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Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds are an Australian alternative rock band that was formed in Melbourne in 1983 by lead singer Nick Cave, multi-instrumentalist Mick Harvey and guitarist Blixa Bargeld. The band has featured international personnel throughout its career and presently consists of Cave, violinist and multi-instrumentalist Warren Ellis, bassist Martyn P. Casey and keyboardist Conway Savage (all four from Australia), keyboard/percussion player Barry Adamson and guitarist George Vjestica (both from the United Kingdom), and drummers Thomas Wydler (Switzerland) and Jim Sclavunos (United States). The band has released fifteen studio albums and completed numerous international tours.
The band was founded after the demise of Cave and Harvey's former group the Birthday Party, the members of which met at a boarding school in Victoria, Australia. Deviating from the noise rock roots of their contemporaries, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds have produced alternative rock that has been influenced by various genres, such as punk rock, gothic rock, no wave and blues. Their early material—From Her to Eternity (1984), The Firstborn Is Dead (1985), Your Funeral... My Trial (1986) and Tender Prey (1988)—primarily featured a post-punk sound. The band has progressively incorporated other songwriting elements; for example, the 2008 release Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! experimented with garage rock, also an influence of the side project Grinderman. Synthesizers and minimal guitar work feature prominently on their newest album, Push the Sky Away (2013), recorded after the departure of Harvey in 2009.
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Polly Jean Harvey (born 9 October 1969) is an English singer, songwriter and musician. Primarily known as a vocalist and guitarist, she is also proficient with a wide range of instruments.Harvey began her career in 1988 when she joined local band Automatic Dlamini as a vocalist, guitarist and saxophonist. The band's frontman, John Parish, became her long-term collaborator. In 1991, she formed an eponymous trio called PJ Harvey and subsequently began her career as PJ Harvey. The trio released two studio albums called Dry (1992) and Rid of Me (1993) before disbanding, after which Harvey continued as a solo artist. Since 1995, she has released a further nine studio albums with collaborations from various musicians including Parish, former bandmate Rob Ellis, Mick Harvey, and Eric Drew Feldman, and has also worked extensively with record producer Flood. Among the accolades Harvey has received are both the 2001 and 2011 Mercury Prize for Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea (2000) and Let England Shake (2011), respectively, making her the only artist to have been awarded the prize twice. She has also garnered eight Brit Award nominations, seven Grammy Award nominations and two further Mercury Prize nominations. Rolling Stone awarded her three accolades: 1992's Best New Artist and Best Singer Songwriter, and 1995's Artist of the Year. Rolling Stone also listed Rid of Me, To Bring You My Love, and Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea on its list of their 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. In 2011, she was awarded for Outstanding Contribution To Music at the NME Awards. In June 2013, she was awarded an MBE for services to music.