Junkyard

Idk man, if you played this at my birthday party I would probably not invite you next year

Nick Cave’s first band. A wild, off-the-wall take on post punk, goth rock and punk blues with screeching guitars, pumping bass and wailing vocals. Nick is completely insane here. I actually prefer their record Prayers on Fire to this one but I like this one. The global stats do not. This record is surely not for everyone. Favorite song: Hamlet (Pow, Pow, Pow) Least favorite song: 6” Gold Blade

I'm glad I was baby in the 80's and couldn't listen to this music.

Genuinely one of the worst 42 minutes I’ve sat through. Seriously. What. And I cannot emphasise this enough. The. Fuck?

This is one of those albums that sounds like its cover. It has the atmosphere of walking down a back alley full of deranged bums at night, and I mean that in the best possible way. It's the saying "I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it" in musical form. It's the kind of thing that Lou Reed probably wished he had made. That being said, it's a bit too wacky to go in my regular rotation, although I'd definitely bring it out on Halloween, or after a Fearnet binge if Fearnet still existed. Best song: Hamlet (Pow Pow Pow), which reminds me of the "The killer awoke before dawn" part of The End.

Fuck that

I respect Nick Cave but this ain't it chief. A really angry and worse Joy Division. Almost unlistenable as a whole.

This was way better than a lot of these reviews would lead you to believe. Noisy? Yes. Discordant? Fuck yeah. Off putting? Sort of, but that’s the fucking point. Fuck it, it’s getting a five just to balance out all the fucking Steely Dan and Elvis Costello records I’ve had shoved in my face by this goddamn book.

Jangly discordant post-punk! Young Nick Cave tries to emulate Tom Waits. I really liked this, but can see why it scores low, I guess. "Pere Ubu" have a similarly low scoring album, so jangly discordant post-punk obviously rubs a lot of people the wrong way. Fave track - "She's Hit"

Google started recommending therapists to me after I listened to this. Best track: She's Hit (??)

4.7 + hits you like an ice pick to the temple or oozes on like a bucket of swamp sludge.

This album is naaaasty, its rude, mean, loud, and just weird. Pretty cool listen, will definitely come back

Australia's “most original band”? Maybe. “Least talented” seems a safer bet. Can you tell this book by its cover? You can.

Post-punk has never been so weird. The thing to note about early post-punk is that the only unifying trait is the will to experiment on the punk genre. This leads to a wide range of different artist, with some experimenting more than others. The Birthday Party, in this case, leads more into the experimental side. Junkyard sounds like a junkyard. It's rusty, malformed, and a little dangerous. If punk rock were a Ford Model T, post-punk would be a T-Bucket. The Birthday Party wants you to feel kinda gross listening to this, like punk blues that's been dragged through the mud. this is accentuated by Nick Cave's wild personality; he's like a rabid dog throughout. This wild energy makes the abrasive guitars all the more interesting, as you can imagine the band tearing up a live performance with their hypnotic sounds. It's definitely not for everyone, but I think it's awesome.

Ah, Nick Cave - one of my all-time favourites. His work from the last couple of decades is peerless, and the two live performances of his I've been to established him firmly in my mind as an elder statesman of rock. Emotive, fierce, quietly devastating... "Skeleton Tree", "Push the Sky Away" and "CARNAGE" are some of my favourite records by any artist. But this? Bloody hard work. The world of "The Birthday Party" is a brutal kind of post-punk where nothing holds together: mangled and torn, the world has turned in on itself and cannibals roam the streets. There is no logic, reason or narrative, just distorted nightmare imagery: one hundred skirts bleeding uptown; a car smash mangling bodies beyond recognition; Jesus driving a trash can; a gold blade in the head of a girl; being kissed black by a dog-like woman who sleeps like a swastika. The lyrics are a deep dive into the warped, violent poeticism that Cave has demonstrated throughout his career, and are the best thing about this album: they present its world in a vivid, intense, horrifying way. I have to give credit to the music for complimenting this and sounding suitably horrific, but for me it was just no fun whatsoever to listen to. There's very limited range in dynamics or delivery in each song to accentuate the lyrics, or to build any sense of momentum. Everything's relentlessly at the same level of demonic howls and apocalyptic crashing. There's no skill in musicianship to appreciate, certainly no guitar tabs to start looking up or vocal lines to sing in the shower. It all gets old very quickly, and by the time we reach "Several Sins", it's a shock to actually hear sung-through vocals, a distinct bass groove and sleazy guitar line. Being able to actually pinpoint and latch onto a tune is about as much as a listener can hope for from this. On the more positive side, "Junkyard" sits firmly outside of the trappings of the 80s and still sounds like it could be made in 2021 by a band pushing against the grain. In the UK today, plenty of up and coming bands like Squid, Shame or IDLES (shared the same producer as this album, incidentally) seem to be reaching for a slice or two of the Birthday Party's cake. My rating is being really skewed here by my respect for Nick Cave as an artist: he certainly committed to a vision here, and I admire The Birthday Party for not pulling any punches. But it was a real challenge to get through, and I like my music a little more palatable. Listening to this album makes me feel like a miserable old man who just doesn't get it. If that's my problem rather than The Birthday Party's, so be it.

