Article theme: People Ain't No Good - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Big Star's first two records were largely the sort of slick popcraft that should have ignited radio had they been marketed properly. Sadly for Alex Chilton but happily for the rest of us, that never happened, and by Third, the wheels came off and the band cranked out a rollercoaster of despair, elation, calm, despondency and manic energy all the less navigable because it was never actually released with a proper track listing, so you'll bounce from one wild extreme of emotion to a totally different one depending on whether you spin the disc as you received it or hit shuffle or your iPod (I'm a millennial, OK? Give me a break). My version opens with "Kizza Me", which could have been found on #1 Record, but then lurches into "Thank You Friends", the most caustic assault on the uselessness of everyone around you one could hope to write (I'm going to make them play it at my funeral). Shortly thereafter, a dirgey ode to depression segues into an unironic Christmas song celebrating the birth of Christ with lyrics like "the wrong shall fail/and the right prevail". Mr Bungle doesn't cause this kind of whiplash.
"Blue Moon" is achingly tender, "You Can't Have Me" makes defiance lighter than air, "Dream Lover" sounds like an OD victim slipping into unconsciousness, and "Stroke It Noel" is blissful with a surprisingly merry string section out of nowhere. With such a wealth of bangers dripping with the resonance of each human emotional state, it's no wonder David Lunch's favourite goth supergroup project This Mortal Coil covered at least three across two of their albums. But for me the greatest cut of all is "Nightime" (sic?), an endlessly haunting ode to a gf in mid-breakdown, in which it sounds like Chilton shares not a little of the anguish. Imagine cranking out your towering, epochal masterpiece in the very act of giving up.