The Firstborn Is Dead

by Nick Cave, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds

Overview

The blues had long been a potent undercurrent in the Birthday Party's music, so it wasn't all that surprising that Nick Cave embraced the sound and feeling of rural blues on his second album with the Bad Seeds, The Firstborn Is Dead. What was startling was how well Cave and his bandmates -- Barry Adamson, Mick Harvey, and Blixa Bargeld -- were able to absorb and honor the influences of artists like Skip James and Charley Patton while creating a sound that was unmistakably their own. The moody obsessions of rural blues -- trains, floods, imprisonment, sin, fear, and death -- seemed made to order for Cave, and he was able to tap into the doomy iconography of this music with potent emotional force; on "Tupelo," he makes a sweeping and disturbing epic of the rain-swept night when Elvis Presley was born, and "Knocking on Joe" is a tale of life on the work gang that communicates the pain of the spirit as clearly as the ache of the body. Also, the blues helped transform Cave's music as well as his lyrics; the brutal sonic pummel of the Birthday Party here gave way to a more subtle and dynamic approach that still made effective use of dissonance and bare-wired electric guitar noise while proving the balance of loud and soft only made each side deeper and more resonant. (The stark, barely there guitar and drums of "Blind Lemon Jefferson" are as startling and malignantly fascinating as anything in the Birthday Party's catalog.) The Firstborn Is Dead proved Nick Cave's musical palate was significantly broader than his debut album suggested and pointed to a path (channeling the sounds and emotions of American roots music) he would return to on many of his albums that followed. ~ Mark Deming

Product Details

Release Date:	12/16/2022
Label:	Bmg / Mute
UPC:	5414939710216
Rank:	41550

Tracks

1. Tupelo
2. Say Goodbye To The Little Girl Tree
3. Train Long Suffering
4. Black Crow King
5. Knockin¿¿¿ On Joe
6. Wanted Man
7. Blind Lemon Jefferson

Album Credits

Performance Credits

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds   Primary Artist
Nick Cave   Primary Artist,Vocals,Harmonica
Mick Harvey   Bass,Drums,Organ,Piano,Guitar,Guitar (Bass),Vocals (Background)
Blixa Bargeld   Piano,Guitar,Slide Guitar,Vocals (Background)
Barry Adamson   Bass,Drums,Organ,Guitar,Guitar (Bass),Vocals (Background)

Technical Credits

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds   Producer,Performer
Bob Dylan   Composer
Flood   Engineer,Producer
Nick Cave   Composer,Producer
Mick Harvey   Composer
Blixa Bargeld   Composer
Barry Adamson   Composer
Bleddyn Butcher   Photography
Jutta Henglein   Photography