This is wild as all fuck. Legitimately sounds like a band of demons from the depths of hell. I kinda dig parts of it? But mostly I just respect it for committing to being fuckin’ OUT THERE shit.

Never listened before and I loved it!

The Party's second and final full studio album, also the final release with the five-person lineup, was perhaps its scuzzy masterpiece, its art/psych/blues/punk fusion taken to at times outrageous heights. Right from its start, nobody held back on anything, Cave's now-demonic vocals in full roar while the rest of the players revamped rhythm & blues and funk into a blood-soaked cabaret exorcism. Nearly every tune is a Party classic one way or another, from the opening slow, sexy grind of "She's Hit," Cave's freaked tale of death and destruction matched by clattering percussion and a perversely crisp guitar from Howard, to the ending title track's crawl toward a last gruesome ending. Tips of the hat to literary influences surface at points, notably "Hamlet (Pow, Pow, Pow)," though the protagonist isn't so much the indecisive tragic figure of Shakespeare as a Romeo-quoting criminal on the loose. The ultimate Party song sits smack dab at the center -- "Big-Jesus-Trash-Can," a hilarious and blasphemous blues/jazz show tune with some great brass from Harvey to top it all off. Guest performers crop up at points; future Bad Seed Barry Adamson plays bass on "Kiss Me Black," while Anita Lane contributes two sets of lyrics if not her direct vocals. Later CD versions included three extra tracks. "Blast Off" and "Release the Bats" were originally issued as a single; both seethe with rage and fire in spades. The latter is at once powerful and a bit of a tongue-in-cheek goth goof, with Cave serving up lines like "Don't tell me that it doesn't hurt/A hundred fluttering in your skirt." The other bonus, a second version of the album's "Dead Joe" recorded in London, is if anything even more frenetically gone than the original, a car crash sample punctuating the lyrical reference to same all the more.

Excruciating

I spent most of my teens hiding out in a junkyard. I would catch and eat pigeons for sustenance and suck on the tits of stray cats just for fun and to fuel my beastiality kink. I once fucked a crocodile for 11 hours straight and listening to this record reminded me of that wonderful day. A perfect moment in an otherwise deeply depressing existence. Cum on my tits.

I looked at the album cover and thought, “I’m gonna hate this.” But someone once told me “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” and I’m a good boy. So I went in with an open mind. I hated this. The drums were erratic, the vocals were insane, the bass was exhausting, the guitar was whiny, the mix was terrible. It sounds like someone had just shot a gun in the studio, fucking up the mics, the mood, and everyone’s hearing. This is my introduction to Nick Cave. I’m worried about his other 5 (!) albums on the list, but hopefully they benefit from being a different project.

metal as hell

Very dark and noisy. Not sure if the timeline is correct to guess that Cave was influenced by Tom Waits, but that was what I was hearing. I have difficulty hearing the blues roots here, except on a rare few songs. Favorite song was She's Hit, least favorite is Kewpie Doll.

Not everyone's cup of tea, and honestly I'm not sure if it's really mine! But it's invigorating and interesting, so props to Nick Cave and the boys.

This was an uncomfortable listen as dischord and wild shouting coals feature heavily. That said the music was technically very interesting almost jazz like drum rhythms and even a 3/4 time structure in there just made it more interesting for me. I felt like it would have been a great soundtrack for a horror movie

Absolutely not.

