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Spleen and Ideal is the second studio album by Australian musical act Dead Can Dance. It was released on 1 September 1985, by record label 4AD. The album features a transition between the band's post-punk and gothic rock-influenced debut album towards a darkwave style.


The band's official website stated that the album title was taken "from 19th Century symbolist ideals". The title is directly taken from "Spleen et Idéal", a collection of poems by French poet Charles Baudelaire which form a section of his magnum opus Les Fleurs du mal.

Discussing the album's musical style, AllMusic commented that with Spleen and Ideal, Dead Can Dance "fully took the plunge into the heady mix of musical traditions that would come to define its sound and style for the remainder of its career. The straightforward goth affectations are exchanged for a sonic palette and range of imagination".[]