| The B-52's | 1979 |
| Wild Planet | 1980 |
| Mesopotamia [EP] | 1982 |
| Whammy! | 1983 |
| Bouncing Off The Satellites | 1986 |
| Cosmic Thing | 1989 |
| Good Stuff | 1992 |
| Time Capsule: Songs For A Future Generation (compilation) | 1998 |
The B-52's are almost universally regarded these days as one-hit wonders and products of the early '90s dance scene, and hey, it's their fault What the band was for a while was a really nifty late '70s post-punk quintet, featuring a sound never matched before or since. What we had was a very obviously-gay lead singer (Fred Schneider) shouting out the lyrics like an overcharged carnival barker, with two female go-go dancers who almost always sang in unison (Cindy Wilson and Kate Pierson) backing him up. Add to that the surf guitar of Ricky Wilson and the solid drumming of Keith Strickland, and we have one of those bands that shouldn't have worked, but somehow did. As is to be expected, they ran out of steam after only a couple of albums (despite a pretty good late '80s comeback album), but I for some reason bought their entire collection anyway, so I'd might as well go through all of it with you. And there will be much rejoicing.
--Rich Bunnell
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(reviewed by Rich Bunnell)
Even amidst the whole Eno-Talking Heads-Bowie scene which was erupting at the time, this album came completely out of left field and threw almost everyone completely for a loop. As stated in the intro, the B's had a sound unlike anything that anybody had heard before, and this album is probably your best bet to find the core of their sound. The entire thing sounds like a 1979 punk/new wave party where everybody but you has somehow found their way to the cocaine and you're trying to figure out what the hell's going on. Somehow, it manages to be a very solid album in spite of all of this.
Towering over the rest of the tunes on the entire album is the new wave classic "Rock Lobster," a seven-minute surf nonsense anthem with really nifty guitar licks that pretty much sums up the band's whole sound in one nice, compact package. The other classic is the opener "Planet Claire," which takes a spy riff and extends it to a four-and-a-half minute spacey acid trip (with occasional mantras by Fred Schneider thrown in near the end) -one of the great classic opening tunes of the 20th century, and deservedly so. The band uses it to open their concerts (yeah, they're still together) and it really, really works.
The album also hits peaks in the garage-y, female-sung "52 Girls" and the murky "Lava," but it's pretty much good the whole way through. The only downsides are a bizarre version of that cheesy '60s hit "Downtown" tucked away at the end of the album (which is still pretty funny) and the fact that one of the alleged classics, "Dance This Mess Around," is a bit more plodding and annoying than I'd like it to be. Plus, the overall tone of the album is really hard to get into, and if you're simply not one who can achieve the bizarre mindset required to enjoy this kind of stuff, then you're better off not buying this album at all. Still, a classic debut in every sense of the word.
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(reviewed by Rich Bunnell)
Most would have you believe that this album is far inferior to the debut, but I say screw them. The songs on this album are some of the catchiest yet most well-written that the B's ever pushed out, and the album is so DARK in comparison to the debut that I can't help but love nearly every fleeting second of it. The band tightens their sound (if that idea could even be fathomed) and out comes a batch of what is probably the most memorable collection of tunes foistered upon us by these two girls and three guys. No pizza place.
"Party Out Of Bounds" is an exceptionally strong opener, rolling through with a pulsing bassline and actually imitating a scenario of the band crashing somebody's party ("Who's to blame when parties really get out of hand?"). Following it is the dark, desolate "Dirty Back Road," in a style already heavily-removed from anything the band had chosen to put onto the debut. "Strobe Light" is a furious rockabilly-new wave shuffle with purposefully perverted lyrics ("Then I'm gonna touch your PINEAPPLES!") and wacky vocal deliveries, while the album's centerpiece, "Private Idaho," is an absolutely amazing pop song fast rocker with probably the band's best vocal arrangement of all time. The way that Cindy starts to wail amidst Fred's random ramblings is pure genius.
The only somewhat nondescript track is "Runnin' Around," which sort of just hangs around and does nothing in spite of an on-the-surface catchy melody, but it's more than made up for by chunky rockers like "Devil In My Car," great pop tunes like the desperate Cindy-sung "Give Me Back My Man," and spacey dirges such as "53 Miles West Of Venus" and "Quiche Lorraine," a truly bizarre song about a truly bizarre dog. These songs and the rest of them make this underrated album well worth owning, if you own any B-52's album at all.
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(reviewed by Rich Bunnell)
After Wild Planet, the B-52's took a few years off, with the exception of a 1982 collaboration with the legendary David Byrne to record an EP called Mesopotamia that pretty much every critic in the world hates. I haven't heard it, but I can say one thing for sure: whatever David Byrne did to them during the three years since the previous album was not good. Whereas the previous two albums pushed forth a sort of fuzzy guitar rock girl-group sound with garage-y production, here the production is flat, the guitars are entirely gone, Keith Strickland's drumming has been replaced by loud, obvious drum machines (what did he do on this album? He's on the front cover!), and above all, SYNTHS SYNTHS SYNTHS. Everywhere. All of this electronic shpiel wouldn't bother me at all if there were some great melodies, but...well.......