JFC

the album cover perfectly encapsulates the vibe of this album. energetic, raw, and unhinged

Fucking unhinged 9/10

I didn’t expect to enjoy this as much as I did. Early, dark Nick Cave is a very good Nick Cave indeed (just like the other Nick Caves). It reminds me of Pornography-era cure mixed with 80’s Tom Waits and, well, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. It’s not for everyday listening, and it’s not something you’ll put on at an outdoor BBQ party this summer. If you’re disenchanted, pissed off, and/or questioning what this crazy life is all about, it’s probably the soundtrack for that.

I love Nick Cave but there is a reason to why I mostly listen to his later music

Oh god. This is an interesting one- the sounds are neat and the mood created by the music is definitely an interesting one, but it’s rough. The production is flimsy, vocals are often kept to the back- and the insane amount of noise created by this record is atrocious- which I think was the entire point. Nick Cave and the Birthday Party def succeeded at what they set out to do with this one, but that doesn’t mean that many people are going to want to listen to it. Stand-alone, some of the songs are really great. But together as an album, the pattern becomes apparent- and many of the songs themselves are too similar to stand out- making a large part of this album a blur. Is it cool? Hell yeah Is it for everyone? definitely not

The album art is an accurate representation of the music - a total mess. 3/10

Listened to the first half on the way to work. Had no desire to put it back on so it's a sad birthday party 😔

The album cover is so outrageously ugly and over the top in a way similar to the original Appetite For Destruction cover I almost kind of like it. I also like Nick Cave from 00s onwards plus Grinderman, some 90s Nick Cave but not so much the 80s stuff. I especially don’t like this. It is all just a horrid din. The snare in She’s Hit actually sounds like shotguns going off but in a really tetchy, arthritic way and the rest of the album is pretty much just as painful to listen to.

Ah, the infamous Junkyard, another one of the lowest rated albums. I enjoyed Nick Cave's offerings on this list, but I know this album is... very different than say... Ghosteen. I like post punk music from this era (I'm working my way through Simon Reynolds's Rip It Up And Start Again), but I know this album is supposed to be similar to Pere Ubu, which isn't my favorite. Still, I'm more than willing to give this album a fair shake. Let's go to Junkyard! I understand that this album isn't for everyone, but I thought this was a really good album. It's not the sort of thing that I'd listen to often, but I thought Nick Cave's vocals were perfect for this sort of raw, post-punk music. For something really rough and raw, I found this album pretty accessible. The guitar playing was great, but I thought the bass playing really set this album apart from other post-punk albums from the same era. I see a lot of users said that "Hamlet (Pow Pow Pow)" was their favorite song on the album, but for my money, "Dead Joe" blew every other song out of the water. I loved the pulsing drums and the throbbing bass, and Nick Cave's "oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh's" at the beginning of the song were the perfect touch. "Dead Joe" was an insane blast of energy, and I loved every second of it. My only gripe with this album is that the stripped down and echo-y sound of the album could be a bit grating at times, but this was still a really good album, and I really enjoyed getting this glimpse into a pre-Bad Seeds Nick Cave.

This is cool. Can hear The Jesus Lizard and Melvins in it right away.

What a fun album! Pretty raw, didn't expect it to be here, but great discovery I shared with friends :)

This is grungy, dirty, and fantastic

this doesn't sound like it came out in the early 80s... i rly enjoyed my time with it! i love how messy it is... i don't often stumble upon songwriting like this. pretty pleasantly surprised

the album cover really does let you know what you're in for: a hot rod drive-by done by psychotic mutant hillbillies wearing Ed Roth t-shirts. there's something really uncanny about how the great spirit of the All-American Fuckup was captured by a bunch of Aussies in the process of dismantling their band. maybe that explosive nature was key -- in order to sound like every caricature in focus on the songs is falling apart and panicking, the group had to self-destruct as well. i do think that on a few songs, the whole rattle 'n' yelp sound of the Birthday Party get a bit grating, but in brief rushes, like "6" Gold Blade" and "Hamlet (Pow Pow Pow)", you can actually get a bit scared. and the cover art is fine. you guys just need to get used to Ed Roth.

I’ll be honest: I didn’t know what this was but my first thought was “this sounds like Grinderman.”

Abrasive, unpleasant, obtuse, unfriendly, but excellent.

Very strange album. Don't know if I'd ever listen again, but extra points for creativity.

This was interesting but pretty harsh and a little hard to listen to after a while.

