"Happy Birthday" is a song from American alternative rock band Concrete Blonde, which was released in 1989 as the second single from their second studio album Free.

[1] On its release in the UK, Geoff Zeppelin of Record Mirror called "Happy Birthday" a "glorious, simple and downright hummable number" and continued, "Neat, jaunty and a snip over two minutes.

"[2] Robert Sloman of the Staines & Ashford News described it as "original and hummable" and praised Concrete Blonde as "one of Los Angeles' finest rock bands".

[3] Chris Willman of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "This cheerful-sounding song, one of the year's catchiest, is really about an unhappy birthday, but Napolitano – writing about spending the night of her own 30th at home alone – is following in the great rock 'n' roll tradition of making feeling bad sound good.

[4] David Okamoto of the St. Petersburg Times commented, "Napolitano shows a playful sense of irony on 'Happy Birthday,' a deceivingly tuneful ditty about a poor woman who celebrates her birthday in a tenement apartment by listening to the radio and the cats in the alley.