Formed out of the ashes of the late, great goth/punk outfit, The Birthday Party in the early 1980s, Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds, until recently at least, have remained on of the strongest, most innovative outfits to arrive out of the punk rock scene. They evolved into something different, something better. Blending country, soul, gospel, punk and blues as well as an untold amount of literary influences, Cave fronted his band like a fire and brimstone preacher (albeit, on that may have been working for the other team).

Backed by such exceptionally talented individuals as Blixa Bargeld (of Einsturzunde Neubauten) and Kid Congo Powers (of The Knoxville Girls and The Cramps), The Bad Seeds were always more hit than miss from their debut album From Her To Eternity in 1984 until, arguably, The Boatman's Call in 1997 (after which, in my opinion, they very quickly went down hill).

While the band was rarely ever seen on MTV or MuchMusic in North America, they did make quite a few videos to promote their singles, the bulk of which are compiled on this collection, Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds – The Videos, along with introductions to each piece supplied by the band members themselves. There are some interesting tidbits contained throughout the introductions (who knew that Shane MacGowan spent so much time on his hair for the It's A Wonderful World video?) as well as some humorous bits as well (Nick says that he and Blixa look like gay businessmen heading to the disco in The Weeping Song - and he's right!) for those who are intrigued by such things.

The bulk of the videos are stylishly shot and, from a visual perspective, far more interesting than your average MTV fodder, and many of them have a more film-like quality to them, rather than feeling like so many music videos do – glorified advertisements. Most of the footage works alongside the music nicely and for the most part, there's an obvious effort put into these bits to at least make them a little bit different – just like the band's music.

Songs/videos included on this DVD release are:

Stagger Lee

Where the Wild Roses Grow (with Kylie Minogue)

Into My Arms

(Are You) The One That I've Been Waiting

Henry Lee (with P. J. Harvey)

Red Right Hand

Loverman

Do You Love Me?

Deanna

The Ship Song

Tupelo

In the Ghetto

Jack the Ripper

What a Wonderful World (with Shane MacGowan of The Pogues

Straight to You

The Mercy Seat

The Weeping Song

The Singer

I Had a Dream Joe

Wanted Man

While it's lamentable that Mute didn't include any of the newer videos off of Nocturama or No More Shall We Part, what is included is the material from the strongest albums that the band has released. Still, the absence of the later videos prevents this from being the definitive release that it could and should have been and sadly this is nothing more than a better quality digital version of what we were already given on VHS a few years ago in 1998 (though it is worth the upgrade for the better picture and sound quality).

Video:

Most of the videos look pretty sharp on this release, but a few of the older ones are quite washed out and look like they were taken from old tape sources, and they very well could have been. With those few exceptions (most notably, The Singer) though the videos are well preserved. Colors are well defined, most of the time the picture quality is quite sharp, and there aren't any compression issues and only a tiny bit of edge enhancement is present. The bit rate rarely goes under 8 on this transfer and I was pleased with the overall presentation.