A lot more accessible and enjoyable than I was led to believe. I'm a bit of a Nick Cave fan, but I mostly enjoy his later records with the Bad Seeds (90s and beyond), so I was pleasantly surprised to find out that I find this more intriguing than the earlier Bad Seeds albums. Horrid cover art though.

I did not use a private session for Spotify on this one. I wasn't aware of this part of Nick Cave's career. It's intense, as you would expect, a little too much just to have in the background chilling. Next time I want to start a fight with strangers who walk down my alley, I will put this on!

Feel like I could enjoy it better in the right mood but the vocal style just ain't for me right now. I do like the craziness of the instrumentals. Reminds me of Primus a TON. Wow I listened to this whole album and never would've thought this was Nick Cave. He really switched up his tone after this.

You can definitely see where Nick Cave started with The Birthday Party, and how he became the godfather of Goth.

Secret Nick Cave album. Nick what am i supposed to do with your magical lyricism if you hid it behind all this sonic insanity? What is Release The Bats?!

Nick Cave fan here, but I had never listened to The Birthday Party (shame on me). I liked the raw energy. I like early Cave and in a way this album is that, but extrapolated. A bit too much for my liking... I found it quite tiring to listen to the album in its entirety.

I actually prefer this over other Nick Cave albums. He really sounds insane on this one

Interesting album. A great preview for what's to come in Nick Cave's career.

They know what they're about and I respect that.

I've noticed this as one of the lowest rated albums on here so I have some serious trepidation going in. But on the first song I hear yeah okay, they're going for this raw, abrasive thing sure, but nothing too offensive really. The second song could definitely be played live at The Roadhouse in Twin Peaks. Third track is back to the raw, abrasive thing. I'm not gonna say I love this but if I had a few in me I could really enjoy this in a live setting. Kinda like an angry young amalgamation of Tom Waits and Ian Curtis fronting a surf-punk band. I have nothing against this. Bad dirty fun.

Ragged, rough, and rowdy.

That's a lot. Nick cave... A lot

My induction to The Birthday Party. Slightly terrified but a little energised.

Unique and brutal sound. Not sure if I'll listen again.

Highlights: The Dim Locator, Several Sins. In a nutshell: sowing The Bad Seeds Raw and unhinged punk-blues. Venomous and demonic. I'm thankful Nick Cave and Rowland S. Howard refined this music style after the band's break-up and by forming The Bad Seeds. Learning some compositional restraint helped too. If you liked Nick Cave when he went in hard on Murder Ballads (ie Stagger Lee and The Curse of Millhaven), you might like this. Overall: 3/10

Some signs of Cave to come, but generally too abrasive. 2.5 stats

I don't actively hate it, but I'm not sure I actively like it either. It's kind of interesting, and I can hear the beginnings of some stuff I do like. I kind of like "She's Hit", "Several Sins", "Kewpie Doll" and the title track, while others like "Dead Joe" and "Big Jesus Trash Can" sort of test my patience a bit. 2.5 stars.

She’s Hit // 6” Gold Blade // 2.5/5

Lead singer sounds kind of like Plankton from SpongeBob.

Noisy, raw and borderline unbearable, yet there are glimpses of something interesting hidden beneath the sludge. Nick Cave's early band doesn't begin to showcase his talent, but you have to give him credit for trying, but really that's about all...

not my jam, sorry nick

Best Song: Dead Joe. Marginally better than the rest of what's on offer. Worst Song: Big Jesus Trash Can. Talentless shouting. Overall: The music is shit. The album art is shit. The name of both the band and the album are shit. Why am I listening to this?

I added six songs to my library. The rest was rather unpleasant. But hey, gotta give it to The Birthday Party for giving energy. Even if it wasn't an energy I really liked.

What a terrible listening experience

Felt like the sex pistols album, is this what "post-punk" or "punk" was? Maybe I'm just a pop punk fan? I dunno, I can see it if I were at a concert and in a pit, but otherwise.....pass?

No!

This cacophony of noise sounds like some neighborhood kids received instruments for Christmas. The dads confiscated them on Dec 26th because they were too loud. Those same dads started playing the confiscated instruments and recorded this album on Jan 1!

