Customer Reviews

Hits (Reis)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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 .

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.

Yes Nick Cave fronts this powerful early 80's group...and what he does here far surpasses any of the later releases with the Bad Seeds. The Birthday Party were INTENSE...brooding...amazing. The only other group half as scary as they were in their genre is Flipper. This collection takes songs that are in most cases the best from each album, and includes earlier hard to find singles as well...all in all a great album that you find you can't stop listening to after a while.

The boys who took punk and goth and ran screaming out into the Black Forest, never to return, are here codumented in all their hacking, rasping glory. The porn film-beat of the bass and drums and the alien autopsy guitars provide the only appropriate background for the young Nick Cave's screams and poems. Whether creating the cliches of modern "alternative" rock or mocking them, the Birthday Party always did their best to keep their audience awake. From the slow shouts of "Jennifer's Veil" to the high-volume mania of "Big Jesus Trash Can," this album gives you all the best of this highly-influential band.

Hmm, my first and only Birthday Party release so-far. so good also. This album is split into FOUR QUARTERS. these i shall review.
Hee-Haw period: friend-catcher is symphonic, but nicky doesn't have his vocals perfect yet. birthday sounds gang-of-4-ish, but the real gem here is Mr Clarinet.
The next kiddies here are from Prayers on fire, slightly more impressive. Nick the stripper makes me wonder what kind of stripper nick is, paint maybe? zoo music, king ink, bat releaser and Blast Off! hit the spot like some sort of meshed stooges zombie elvis visigoth spectacular.
Ah, but the Junkyard tracks are spectacular, and rightly so.
I don't feel significant enough to talk about them, but you need them in your life, truly.
Mutiny/bad seed tracks are notibly heavier, slower and bluesier.
My favourite are jennifer's veil and swampland, just for the sheer brutality, deep in the woods slowly crawls no-where for three sour minutes before burning itself alive!. All in all, genuinely scary, unlike that misfits/slipknot [stuff].
...
This Album is good, but bu JUNKYARD, PRAYERS ON FIRE AND MUTINY themselves, you get more pure evil. sorry.

Why you need Bauhaus,Es ist sinnlos.
Buy The Birthday Party if you can't afford to own, The Pop Group, Joy Division, and the Teardrop Explodes. They pack the power of all three of these bands.

Weird crazy and unusual music from Bad Seeds frontman Nick Cave's first band. Lots of gritty originality from this band and these are the "hits" not that this band ever got any radio play...but they certainly have a cult following in the underground music scene worthy of mention. Great place to start for new fans.

what else is there to say about this band...theyre fronted by the musical genius that is nick cave... quite different in some aspects of his current work, but you can still tell its nick...the music and the vocals are more gritty and abstract, but the lyrics are typical cave...all in all a damn good album and worth a measly 12 bucks!

Although not as spectacular as Nick Cave's later solo work, these great recordings by the Birthday Party show his promise. I remember when I first heard the Birthday Party I found it remarkable how original and groundbreaking they were, and when I listen to them now they still sound fresh. Music still has not caught up with this talented group.