If you’ve clicked to open this post from the site’s homepage, you might have noticed the ‘read more’ link was name “Yamen Mahmoud Abbas Muqata”. You might also have noticed the one linking to the elbow full review was called “Ilham Ahmed Hammad Khattab“, the one linking to the Tapir! entry was “Aisha Mohamed Ibrahim Abu-Matw” and the one linking to the Tierra Whack piece was called Hour Osama Suleiman Abu-Sanima. In face, all the links to the full articles have nonsensical word jumbles like “Waad Waleed Sameer Sabah” or “Sobhi Hamdan Sobhi Hassouna“. I’m sorry to disappoint all of your readers trying to work out the anagrams and were pretty confident of the ‘amber jambalaya” you’d so far got for “Mayar Jamal Jaber Abu Musbih“, but all of these are the names of children who have been killed by Israel in their massacre of the Gaza strip since October of last year. I guess I’m using being under 18 years old as the definition of childhood, though I’ve been moving down this list picking out victims at random and I haven’t yet reached anyone as old as one years old. So, what this list is so far – as well as being an objective and scientifically proven countdown of the best albums of 2024 – is a list of murdered babies. Listen, I know I’m an incorrigibly dumb writer, and that clicking on these names of murdered newborns is more often than not going to lead to a thousand words of dick jokes and wrestling references, so by all means accuse me of highlighting these names inappropriately and insensitively. But part of me feels like every post should be about the current genocide, and that to talk about stuff as silly and as inconsequential as pop music seems somewhat atrocious. Not just reviewing the play that Lincoln was watching when he was assassinated, but making snide jokes about the shoes that he was wearing. Oh really, Abe?? Tan shoes with a dark suit?? To the theatre? Oh, actually, that splash of red you’ve just added is kind of pulling it together. I couldn’t bring it up on every post, because the sheer horror would ensure I never got much further than #38 before I’d be desperately working out how I could suicide bomb the nearest weapons manufacturer. Here’s a map of all of them, by the way, I’m not going to tell you how to live your life. By at least listing these names, I’m doing the bare fucking minimum to at least ensure the ghosts of the ongoing genocide never leave the party of this dumb list that nobody reads. I can never bring myself to completely disregard it, because that would be psychotic.
Nick Cave managed to avoid saying anything publicly about the apartheid state of Israel for most of his life and the first 20 years of his solo career. It wasn’t until 2014, when he was asked to support the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement by artists like Brian Eno and Ken Loach, that Nick first started to reveal his feelings on the matter. The BDS movement is about imposing economic sanctions on Israel until the country decides that it should possibly maybe kinda stop breaking international law in its persecution and subjugation of Palestinians: an end to the occupation of the lands conquered in the Six Day War and the dismantling of its West Bank wall; recognising the rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and respecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes. You can debate the effectiveness and the methods of the BDS movement, as big brain people like Noam Chomsky have done (it’s worth noting though, that one of Chomsky’s main issues is with referring to the Israeli occupation as ‘apartheid’ as ““I have held for a long time that the Occupied Territories are much worse than South Africa”), but all right thinking people can at least agree with its ending the illegal and inhumane structures that Israel profits off.
Well, not Nick! In fact, Nick didn’t just not sign the BDS petition back in 2014, but “Then it kind of occurred to me that I’m not signing the list but I’m also not playing Israel and that just felt to me cowardly, really”. So Cave fucking arranges their first gigs in Israel in 2014!
You’re right, Nick! You playing Israel, kinda, when you think about it, makes you the hero, yeah? The real bullies here aren’t the Israeli forces using the force of the entire Western military structure to oppress and torment a nation of people they’ve already caged into the world’s most brutal and inhumane open prison, it’s the guy from Pink Floyd asking you to not support that! The fact that Cave was able to come to this “FREE SPEECH PARAMOUNT, BRAH!” conclusion suggests that they were such early adopters of the Joe Rogan podcast, and should be celebrated for being so ahead of the curve.
