Nick Cave

When expatriate Australians The Birthday Party first splattered onto London's post-punk scene in 1980, howling raucous songs about bats and strippers, few could have expected what lay in store for the band's seemingly unhinged frontman. But after that band's 1983 implosion, singer/songwriter Nick Cave opted to infuse his dark, brooding aesthetic with blues and gospel leanings, a Southern Gothic amalgam that perfectly suited his deep, dramatic vocals and increasingly literary lyrics. By the time of '97's spare, subdued The Boatman's Call, Cave was well regarded as a singer-songwriter of the highest order, albeit one with an unusual pedigree. A truly prolific artist, Cave also penned poetry, lectures, the well-received novel And the Ass Saw the Angel, and the screenplay for The Proposition, a gritty Aussie Western that received international acclaim. Collaborating with Dirty Three multi-instrumentalist Warren Ellis on that movie's soundtrack led to other film-score work and the duo's revved-up Grinderman project, furthering Cave's already-considerable Renaissance man reputation. Cave was the subjective of an extensive 2009 exhibition at the Western Australian Museum in Melbourne, providing formal acknowledgement of his singular and impressive career.