Nick Cave was this week’s visitor on “Jiggle Jiggle” man Louis Theroux’s new Spotify podcast. This apparently resulted in a wave of recent listeners discovering Cave’s music for the primary time. The most recent version of Cave’s e-newsletter The Crimson Hand Recordsdata begins with a trio of letters from inquiring minds who listened to the interview with Theroux and wished to know the place to start with Cave’s catalog. Right here’s how Cave responded:

Pricey Aotearoa, Adrian and Daphne,

It appears that evidently an entire lot of uninitiated individuals have come to The Crimson Hand Recordsdata this week, following my interview with Louis Theroux. I’m afraid that I don’t assume I’m the best particular person that can assist you navigate my music although. My relationship to my songs is simply too entangled with their private historical past, and I’ve no clear understanding as to that are the great ones and which aren’t.

As an illustration, I believe that ‘Brompton Oratory’, which was recorded in a single tackle a Casio I discovered in a junk store, is a method higher track than ‘The Mercy Seat’, which took months to put in writing, weeks to report and had a number of ‘producers’ combine it; for an entire lot of despairing causes, I believe Ghosteen is, by any metric, the very best album the Dangerous Seeds have ever made, nevertheless The Dangerous Seeds track I really like essentially the most might be ‘Unhappy Waters’ from Your Funeral, My Trial — I cried at its slippery magnificence once I first performed it to my then girlfriend, Elisabeth, as we sat on her mattress in Schöneberg, Berlin; I believe the track, ‘From Her To Eternity’, might be the very best early Dangerous Seeds track, primarily due to Blixa Bargeld’s terribly eccentric guitar enjoying, though maybe Blixa’s most impressed second was his blood-curdling scream on the finish of ‘Stagger Lee’; I believe ‘The Spinning Music’ lyrics may be pretty much as good as I can do, though I’ve a mushy spot for the amphetamine-fuelled lyrical lunacy of ‘The Curse of Millhaven’, as does my spouse, Susie; I believe, in hindsight, that I in all probability agree with journalist, Matt Snow’s, wounding summation of The Firstborn is Useless as “missing dramatic pressure”, however I believe the track ‘Scum’, which I wrote about him in response, is a excessive level within the Dangerous Seeds’ catalogue of infamy; I believe the oscillator solo on ‘Crimson Proper Hand’ is the very best factor on Let Love In, however — controversially — I don’t assume ‘Crimson Proper Hand’ is the Dangerous Seeds’ biggest achievement; and for an entire lot of advanced, nostalgic and defensive causes, I would like to hearken to the album Nocturama than Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! any day of the week. I might go on! I believe that ‘Shoot Me Down’ ought to have been placed on the Nocturama report and ‘Babe, I’m on Hearth’ ought to have been left off. And so forth and so forth.

However all that is extremely subjective, super-confusing and fully debatable, and I do know that precise Nick Cave followers on the market, who’ve an extended and hard-earned understanding of my music, would disagree with a lot of these items.

So, I ponder if these followers might assist us out by writing in with a 15 track playlist of the Better of Nick Cave, and maybe you might add your age, only for curiosity’s sake. I’ll then put a number of the playlists up on The Crimson Hand Recordsdata. It will be a stunning act of kindness to Aotearoa, Daphne and Adrian to welcome them and provides them some concept of the place to start out.

All this can be a great distance of claiming a giant good day to all of you new Crimson Hand Recordsdata subscribers and, hopefully, future Nick Cave and the Dangerous Seeds advocates! Welcome! We’re pleased to have you ever right here!

Love, Nick

I don’t know if I can deal with listening to Ghosteen with any kind of frequency, however I can see why he says it’s the very best, particularly given the circumstances behind its creation. You may hearken to the complete interview with Theroux under.