Murder Ballads

The first song written for Murder Ballads was O'Malley's Bar, during the Henry's Dream sessions in 1992. Cave said the band could not use it on any of their other records, so they had to make a record where such songs could exist. Recording ran from 1993 to 1995 at Atlantis, Sing Sing and Metropolis in Melbourne and at Wessex Studios in London, with mixing at Metropolis. Where the Wild Roses Grow was mixed at Sarm West in London.

Stagger Lee takes most of its lyrics from a 1967 transcription of the traditional song and updates the music into reggae. Death Is Not the End, a cover of a Bob Dylan song, has a verse each from Anita Lane, Kylie Minogue, PJ Harvey, Shane MacGowan, Cave, Thomas Wydler and Blixa Bargeld. Cave called it a jokey little punctuation mark to the whole record. Where the Wild Roses Grow was the lead single and Cave later said it gave no true indication of what the album was like.

Bill van Parys of Rolling Stone called it "the performance of Nick Cave's life". Melody Maker placed it 16th on its 1996 albums list and NME's critics put it seventh. Rolling Stone Australia ranked it 13th in its 200 Greatest Australian Albums of All Time in December 2021. By 2001 it had sold close to a million copies worldwide.