The Boatman’s Call

Nick Cave’s lyrics are a mix of spiritual and moody. I like the lounge/guild-hall ambience but I don’t hear any catchy melodies. Plus his vocal delivery seems safe and monotone, I feel like I have to try twice as hard to detect emotion (not you Green Eyes, I can tell how you’re feeling 😭) (2.5-3)

Was gonna give it a 2, but "twinkling cunt" made it loose a point. Dear god.

Basic ass straight white man music.

I get why people love him,but Holy cow too many of his albums are on this list.

I quite enjoyed this. First song is a really wonderful love song.

It seems like Nick Cave was definitely going for something specific: moody, broody. It accompanied my visit to the museum nicely, but also felt rather one-note. I liked “Into My Arms” a lot, but nothing else quite captured me the same way. A solid entry, but nothing remarkable.

Man, I really want to like him. Just feels kinda like a poor man's Johnny Cash or a modern day sea-shanty singer. I'm sure I'm missing out, but I just can't get into it. 2.

Get back to your cave and never leave it again, Nick.

I hate this type of music. It's performative depression set to music. Why do so many people try to tell me how great this is?

Ok so it’s never going to win the award for cheeriest album ever made but I actually quite liked it. Nothing wrong with a bit of melancholy now and then!

Я дуже люблю Ніка Кейва, але є певні нюанси. Boatman's Call мені завжди здавався надто сентиментальним місцями, і в ньому майже відсутнє те за що я Кейва власне люблю - оця безумна енергія, циклічні паттерни, вокальна розповідь у стилі проповідника. Навпаки - альбом спокійний, переважно базується на фортепіано.

Тут звісно є суперхіти типу People Ain't No Good або Into My Arms, яку Кейв грає здається на всіх концертах; але Boatman's Call це точно не мій топ з кейвівської дискографії. 3.5

I’m at a 4.5; I’m gonna bump it up to a 5 on the strength of its first 7 tracks, but the last 5 really had me contemplating a 4.

I’m a little stretched for time, so I can’t go as in depth as I’d like to here, but I really, really loved this album through its first 7 tracks. I think the choice to go with more minimal, moody & somber piano-driven soundscapes for the whole album works very well, and save for a few tracks near the end, generally do a great job of capturing the emotional vibe Nick is going for. Nick Cave’s writing feels deeply vivid here, and the emotions he’s able to pull out, with a strong sense of empathy for the guy’s philosophically waxed heartbreak & his relationship with religion, is remarkably well done. He’s opening himself up on this album, writing less about the murder ballads of the past, and taking the first person perspective that other great songwriters inevitably grasp control of. The ideas of a non-intervening God, the defeatist attitudes towards the goodness of people, the sudden belief of destiny & the heartbreaking shattering of inevitability play really nicely through the first 7 tracks, and if this album had been just those tracks, I think I’d be at a 10. They’re that good.

After that point though, I think the album hits a bit of a PJ Harvey-adjacent snag for its final 5 tracks; when he’s on point with his writing, as on “Idiot Prayer” & “Far from Me”, the album still shines brilliantly. “Idiot Prayer” being about a murderer seeking forgiveness on his way to death row struck a nice chord with me, and “Far from Me” does a great job of capturing the slow deterioration of something full of deep devotion, taking as long to write as his relationship with PJ Harvey lasted. It’s a fantastic track, and it should have ended the album.

The other 3 tracks… well, two of them aren’t bad; “West Country Girl” is honestly fine, it just didn’t hook me for whatever reason. “Black Hair” is needlessly repetitive, sure, but I like the idea of an obsessive focal point on a track meant to proclaim love. He’s obsessed with the black hair, just as much as he’s obsessed with the rest of her. It’s just brought down by an accordion that’s deeply distracting and ends up going nowhere, which sort of ruins the attempt at a more intimate vibe.

“Green Eyes” is just useless. The spoken word echo doesn’t work, the “twinkling cunt” is an insane two-word phrase, and it just feels like it’s rehashing “Black Hair”, but in a worse & needlessly trite way. It doesn’t need to be on the album, and its presence here as the closing track to the entire package feels like a backbreaker that, if it weren’t for the strength of the first 7 tracks, would bump this all the way down to a 4.

That said… man, I really, REALLY connected with the first 7 tracks here. I had to actively stop and pause after “Where Do We Go Now But Nowhere?”, because it got me really fucking good. I think those first 7 tracks are brilliant. It might just be that break in between that caused the last 5 tracks to not hit as nicely (though “Green Eyes” is definitely useless). They’re good enough that I feel like this still deserves a bump up to a 5. Hell, if “West Country Girl” or “Black Hair” click nicer in the future (though it’s unlikely for the latter), I might be even a little higher than a 5. No matter what, it’s a damn good album, it deserves to be on the list, and I highly recommend it.

Every song off of this sounded the exact same. Maybe this would get a better rating if it had a bit more creativity or spunk. Instead, each song was a copy of a slow and meditative look at the follies of life.

One of those albums that completely missed the fact that the music needs some effort too. It can't just be melancholic poetry. We have an artistic medium for that. It's called poetry.

He has a nice voice though.

2.0/5.0: Disappointing

man this reminded me so much of leonard cohen: poetry over very sparse arrangements. almost every song is beautifully written and performed, but there is little contrast between them making the entire album feel static. any individual song(except green eyes) could be a five on its own but as album it drags alot.

Honestly wasn't expecting to get a lower-key Nick Cave from this album. I know he does do chiller albums (Like Ghosteen), but was expecting something more along the lines of Tender Prey or Murder Ballads.

Eitherway, still a great record. Enjoyed songs (Are You) the One That I've Been Waiting For and Where Do We Go Now But Nowhere.

Some songs do feel formulaic a tad, and reminiscent of other popular songs (One of them honestly sounds a bit like Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen), but it's still classic Nick Cave.

Not bad, just didn’t find this all too interesting

You know, i was expecting to hate The Boatman's Call. I heard it was mainly a piano ballad album so i was just thinking that it was gonna get repetitive and tiring after just a few songs, But oddly enough, that never happened. I'm shocked that i did not hate this album. I thought it did have some really beautiful moments with it's music and i thought that Nick's voice perfectly fit the music as it was soft and deep just as this kind of music would benefit from. Granted, the lyrics weren't the greatest and the album did have it's moments of actually getting repetitive and hard to remember but i really was expecting it to be a lot worse.
Best Song: Idiot Prayer
Worst Song: Black Hair

jako lijepo, dobro, baš dobar glas, moram još slušat :)

Nick Cave is capable of making music I would like. He just doesn't.

All the ingredients to a great meal are there, but he's boiling the steak and trying to fry a whole baked potato.

Most tolerable song: West Country Girl

2.5

wow there's a lot of nick cave on here. I still don't enjoy this, but it's not bad.
I see a lot of leonard cohen comparisons -- at least this guy tries to sing in pitch; I can't stand most of cohen's stuff. 2*