The Good Son is the sixth studio album by the Australian rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, released on 17 April 1990 by Mute Records.
After two dark and harrowing studio albums with Your Funeral... My Trial (1986) and Tender Prey (1988), The Good Son was a substantial departure with a lighter and generally more uplifting sound. The change of mood was greatly inspired by lead vocalist Nick Cave falling in love with Brazilian journalist Viviane Carneiro, and an apparently salutary spell in rehab which purged much of the despair and squalor reflected in the previous two studio albums. Cave later said, "I guess The Good Son is some kind of reflection of the way I felt early on in Brazil. I was quite happy there. I was in love and the first year or two was good. The problem I found was ... in order to survive you have to adopt their attitudes towards everything, which are kind of blinkered."