I still sometimes forget that the year is 2008. It'll take me a few more months to get used to it. No doubt about it, though: 2007 is old news. I can tell by the copyright dates on my new CDs. It's 2008. The birdies are making all sorts of happy racket outside my kitchen window; the high temperatures are creeping up, up, slowly up; Opening Day is less than a week away.
Are you guys fans of Nick Cave? When I was younger, his music creeped me out. Maybe it was the spooky piano. Maybe it was the heavy brow and the dark, dark eyes. Maybe it was the wild hair, blacker than dread. Somewhere over the years, however, my taste and Nick Cave's music came together like a couple of strangers in a bar, like two loose pieces of string, like A minor and C major, like I don't know what. I know how it started: Emily gave me his No More Shall We Part, and I loved it immediately. We listened to that album while driving through dark green mountains and under heavy black rain and it was like listening to I don't know what, like listening to god or some shit. Emily and I parted and parted and parted again, but that was okay: I still had the music.
I've loved every Bad Seeds album since, especially their last release, 2004's Abbatoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus. I selected the second half of that double album masterpiece, with such remarkable, timeless numbers as "Breathless," "Babe, You Turn Me On," and "Supernaturally," as one of my 2005 Records to Die For. It is great and sounds wonderful, too. It has been too long.
And so I'm happy to know that Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds will be releasing their fourteenth studio album, Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!, on April 8, 2008. I cannot wait. Critics are, of course, calling it "a return to greatness." But, those critics don't know what they're talking about. They just like to say stuff like that. As far as I'm concerned, Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds never left greatness. Unless my old band decides to magically release something new, Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! is my most anticipated album for 2008. I will also be looking forward to Sun Kil Moon's April, (April 1) My Morning Jacket's Evil Urges (June 10), Man Man's Rabbit Habbits (April 8), and the Mets against the Phillies (also April 8).
What new albums are you looking forward to? No Chinese Democracy jokes, please. That garbage isn't coming out. (Or is it?!)
Click on the external link to play around on the Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! website. It's silly and fun, filled with voodoo and those clever viral video trailers that seem so popular these days. Michael Lavorgna tipped me off to this. Dig you, Michael.
I still sometimes forget that the year is 2008. It'll take me a few more months to get used to it. No doubt about it, though: 2007 is old news. I can tell by the copyright dates on my new CDs. It's 2008. The birdies are making all sorts of happy racket outside my kitchen window; the high temperatures are creeping up, up, slowly up; Opening Day is less than a week away.
Are you guys fans of Nick Cave? When I was younger, his music creeped me out. Maybe it was the spooky piano. Maybe it was the heavy brow and the dark, dark eyes. Maybe it was the wild hair, blacker than dread. Somewhere over the years, however, my taste and Nick Cave's music came together like a couple of strangers in a bar, like two loose pieces of string, like A minor and C major, like I don't know what. I know how it started: Emily gave me his No More Shall We Part, and I loved it immediately. We listened to that album while driving through dark green mountains and under heavy black rain and it was like listening to I don't know what, like listening to god or some shit. Emily and I parted and parted and parted again, but that was okay: I still had the music.
