The Good Son
by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
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Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds bestography
The Good Son is ranked 7th best out of 30 albums by Nick Cave on BestEverAlbums.com.
The best album by Nick Cave is Skeleton Tree which is ranked number 369 in the list of all-time albums with a total rank score of 4,469.
(N.B. Bestographies include all albums by an artist (and their variations), but do not include albums ranked outside the top 100,000).
Listen to The Good Son on YouTube
The Good Son track list
The tracks on this album have an average rating of 83 out of 100 (all tracks have been rated).
Top-rated track as rated by BestEverAlbums.com members.
The Good Son rankings
Calculated from aggregate positions across 60,000 charts (2 million album rankings). Click to see how the rankings are calculated (Last updated: 5 hours ago)
| Year | Source | Chart | Rank | Rank Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 |  videoheadcleaner | Top 80 Music Albums of 1990 | 6/80 | 5 |
| 2026 |  Purplepash | Top 100 Music Albums of the 1990s | 15/100 | 17 |
| 2026 |  covecove | Top 100 Music Albums of 1990 | 27/100 | 4 |
| 2026 |  Norman Bates | Top 100 Music Albums of 1990 | 4/100 | 5 |
| 2026 | Johnnyo | Top 100 Music Albums of the 1990s | 89/100 | 2 |
| 2026 | saltysurprise | Top 52 Music Albums of 1990 | 21/52 | 3 |
| 2026 | cicadelic | Top 100 Music Albums of 1990 | 38/100 | 3 |
| 2026 |  Helios | Top 100 Music Albums of 1990 | 73/100 | 1 |
| 2026 | Rikuff | Top 100 Greatest Music Albums | 29/100 | 72 |
| 2026 |  Hayden | Top 100 Music Albums of the 1990s | 42/100 | 12 |
| Total Charts: The total number of charts that this album has appeared in. | 301 | |||
| Total Rank Score: The total rank score. | 2,071 | |||
The Good Son collection
Showing latest 20 members who have this album in their collection | Show all 156 members
The Good Son ratings
Average Rating = (n ÷ (n + m)) × av + (m ÷ (n + m)) × AVwhere:
av = trimmed mean average rating an item has currently received.
n = number of ratings an item has currently received.
m = minimum number of ratings required for an item to appear in a 'top-rated' chart (currently 10).
AV = the site mean average rating.
Showing latest 3 ratings for this album. | Show all 409 ratings for this album.
| Rating | Date updated | Member | Album ratings | Avg. album rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ! | 09/03/2026 22:44 | xhitmanx | 1,604 | 75/100 |
| ! | 08/14/2026 08:33 | TitoVampir | 197 | 76/100 |
| ! | 07/29/2026 17:31 | PJDonoghue | 142 | 71/100 |
Rating metrics:
Outliers can be removed when calculating a mean average to dampen the effects of ratings outside the normal distribution. This figure is provided as the trimmed mean. A high standard deviation can be legitimate, but can sometimes indicate 'gaming' is occurring. Consider a simplified example* of an item receiving ratings of 100, 50, & 0. The mean average rating would be 50. However, ratings of 55, 50 & 45 could also result in the same average. The second average might be more trusted because there is more consensus around a particular rating (a lower deviation).
(*In practice, some albums can have several thousand ratings)
This album is rated in the top 2% of all albums on BestEverAlbums.com. This album has a Bayesian average rating of 79.0/100, a mean average of 78.1/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 79.2/100. The standard deviation for this album is 14.6.
The Good Son favourites
Showing latest 10 members who have added this album as a favourite | Show all 59 members
The Good Son forum mentions
BestEverAlbums 10/02/2026 08:18 in Monthly overall chart movements - September 2026 BestEverAlbums 09/01/2026 16:00 in Monthly overall chart movements - August 2026 BestEverAlbums 08/10/2026 08:00 in Chart of the day (#5400): By BLOThe Good Son comments
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This was the most accessible Nick Cave album to date when it was released in 1990. It's still a dark record, but the music is now approaching a beauty you certainly wouldn't have expected a few years before. Opener, foi na cruz, is lovely, as is, the weeping song. The most beautiful track though is the brilliant, the ship song, one of Cave's greatest ballads. There's no weak songs here, and, Lucy, is a great closing track. It's amazing how Nick Cave can effortlessly move from one extreme to another, from, the tender prey, to this. A true genius, one of the greatest songwriters ever. (Edited)
'The Good Son' is a truelly magnificent work of art whose sorrowful, spiritually meditative and existential aesthetic is drenched in visionary images that are at the same time rescued by a sense of redemption and salvation that was lacking in his previous works. The songs on the album are all beautifully crafted, sculpted and timeless visions which recall a combination of Blake, Whitman and Faulkner allied to Jim Morrison, Tom Waits and Bob Dylan.
The Good Son is a very underrated album that has great songwriting as well as having a strong powerful atmosphere created through deep personal lyrics and great instrumentation
NickVolos TOP 100 COMMENTER 11/24/2014 14:37 | #127858 | TOP COMMENT
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As much a spiritual as a listening experience: its theme derived from the parable of the prodigal son, only this is about the good son, the one that stayed behind - as opposed to the prodigal one...
There are certainly songs on other albums I like better than most of the songs on this album, but this is my favorite Nick Cave record by far. And Lucy. Oh, Lucy. So beautiful.
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