2. Nick Cave & The Bad SeedsMurder Ballads

When Nick Cave is at his most theatrical the level of interest most people have in him is just elevated. You can feel what they were drinking, you can taste it in the air, you understand what drugs they’re on and it’s just from sound. It takes a lot to put the other senses into music, and he does it better than anyone else I’ve ever heard. He’s great at every aspect of being Nick Cave, but I think when he’s fully involved in story telling he’s quite probably the best frontman there is. He really becomes those characters, he’s able to live and breathe those people in the way only an author can; he understands them on a different level.

This record has some of my favourite lyrics of all time. It’s got ‘Where The Wild Roses Grow’ with Kylie Minogue which is a beautiful ballad, this amazing moment between one of the greatest pop stars of all time and one of the greatest songwriters of all time. It’s this mashup that should never have happened, but the world’s definitely a better place that it did.

I got into Nick Cave late, later than I’d like to admit, when I was in my late 20s. I knew about him before, I’d heard things, but I heard this record when I was living in New York. I wasn’t in Gallows any more, I was just painting, and I went record shopping one day. I was buying some Daniel Johnston records but the guy in the shop had a copy of Murder Ballads and I, like a fucking idiot, casually asked ‘is this good?’ He just said, ‘Are you joking? Of course it’s good!’ So I went back home, listened to my Daniel Johnston records, made some food, then later that night put it on and was like ‘holy shit!’ and bought every other Nick Cave record they had.