But that was in 2014. People knew about what is Israel had been doing for the last [checks watch] seventy years or so, but it was also easier to just allow people to ‘both sides’ it. Sure, Israel has imprisoned an entire nation and is attempting to ‘cleanse’ the area of a particular ‘ethnicity’, but didn’t you see ‘You Don’t Mess With the Zohan‘? The Palestinians looked pretty bad in that. Ignoring Israel’s apartheid was like flying private jets: Sure, we all knew it was awful, but sometimes artists gotta make money I guess? I never mentioned Israel in my pieces on Cave’s 2014, 2016, 2019 or 2021 records, but I also think it’s fair to say that Cave had a lot of stuff going on for much of that period. Then in 2022, the Bad Seeds… canceled gigs in Russia…? “Ukraine, we stand with you, and with all those in Russia who oppose this brutal act, and we pray that this madness is brought to a close soon”. But… what about your free speech, brah?? What about your letter to Brian Eno in 2018??:
Why don’t you play the gigs and ‘speak to the Russian people’s better angels’?? Where’s your ‘powerful statement’ against Vladamir Putin?? Isn’t you refusing to do gigs there like a big pussy, in your own words “cowardly and shameful”?? FREE SPEECH BRAH!! Someone wrote into Cave’s ongoing Red Hand Files to ask why they never expressed such solidarity with the Palestinians. Cave literally pulled out the “Dude, it’s so complicated” card:
“A complex clash of two nations”? So you’re officially supporting a two state solution? Are you explicitly coming out in favour of a recognised Palestinian state? Are you proposing a return to the pre-1967 borders and that Israel return the land it has since occupied? Oh, no, you’re not actually saying anything. You’re saying it’s ‘complex’ in the sense of ‘let’s not even think about it’. By trying to remain apolitical – which you realised wasn’t an option for the Ukraine war – you’ve decided to just support whatever’s currently happening. Cool.
Post October 2023 though? I mean, whaaaaaaaaaaaat the actual fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck? Come on, Cave can’t have paid any sort of attention to the a genocide being broadcast around the world and thought: “This is still fine”, surely?? No, he still says it’s OK, because he used to have a Jewish girlfriend. I’m not joking.
Firstly: mate, I get it, you’re a huge bible fan, and you want to visit all the scenes in the book. My mate loves Lord of the Rings, so they’ve already been to Hobbiton in New Zealand three times. Maybe you’ve also been to Harry Potter World in Watford! Maybe you disagree with the actions of boycotting that due to the unsavoury actions of the person behind it. But can you at least acknowledge those unsavoury actions?? Also, you mentioned the “horrific complications that are going on in Israel”, can we unpack that at some point in the future?
Worse though, is the horrific casual antisemitism. Actual antisemitism, not the antisemitism Cave accused the BDS project of being but didn’t elaborate on (because they couldn’t) in their letter to Roger Waters. Israel is not ‘Jewish people”. It’s an antisemitism that the state of Israel is quick to propagate, always elevating itself to The Voice of Jewish People and any criticism of it as being an Attack On the Jewish Faith. When George Bush affected the language of the crusades when starting illegal wars in the Middle East, did you hear many people defending it by saying “To be fair, I have always had an abiding love for the Christian faith…”? When the Islamic State declares themselves the voice of worldwide Islam, do people defend that by saying “Thing is, I banged this Muslim chick in college, so…”. For fuck’s sake, Nick, I’d always considered you an at least moderately intelligent man, and yet you’re coming out with some of the most braindead shit imaginable.
Did I protest when I went to see them play live in London in November? No. Because I am a coward, and they’re still one of the most thrilling live bands in the world.
At that career spanning, nearly three hour gig though, it was very clear that the songs from ‘Wild God’ didn’t quite measure up to the band’s absolute best. The title track and Cinnamon Horses get close, but the general vibe of the album is one of a band enjoying being back together again after COVID and striving to have fun playing Bad Seeds sounding music. Which is still great, obviously, but after the eclectic and widely experimental trilogy that ended with 2019’s best album ‘Ghosteen‘, the stilted ambition can be ever so slightly disappointing.
(Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds)
(Nick Cave and Warren Ellis)
(Nicholas Lens & Nick Cave)
(Grinderman)
Album Title as AI Image
Wild God is Jason Momoa: confirmed.
Necessary Evil 
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