MOJO Collectors’ Series: Nick Cave

MOJO’s finest writing on Nick Cave in a single deluxe volume.

Forty-five years ago, Nick Cave and his band The Birthday Party relocated from Melbourne, Australia to London, England, lured by the city’s thriving post-punk scene and the endless possibilities the capital promised. It was the start of a musical, spiritual and, indeed, chemical journey that would see Cave evolve from The Birthday Party’s unholy goth pin-up into a careworn songwriter of rare depth, beauty and transcendent power, abetted by his darkly suave backing group The Bad Seeds.

To celebrate the singer’s extraordinary career, MOJO magazine has brought together its finest writing on Cave in a new, deluxe 132-page bookazine. Drawing on over 30 years of exclusive interviews and in-depth features, we unravel the story of how Cave turned from troubled Melbourne teenager into fearsome goth frontman, and how his complex relationship with hard drugs and religion would feed into The Bad Seeds’ ever richer, darker and more sexually charged music.

Phil Sutcliffe’s piece on his early years touches on the traumatic loss of the singer’s father when he was 21, news of which arrived while Cave was detained in a Melbourne police station, while Andrew Male investigates how The Birthday Party’s violence – on-stage and on-record – was superseded by the fascinating fruits of The Bad Seeds’ experimental mid-’80s years in Berlin.

As the 1980s progressed, so did Cave’s descent into substance abuse, which an early ’90s move to Brazil and the hit Murder Ballads LP – featuring duets with Kylie Minogue and Polly Harvey – did little to stop. But, as James McNair’s revelatory – and occasionally testy – interview with the singer from 1997 reveals, he was slowly turning a corner into sobriety, the hymnal and timeless Into My Arms from The Boatman’s Call album tellingly written after attending church in rehab.

In the 2000s, a cleaned-up Cave unexpectedly transformed into a cultural icon, and Dorian Lynskey’s panoramic survey of the singer’s latter years – marked by the tragic loss of his son in 2015 – explores why. And, for your entertainment and enlightenment, we also present our choice of Cave’s 50 Greatest Songs 
Illustrated with rare and iconic photographs, Mojo Collectors' Series: NICK CAVE is an essential purchase for Bad Seeds fans and all music connoisseurs.

Order your copy now!