Murder Ballads is the ninth studio album by the Australian rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, released on 5 February 1996 by Mute Records.

"Where the Wild Roses Grow", a duet featuring Cave singing with fellow Australian singer Kylie Minogue, was a hit single and received two ARIA Music Awards in 1996.

Murder Ballads was the band's biggest commercial success to date, most likely helped by the unexpected repeated airplay of the "Where the Wild Roses Grow" music video on MTV.

[7] In The New York Times, Neil Strauss felt that the album "is about more than storytelling", adding that Cave "meticulously creates a macabre fable and then distills it to a single image of death in much the way a photographer arranges a studio shoot".

[16] In a mixed review, Spin's Chris Norris complimented the album's "sordid epics and dark confessionals", but felt that Cave's "rheumy Poe-ish romance" songs were less effective.