Anita Louise Lane (18 March 1960[1] – 27 April 2021) was an Australian singer-songwriter who was briefly a member of the Bad Seeds with Nick Cave and Mick Harvey and collaborated with both bandmates.

[6] George Sarostin of Only Solitaire felt that, on this track, Cave "sounds, with all of his whiny 'okay okay', just like one of those poor innocent or half-innocent victims with a bloody nose and a gun at their temple in a gangster movie".

[3][4][11] Lane was briefly a member of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds playing piano, along with singing backing and occasional lead vocals.

[12][13] Lane co-wrote "Stranger Than Kindness" with Bargeld,[14] which appears on Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' fourth album, Your Funeral... My Trial which was released in November 1986.

[15] Lane added her lead vocals over a musical score by Bargeld, Cave and Harvey for the soundtrack of the 1988 Australian film Ghosts... of the Civil Dead, including the track "A Prison in the Desert".

[13][16] Jon Behm of Reviler.org praised her "ethereal howling/whispering vocals, which due to her babydoll voice sound a bit like the ravings of a mentally disturbed child.

[13][18] She also provided guest vocals on "The Bells Belong to the Ashes" for the album Headless Body in Topless Bar in 1988 by German post-punk post-rock band Die Haut.

[13][19] In 1989, Lane was featured on Adamson's debut solo album, Moss Side Story; with Harvey, she was part of the Freedom Choir on "Suck on the Honey of Love" and "Free at Last".

[10][13] In 1992, she performed a duet with Kid Congo Powers on Die Haut's track "Excited" and another with Bargeld on "How Long (Have We Known Each Other Now)" for the German group's album Head On.

[13][17][21] It consists of her work with The Birthday Party, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Einstürzende Neubauten and Die Haut, as well as exclusive album tracks.

[21] The album was co-produced by Bargeld, Cave, Harvey, Johannes Beck, John Cafferty, Die Haut, Einstürzende Neubaten, Sven Röhrig, and The Birthday Party.

[18][21] Ned Raggett of AllMusic noted that Dirty Pearl was a "collection organized in reverse chronological order", which was "a bit fragmented as a result [it] still makes for an involving listen, demonstrating clearly that her work is worth taking on its own terms instead of simply being a Cave footnote".

Over the two albums, Harvey had Lane "singing the female parts originally performed by the likes of Jane Birkin, Brigitte Bardot and Anna Karina".

[22] For Murder Ballads, released in February 1996, the ninth studio album by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Lane sang a verse of their cover version of Bob Dylan's "Death Is Not the End" and vocals for "The Kindness of Strangers".

[10][23] AllMusic's Stewart Mason found it "mixes sleek, creamy, and often danceable R&B-tinged pop tunes with the sort of lyrical plain-spokenness implied by the title".

[23] He could not decide whether her delivery which is "so deadpan that it's hard to tell if the sexually-obsessed (and to be honest, rather trite) lyrics ... are meant as parodies of Tori Amos and/or Alanis Morissette, or if Lane takes ... [her lines] seriously".