It’s unabashedly a good thing that Nick Cave decided that suicide really didn’t suit his style. From relatively inauspicious beginnings, the members of the Boys Next Door would form the nucleus of the Birthday Party, Nick Cave’s first truly great band, who would in turn pave the way for the Bad Seeds, and later still, the Grindermen. Along the way, Nick Cave would evolve from some young punk in a band no one had heard of to a respected elder statesman of his art, and deep-thinking public intellectual.
“Shivers” remains a perennial favourite of fans of Australian goth and alternative music, and if JJJ hadn’t rejigged the Hot 100’s rules to make it a year by year thing, it would still be placing respectably in it each January.
