Guilty Pleasures: Nick Cave

Nick Cave is the love child that in some alternate Bearded Spock universe was born to John Wilmot and Flannery O'Connor.  He's a different kind of "guilty pleasure".  He's a terrific writer, and very powerful, but the... er, vocabulary content... and the sheer gothicity of his writing mean that I can't recommend him to just anyone.

And (but?) Nick's straightforwardly sentimental songs are very powerful.  I loved "The Ship Song" when I first started listening to his stuff; from a more recent album, here's "Breathless".

(Not to share any spoilers, but the bunnies, like the sentimentality, work better because of the raw emotionality and gothic darkness of Nick's other work.)

Bonus: Bearded Spock.