No. 80/1001 Blast Off 2/5 She's Hit 3/5 Dead Joe 1/5 The Dim Locator 1/5 Hamlet 1/5 Several Sins 2/5 Big Jesus Trash Can 1/5 Kiss Me Black 1/5 6'' Gold Blade 1/5 Kewpie Doll 2/5 Junkyard 1/5 Dead Joe - 2nd Version 1/5 Release the Bat 1/5 Average: 1,38 Uff, this one I didn't like at all. Most songs just felt like someone screaming over repetitve guitar riffs and drumming. This is now my worst rated album so far. Taking over from Kilimanjaro - The Teardrop Explodes (1,88)

Did some record label owe someone's parents a favor? Get it off the list. Forever. Get it off the Internet. Erase it from my memory. Give me back my precious minutes wasted on trying to listen to whatever this was.

Like, what the hell is this album doing here. I would be happy dead if i never listen to this.

God awful. I actually find it offensive that this is taking up a spot on this list while most hip hop artists do not have a single album on here and others only have 1. Horrendous.

Jesus, it is unlistenable.

Sometimes I wonder how these albums got picked and if this is just a random album generator... Fewer than 4M stream total for this 1982 album and it's easy to understand why. Turning it off. Unlistenable. Horrible. This is supposed to be music?

God, what a chore to get through. These guys don't give a damn about anything, even their music, and why should I? I'll admit that the end of Hamlet (Pow Pow Pow), which repeats the same line about fifty times, achieved a sort of kaleidoscopic beauty in its repetition... but that's all I got. Mike Patton does this schtick 20x better. I was going to write that this sounds uncannily like Nick Cave without any skill whatsoever, and then I looked it up... That's EXACTLY what it is! Good thing he got better with age and practice.

Why? I don’t understand this as something musical.

This just sucks. I don't even really need to go into more detail than that. Everything about it is like nails on a chalkboard for me.

Couldn't make it past track 4

This is the first time this has felt like a challenge. This is like if primus actually sucked.

Kai tätäkin paskaa sit joku kuuntelee... minä en.

I'm 6 tracks in and I already know I'm going to rate this 5*. I've never even heard of this band, but right off the rip, all I can hear is Mr. Bungle. Except that no one from Mr. Bungle was ever in this band, and this album came out nearly 10 years prior to the first Mr. Bungle studio release. I'm also surprised to learn that one of its founding members is Nick Cave—whom I'm not even very fond of to begin with.

Batshit crazy. Love it.

Absolute mayhem! I love this record so much.

I can't believe how low the rating is. It's such a unique album. Awful cover art apart, you're hit with one of the best meshes between goth punk and punk rock in the 80s. Great discovery.

Fiery sonic madness captured on tape; raw, visceral and real. 10/10 Best Tracks: "She's Hit" "Dead Joe" "The Dim Locator" "Hamlet (Pow, Pow, Pow)" "Several Sins" "Big-Jesus-Trash-Can" "Kiss Me Black" "6" Gold Blade" "Junkyard"

Justice for Junkyard! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

RELEASE THE BATS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Crazy to hear. The quality of the recording tries to overshadow the overall insanity of Nick Cave’s early punk rock/gothic effort. Every song speaks with a middle finger.

The Birthday Party sit with The Gang Of Four and The Pop Group as one of the best post-punk bands ever. I know a lot of people just "don't get it", but that's their problem, not mine

Entirely enjoyable in rawness and its candor

As a big Nick Cave fan it's nice to finally hear some context for where he started. I know from interviews and stuff that he was a huge fan of british post-punk weirdos 'The Pop Group' around the time he made this, and oh boy this album sounds just like them half the time, especially when Nick gets all yelp-y on a song. Now this is fine for me because 'Y' by The Pop Group is one of my favourite albums. It's nice to finally have another album to put alongside that one as post-punk that gets as wild and unhinged as possible. Wish I'd checked it out sooner, this is mental.

Not one happy birthday song on it. Great album to get a haircut to.

meh

Holy Post Punk Junkman. Nick Cave as a manic trashman with hypnotic drums, feedback, percussive macho bass lines... Dirty, steamy, swamp fever. This album is one psychotic madness, but a genius one. It sound like Bauhaus who had a mental breakdown. People who have read The Ass Saw The Angel will also recognize elements of Cave's Faulknerian novel characters in this album. This came off the back of yesterdays Dark Side Of The Moon and the contrast almost couldn't be higher. The album version ends with the hallucinatory Junkyard, in which Cave really gives *everything*, his voice almost to pieces, and just about to At the end you hear him coughing his lungs out during the fade-out after that effort. Sublime.

Excelente

This album has The Birthday Party as they lift their game substantially. I've been playing this since release and it's a favourite album.