Nocturama - Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds
User Score
6.3 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 8 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 5 out of 8
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 8
  3. Negative: 2 out of 8

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  1. drownsoda
    Aug 27, 2010
    4
    A slipperly slope for a genius of huge proportions, Nocturama is Cave's musicial rock bottom. Setting off a wave of amateur songs and an earthquake of lost potential, it builds up to nothing more than a half-decent lead single that makes those seeds look horrible.
  2. BrendanD
    Aug 2, 2007
    9
    It's taken me a long time to come to this conclusion, but Nick Cave is the greatest artist of all time. He did anger exactly right with The Birthday Party, a band that basically took "Lady Godiva's Operation" and turned it into a fucked-up party. When the Birthday Party exploded/imploded/blew up, the Bad Seeds picked up the slack, and they've been releasing classic album after classic album since 1984. Maybe the classic records have just made me a fanboy, but I honestly believe that Cave has done better since the mid-'90s than he did ever before. "Murder Ballads" is one of the best albums of all time, and "No More Shall We Part" is, far from the cringe-worthy schlock most old-school Birthday Party and early Bad Seeds fans want to call it, a beautiful, heartfelt, and darkly sinister record. "Nocturama" is not as good as either of these. It is, however, pretty damned good. "Babe I'm On Fire" isn't lame or cringe-worthy, and it's not fun. It's Cave's weird sense of humor that shine through, however, and you can never be 100% sure if he's sincere or not. I prefer to believe not, but it's hard and beautiful and dark all the same.… Expand
  3. madsl
    Mar 10, 2007
    2
    surely the worst cave album ever! even the rather dreadful "no more shall we part" somehow shines in comparison to this half-baked and bland album. The ridiculous finale of "Babe I'm om fire" is not the fun it was probably intended to be, it is just lame and cringeworthy.

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
73 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 26 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 19 out of 26
  2. Mixed: 7 out of 26
  3. Negative: 0 out of 26
  1. CultureDose.net
    70
    Nocturama is as slight and as pretty as a walk through the snow on a sunny Winter day.
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  2. Launch.com
    90
    At first listen a morose rumination on the many shapes of love, the album slowly unfurls as a grand, almost gothic epic of vast proportion and luxurious significance.
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  3. Pitchfork
    74
    But with two (admittedly gigantic) exceptions, Nocturama reneges on its promise-- something's still missing from most of these tracks.
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