Hits (CD) ~ The Birthday Party (Artist) Cover Art

Hits (CD)

By: The Birthday Party (Artist)

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The Birthday Party Artist Snapshot:

Led by the inimitable Nick Cave (who went on to great solo success), Australia's Birthday Party was a swirling maelstrom of post-punk discord, beat-influenced poetry, and gothic blues overtones. The band also gained a reputation for presenting some of the most intense live performances of the era. Though the Birthday Party were in existence for a only a few years in the early 1980s, they proved a profoundly influential act whose sound can be detected in a variety of bands.

Product Description

Track Listing

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DISC 1 for Hits (CD) Album By The Birthday Party (Artist)
1   Friend Catcher, The
2   Happy Birthday
3   Mr. Clarinet
4   Nick The Stripper
5   Zoo Music Girl
6   King Ink
7   Release The Bats
8   Blast Off
9   She's Hit
10   Gold Blade
11   Hamlet (Pow, Pow, Pow)
12   Dead Joe
13   Junkyard
14   Big-Jesus-Trash-Can
15   Wild World
16   Sonny's Burning
17   Deep In The Woods
18   Swampland
19   Jennifer's Veil
20   Mutiny In Heaven
 

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Review

Entertainment Weekly (1/15/93, p.53) - "...they roar, howl, and rail like a preacher on fire, relishing the ecstasy in the agony..." - Rating: A-
Q (11/92, p.130) - 4 Stars - Excellent - "...some of the most hilariously unpleasant songs ever...they boasted a crazed humor and a blistering understanding of rock & roll frightwig dynamics..."
Alternative Press (12/92, p.78) - "...the first essential compilation of the '90s..."

Title Note

The Birthday Party: Nick Cave (vocals); Mick Harvey (guitar, drums); Rowland S. Howard (guitar); Tracy Pew (bass); Phill Calvert (drums).

Additional personnel: Philip Jackson, Mick Hunter, Stephen Ewart (brass).

Producers: Tony Cohen, The Birthday Party; Nick Launey.

While the Birthday Party never had any hits, what they did have was a collection of full-on assaults that they called songs. It's this kind of hit to which this collection's title refers. HITS collects tracks from the band's years with the influential UK independent record label 4AD between 1980 and 1983.

Though all the tracks are classics (or near-classics), some of the standouts include "Mr. Clarinet," a crunching track with some wicked organ riffs courtesy of Mick Harvey, "Nick the Stripper," a punishing foray into self-flagellation, and "Zoo Music Girl," which highlights Nick Cave's desperate vocals. Rowland Howard's skittering guitar lines, and Tracy Pew's fat, snaking bass sounds spike the tricked-out rockabilly of "Release the Bats," a song which probably did more for the then-nascent Goth movement than anything since Bauhaus' "Bela Lugosi's Dead." "Dead Joe," built on the accelerated and wildly careening drumming of Phil Calvert, and "Wild Wood," are burned-out blues-influenced tracks that are clear indicators of the direction that Nick Cave would follow in his subsequent solo career. HITS is the obvious place to start if you've got the nerve to enter the world of the Birthday Party.

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