| The Birthday Party | |
| Type: | Album |
| Artist: | The Boys Next Door / The Birthday Party |
| Cover: | The Birthday Party (The Birthday Party album).jpg |
| Released: | November 1980 |
| Recorded: | July 1979, January–February 1980 |
| Studio: | Richmond Recorders, Melbourne |
| Genre: | Post-punk |
| Length: | 32:00 |
| Label: | Missing Link Records[1] CBS Records 4AD |
| Producer: | The Boys Next Door, Tony Cohen, Keith Glass |
| Prev Title: | Hee Haw (EP) |
| Prev Year: | 1979 |
| Next Title: | Prayers on Fire |
| Next Year: | 1981 |
The Birthday Party is a 1980 album credited to Australian rock band the Boys Next Door / the Birthday Party under both names as they were in transition between the names.[2] [3] [4] The album was produced by The Boys Next Door, Tony Cohen, and Keith Glass; it was recorded with Cohen engineering at Richmond Recorders Studios in Melbourne from July 1979 to February 1980.[5]
The album was different from the new-wave pop-punk style of their debut Door, Door (released the year earlier), moving towards the dark and chaotic post punk style they would later become known for (as The Birthday Party).[3] This album was both the final album by The Boys Next Door and the first full-length release by The Birthday Party. On its first reissue, it was credited to The Birthday Party.
The album in its entirety has been reissued on CD as part of the Hee Haw compilation along with the Hee Haw EP. Two of the album's songs, "The Red Clock" and "The Hair Shirt" were originally included on the Hee Haw EP, released in 1979.
Tracy Pew was absent from the recording session for "Mr. Clarinet", so he recorded the bass later.
Engineer Tony Cohen said Richmond Recorders was a "non-reverberant, acoustically dead" design, forcing him and the band to experiment to get interesting sounds. He said, "On "The Hair Shirt", Nick sang through a telephone. He wanted a screechy voice underneath his lead vocal. Rowland always wanted more treble on his guitar, so I bought in sheets of corrugated iron and made a tunnel covering his amp."[6]