Spring Hill Fair is The Go-Betweens' third album, released on 27 September 1984 in the UK on Sire Records.

Prior to the recording of the album, bass player Robert Vickers had joined the group, enabling Grant McLennan to move to lead guitar.

In 2002, Circus released an expanded CD which included a second disc of ten bonus tracks and a music video for the song, "Bachelor Kisses".

"[3] In another interview McLennan stated "we all lived there and the main reason was that in September, October of every year in Brisbane, there is, in Spring Hill, a fair, and as the album came out around then we thought it would be nice to have a parochial mention in a title because we hadn't done that for a long time."

[8] Brand spent the first week trying to gate the drums and set click tracks,[7] with the rest of the band feeling trapped.

"[13] The album features a number of guest musicians, more than any of the band's previous recordings,[14] with Ana da Silva (The Raincoats) providing additional vocals on "Bachelor Kisses",[15] Jacques Loussier (the owner of the recording studio) performing synthesizer on "Part Company",[16] Graeme Pleeth on keyboards and brass, Denis Gautier on trumpet and Marc Fontana on saxophone.

"[27] Helen FitzGerald was more enthusiastic in her review for Melody Maker, writing, "There's an endearing imperfection to this record, but it's a calculation of style rather than incompetence of design.

In places, the vocals quaver dangerously as out-of-focus love songs paint a picture of the kind of melancholia that's impossible to forge."

[28] Biba Kopf of NME said, "It would be silly to pretend the Go-Betweens are a sparkling fun experience – they are sometimes excessively sombre, verging on sobriety.

[26] Ned Raggett's review of the album on AllMusic states, "A slightly more conventional but no less entrancing collection of songs in comparison to Before Hollywood, Spring Hill Fair contains its fair share of Go-Betweens classics, with the rough, barbed emotional edge of many lyrics getting almost gentle arrangements."

He added, "Throughout the album one can not only hear the expanded lineup testing things out, but individual players adding their own particular flair – the brush-and-shuffle percussion from Morrison on 'Five Words,' McLennan's great lead guitar solo on 'You've Never Lived,' Vickers' ability with crisp funk on 'Slow Slow Music.