Hits (Reis)

The Birthday Party | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (July 7, 1998)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: 4ad / Ada
• ASIN: B000007SPX
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #185,882 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Blast Off!, February 22, 2005

By 

Chester - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hits (Reis) (Audio CD)

This compilation distills all the fury, depravity, and fun of The Birthday Party perfectly. If you can only afford one thing by The Birthday Party, make it this record (though after hearing it you'll probably want to buy or steal all their original albums...well, either that or you'll throw the disc out the window and run to the nearest church). The Birthday Party is known now as "Nick Cave's old band" and while it's true that the Birthday Party and The Bad Seeds share similar lyrical themes and influences, not to mention Mr. Cave's utterly unique vocals, the two bands are very different. The organ and piano that typify The Bad Seeds' sound are mostly absent here. Instead, there's dank, dirty, noisy guitars, heavily improvisational and rather brutal drumming, and on a few songs, twisted cabaret-like horns. The younger Cave on display here is also different from his more recent work. Cave is at once more frighteningly intense (that's a gross understatement, by the way) and more tongue-in-cheek. The Birthday Party might sing about lust, death, disfigurement, depression, death, self-loathing, and even more death, but there's always an apparent sense of theatre to it all. That said, "Hits" is not just one noisy rave-up after another. "Happy Birthday" grooves like a gothic Gang Of Four, "Mr. Clarinet" dances along quite beautifully, "King Ink" is a lumbering beast of a song, "She's Hit" and "Wild World" are both slow and undeniably sexy, "Junkyard" builds slowly, and "Deep In The Woods" is practically spoken-word. I could go on, as every song on this compilation is great, but I don't want to ruin all the surprises. Good old fashioned, evil fun all the way.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, October 16, 2001

By 

C. Bray "dent" (Chula Vista, Ca USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hits (Reis) (Audio CD)

Now this is what I call "work out" music. You feel like you've been hit with a 2*4 everytime you pop this in the player. I would take this music over black flag any day of the week. I hear the band sounded much better live and that is a scary thing to consider .

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Birthday party was genius, January 12, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Hits (Reis) (Audio CD)

Man, what can you say? Unstoppable, depraved, and ROCKING. Release the Bats makes me shake my head and laugh nervously, what with Cave's extended sex-vampire/sex-horror shriek. Mutiny in Heaven has a Sister Ray-ish impulsive intensity I haven't come across elsewhere. There's three true genius bands in the history of rock and roll: VU, Pixies, and these guys.