98 minutes.
The videos are of varying quality and style. Some of them such as Deanna and In The Ghetto are obviously shot with a very low budget. Many of the videos are just straight performance videos with footage of the band playing the song in various locales. I think these kinds of videos are pretty boring. They might be fun for a fan like me to see once or twice but thatäs pretty much it.
The band has confessed to loathe the process of making videos and that's something that's evident in many of the videos where the performances look stiff and uninspired.
However there are a few nice or funny videos that at least I like to watch more often than the others.
The first video on the tape is Stagger Lee. This song from the Murder Ballad's album is as close to a rap song the bad seeds has come. The song is Cave's own version of the classic Stagger Lee tale made even more violent. The video is just another performance video but it's better made and more funny than the others. The band performs the song on a white stage with male dancers at podiums left and right of the stage. Funny things in the video includes Cave's clothing wich include tight white jeans and a pink t-shirt with "Take That loves you" written on it. The song ends with one of guitarist Blixa Bargeld's Patented drawn out high-pitched screams. As he screams most of the band members drop to the floor worshipping at his feet. The whole video is fun and the band looks like they're enjoying themselves.
Next in the video is where the wild roses grow. this Kylie Minouge duet will probably remain cave's biggest hit ever. The Video is as expected quite bit more professional than most of the others. It pretty much mirrors the song's story of a man who falls in love with a woman only to murder her down by the river whitout any real motive. Cave acts as the man who sits washing the blood from his hands while Minouge is the victim lying partly submerged in the river. The video is nicely done and helped supporting this only true hit song that Cave's ever had.
The next notable video Is Henry Lee Another Murder Ballads duet this time with PJ Harvey. In this murder ballad the woman murders the man after being rejected by him. This video however does not mirror that story. The video is just cave and harvey lip synching to the song as they stand together in an empty room. The video is shot in long take and the camera dosen't move at all. The couple had a short live love affair around the time of this video and that's what's makes this video enjoyable. Both the singers performances are passionate and tender. A beautiful video.
A few videos later we find Do You Love me? wich is a fun if somewhat chaotic video. The video was shot in an adult club in Sao Paolo. The people in the video where just club goers invited to be in the video. A lot of fairly creepy individuals such as junkies and transvestites can be seen. The video alternates between shots of the clubs clinetele, shots of Cave sitting at a table singing and shots of the band performing. The adult club is a good place to shot the video but the funniest part f the video is in the songs instrumental section when we see all of the group members standing on stage dancing to the music. This is hilarious simply because they're all terrible dancers and they seem to know it. It looks like really bad disco dancing performed in slo-mo
The last stand out video is the video to the melancholy latin-tinged ballad The Weeping song. While the song is serious and quite beautiful the video is laugh out loud funny. The song is sung by Cave and bad seed guitarist and Einstürzende Neubauten frontman Blixa Bargeld. First Cave and Bargeld sit together in a small rowing boat, a crate of wine in the boat and glasses in their hands. The ocean around them obviously consists of black plastic with air blowing it simulate waves. These boat shots alterate with shots of the two dancing togheter. Again the dancing is totally incompetent and very funny. Cave himself has described it: "We look like two gay middle-aged bussinesmen in a London disco". Again I enjoy this video because it looks like the performers are enjoying themselves.
Those are my favourite videos of the bunch. This collection is already out of date since the band has made two more videos for their new album No More Shall We Part. This along with the Best of the Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds compilation was sort of a summary of the band's career so far. And Summing up a career before it's over makes the summary quickly out of date.
So is this collection of videos worth getting? First of all a video collection is always something that's strictly for huge fans. This collection contains some old and rare videos wich you probably will not have the chance to see anywhere else than here. However most of the videos aren't that special so this is only one to get if you REALLY feel that you need all their videos. A few of the videos can be seen online in places such as www.launch.com so you only need this casette if you still wan't more after those.
There's one more thing though that makes this tape more desirable between the videos you also get short clips of the band commenting on their videos. Cave himself does most of the talking and he seems to think most of their videos are crap and some of his commentaries the worst ones are fairly amusing. These clips are nothing special but they're fun and it's always nice to see a serious artist like Cave being able to laugh at himself.
So there you have it, a nicely put together package with a fairly narrow potential audience.
Recommended:
Yes
Viewing Format: VHS Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older
With that tall, skinny frame draped in black, dark sunglasses covering his eyes, and the greasy, slicked-back dark hair, Nick Cave certainly looks the...More at HotMovieSale.com
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