History Music / NickCave

** ''Skeleton Tree'' transformed in the middle of recording into an entire Grief Album after Nick's teenage son Arthur died in a rock-climbing accident.

** And happened again with Skeleton Tree, which is more electronic and baroque than previous albums.

* OlderThanTheyLook: Would you believe that this dude is sixty-one as of 2018?

* ConceptAlbum: ''Henry's Dream'', ''Music/MurderBallads'', ''Dig Lazarus Dig!!!'' and ''The Lyre of Orpheus''

* DistinctDoubleAlbum: ''Abbatoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus.'' The former CD was harder-edged and the latter was notably softer and more melancholy.

* NeoclassicalPunkZydecoRockabilly: Combines American folk music with gothic post-punk and, recently, blues-influenced rock and roll.

* EarnYourHappyEnding: The dark, grief-stricken album ''Skeleton Tree'' ends with the TitleTrack, an uplifting ballad that closes the album with the words "It's alright now".

* LetsDuet: Many, including Music/PJHarvey, Music/KylieMinogue, Blixa Bargeld, [[Music/ThePogues Shane [=MacGowan=]]] and Chris Bailey. Cave also sang with Alan Vega of Suicide during a special live performance of Grinderman; at another Grinderman show, he was joined by Music/HenryRollins and [[Music/DeadKennedys Jello Biafra]].

* RevolvingDoorBand: Members have changed almost yearly, album-to-album. As of now only Cave is the remaining original member of their lineup when they recorded ''From Her To Eternity.''

** "The Weeping Song," "The Ship Song," "The Train Song," "The Hammer Song," "The Witness Song,"

* VillainSong / TheVillainSucksSong: In "Up Jumped The Devil" the narrator literally states "He was doomed to play the villain's part" as he describes his fleeing to Mexico from justice and the devil himself. Cave also covered "Mack the Knife" for a Music/KurtWeill tribute album, which is a classic case of the latter trope. Then there' "Stagger Lee" which is probably one of the most brutal songs ever written.

* MinimalistCoverArt: ''Skeleton Tree'' simply has the band and album names in stark green text on a completely black background.

* SillyLoveSongs: Unsurprisingly few as most songs about love by the Bad Seeds are actually Anti Love Songs. "Love Letter" and "Babe, You Turn Me On" are a couple of the silly variety.

* CorruptHick: A plethora of characters in "And The Ass Saw The Angel."

* MagicMusic: The effects of "The Lyre of Orpheus"

* {{Rockumentary}}: Two in quick succession: ''20,000 Days On Earth'' (2014) and ''One More Time With Feeling'' (2016)

!! Albums with their own TV Tropes page:

* GothRock: They're a tricky aversion. The Bad Seed's music is gothic in terms of using imagery inspired by the time period of the "gothic revival" in America, due to Cave's fascination with American history, the old west and the deep south. The genre of gothic ''music'' was heavily influenced by both Music/TheBirthdayParty and the Bad Seeds even though they existed before the term "goth" had any foothold as a subculture. The result is that the Bad Seeds get incorrectly attached to the gothic rock genre along with bands that identify as "goth bands" in spite of the fact they literally ''do'' play what you would call "gothic revival-influenced rock."

** And in a spectacular case of FunnyAneurysmMoment, ''Skeleton Tree'' is an entire Grief Album after Nick's teenage son Arthur died in a rock-climbing accident.

* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: The album ''[[MurderBallad Murder Ballads]].''

Nick Cave is an internationally renowned musician from the North East of Victoria, UsefulNotes/{{Australia}}. He started out in Music/TheBirthdayParty, a rather weird PostPunk band who would become a big influence on GothRock. In the middle of TheEighties went on to found ''Nick Cave and the Cavemen,'' who fairly quickly re-named themselves to ''Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.'' In recent years he's formed a third band, ''Grinderman,'' [[SomethingCompletelyDifferent who very unusually for him]] play rather [[ThreeChordsAndTheTruth straightforward rock music.]]

