Nick Cave reinvented himself in the Nineties as the goth Sinatra, and The Boatman's Call is his answer to In the Wee Small Hours. Over spare piano, he croons of love and pain, brooding over an old flame (possibly PJ Harvey) in "West Country Girl." It's the peak of his new deluxe-­reissue ­series, with classics like No More Shall We Part. The Boatman bonus track "Little Empty Boat" sums the man up in a heated religious debate: "Your knowledge is impressive/And your argument is good/But I am the resurrection, babe/And you're standing on my foot!"

Listen to Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' "West Country Girl":

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“Too Close”

Next was formed in Minneapolis when the uncle of Terry "T-Low" and Raphael "Tweety" Brown, who was a gospel choir director, introduced the brothers to Robert Lavelle "R.L." Huggar. Sounds of Blackness singer Ann Nesby groomed the R&B group before handing them over to Naughty by Nature's KayGee, who wrote and produced "Too Close." The idea for the song was sparked "from a conversation we had with several girls at a nightclub," explained T-Low. "It's talking about the club scene, with guys getting out of hand and the female telling him to back up, asking, 'What are you doing?'"