*** Surprisingly averted in "Jack The Ripper." In spite of its namesake, the song has nothing to do with [[UsefulNotes/JackTheRipper the infamous murderer]].

He is also the author of the novels: ''And the Ass Saw the Angel'' and ''The Death of Bunny Munro,'' as well as the script for ''Film/TheProposition,'' for which he and bandmate Warren Ellis (no, not ''that'' Creator/WarrenEllis) also composed the soundtrack. And he's occasionally acted, most notably in ''Film/TheAssassinationOfJesseJamesByTheCowardRobertFord'' (he appears as a musician, playing the folk song "UsefulNotes/JesseJames"), which he and Ellis again scored. The film version of ''Film/TheRoad'' was scored by him and Ellis, and directed by ''John Hillcoat,'' who also did ''The Proposition.''

'''Nick Cave''' is an internationally renowned musician from the North East of Victoria, UsefulNotes/{{Australia}}. He started out in Music/TheBirthdayParty, a rather weird PostPunk band who would become a big influence on GothRock. In the middle of TheEighties went on to found ''Nick Cave and the Cavemen,'' who fairly quickly re-named themselves to ''Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.'' In recent years he's formed a third band, ''Grinderman,'' [[SomethingCompletelyDifferent who very unusually for him]] play rather [[ThreeChordsAndTheTruth straightforward rock music.]]

* BadassMustache / BadassBeard: With Grinderman came a mustache to the formerly clean-shaven Cave. Many of the members of Grinderman and a few of the Bad Seeds sport {{Badass}} facial hair such as Warren Ellis' wild-man grizzly beard.

** His friend Music/HenryRollins noted in his book ''Get In The Van'' that Cave in the early 90s tended to subvert this trope by always wearing the ''same'' black suit, so that he looked cool from a distance, but [[HumansAreSmelly when you got up close...]]

** One album of his, a recorded lecture titled "The Secret Life Of The Love Song", features him musing on how many alleged songs of love are actually songs of hate. He proceeds to illustrate a genuine lovesong he found among the dross of pop by playing Music/KylieMinogue's "Better The Devil You Know"; him, a piano, and a Stock-Aitken-Waterman pop ditty makes for a ''profoundly'' disturbing combination, since - for once - you pay attention to the lyrics.

* GrievousBottleyHarm: Cave once punched a thrown pint glass, breaking it, and kept on playing without any sign of pain. Of course, that did happen at the Hacienda.

* BlackWidow: In "Henry Lee" the titular character runs afoul of a rather jealous one.

He is also the author of the novels ''And The Ass Saw The Angel'' and ''The Death Of Bunny Munro'', as well as the script for ''Film/TheProposition'', for which he and bandmate Warren Ellis (no, not ''that'' Creator/WarrenEllis) also composed the soundtrack. And he's occasionally acted, most notably in ''Film/TheAssassinationOfJesseJamesByTheCowardRobertFord'' (he appears as a musician, playing the folk song "UsefulNotes/JesseJames"), which he and Ellis again scored. The film version of ''Film/TheRoad'' was scored by him and Ellis, and directed by John Hillcoat, who also did ''Film/TheProposition''.

His songs range from gentle love songs, to angsty songs of pain, to full-on [[MurderBallad murder ballads]]; he wrote a whole album of the latter. He's also known for deeply held, though unconventional, religious views; his songs and novels are rife with Christian symbolism, though he denies in recent interviews that he believes in a personal or interventionist God (so...Deist, maybe? Post-theist?).

Compare Music/TomWaits, who has a somewhat similar style, and who is [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_Seeds#Volume_two confirmed]] to be an influence on Cave.

Albums with their own TV Tropes page:

* ''Music/LetLoveIn'' (1994)
* ''Music/MurderBallads'' (1996)

!!He provides examples of:

* AntiLoveSong: A number of songs by both The Birthday Party and the Bad Seeds, including "Where the Wild Roses Grow," "Do You Love Me?" parts 1 and 2 and "UsefulNotes/JackTheRipper." The love songs on ''The Boatman's Call'' are a bit too stark and minimalist to be considered "silly" love songs and would easily qualify.