I can say one good thing about one song on this album: the opener "Legal Tender," despite cheesy lyrics about counterfeit money, is a neat synthpop number with a fun chorus, though the background synth is pretty annoying and the song doesn't really go anywhere. And the funny thing is, it was the one song on the album not written by the band. Otherwise, the album is loaded with songs that are somewhat good but ruined by horrible arrangements ("Queen of Las Vegas," "Butterbean") or dull, dull synth jams with not a single redeeming quality ("Whammy Kiss," "Work That Skirt").
The "classic" off of the album, "Song For A Future Generation" is probably the worst of all, a cheesy-as-hell singalong with each member of the band introducing him or herself and singing lyrics like "Wanna be the captain of the Enterprise, wanna be the king of the Zulus, let's meet and have a baby now!" I seriously don't see how anybody could listen to anything so sickly-sweet and happy-- I like music when it's optimistic, but not when it sounds like the singers had each spent the past two hours downing Prozac. (Was Prozac even around in 1983? If not, then they have no excuse!!). I suppose this album is sort of a fun listen for the bits and pieces of songs that are catchy, and if you like your synth piled on heavy, you'll find lots to like here, but to me this album just seems like a forced collection of dull songs that show absolutely none of the B-52's spirit that got me into them in the first place. The videos from this album were pretty awful too, but I won't go into that.
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(reviewed by Rich Bunnell)
The B-52's were not exactly at their most cheerful during the recording of this album, since in 1985 lead guitarist Ricky Wilson died of AIDS. He had a bit of guitar recorded, along with some lead vocals, but only a bit of the album's recording was finished at the time of his death, and the recording pretty much went to crap from that point. Most of the songs on this album feel like solo compositions, and indeed a good deal of them are; the B's weren't so much a working group at this point as opposed to a bunch of depressed, tired individuals. This split in the group is most evident in songs like Fred's cheesy guitar-rock song "Juicy Jungle" (which has a catchy melody, but annoyingly environmental lyrics and a corporate sound), Kate's minimalistic "Housework" and Cindy's rolling, synthy "Girl From Ipanema Goes To Greenland."
Problem is, even though a similar split caused the Beatles to make some of their best music ever in the White Album, the B's didn't have...say...the talent that the Fab Four had under similar circumstances, and there're only a few really good songs on this album. The aforementioned "Girl From Ipanema" is infectious as sin, as is the bouncy, faux-spiritual single "Summer Of Love," and both the bizarre, dreamy "Detour Thru Your Mind" and Cindy's moving ballad "Ain't It A Shame" will infect your bloodstream for hours afterward as well. But "Wig" is a forced, hokey attempt to regain the fun of the old days, "Theme From A Nude Beach" thinks it can get by on just sounding pretty, but is actually just dull, and "Communicate" literally sounds like it was written by a computer programmed to sound like the B-52's. The aforementioned "Housework" is also a pretty freaking stupid song, too.
This album and the previous one get almost no exposure at B-52's concerts (the only song I've heard them play is a reworked version of "Summer Of Love") and it's easy to see why-- both albums show an era that was a true nadir for the band, showing them giving in to a synth sound that they just weren't good at, and producing some of their worst songs of all time. Luckily, it was all uphill from here (sort of)...
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COMMENTS
[email protected] (Beatrice Griffin)
I bought this album at a market stall for £1 and have been listening to it non stop for ages. Knowing the album's bad reputation I didn't expect much from it but I was pleasantly surprised. Girl from Greenland and Wig are fantastic pop songs. Aint that a Shame and Communicate really grow on you after enough listens ditto Summer of Love which sounds a bit dull on the first listen but eventually becomes more attractive with familiarity.
Detour thru your mind is one of the very few occasions when Fred Schnieder isn't so annoying you want to throttle him..it's actually quite witty..and is that a satirical allusion to the cost of medical care in America? "£15,000 and all he wanted to do was dip us in plaster". Juicy Jungle and Housework are just plain annoying though. Theme from a nude beach is irritating with its 'giggle giggle wer'e really talking about sex' nudge nudge wink wink routine which is tiresome.
Overall, why it may not be the most flawless gem in the B52's canon but I think the fact that I approached this album with such low expectations may be the reason i came to appreciate its modest pleasures so much.
(reviewed by Rich Bunnell)
Three years after the massive commercial failure of Bouncing Off The Satellites, the band got over the death of Ricky Wilson, moved Keith Strickland from drums to lead guitar (apparently he was just as adept at each instrument), picked up bassist Sara Lee (no, not that Sara Lee-- but the weird thing is, before here the band didn't have a bassist! Either there wasn't any at all, like on the last two albums, or a really thin-sounding keyboard bass, like on the first two albums), and, most importantly, hooked up with two hot '80s producers, Don Was and Nile Rodgers. The result: a complete change in sound towards heavily commercialized late-'80s dance-pop, a rich, full sound never before heard on a B's album, and a complete and total sell-out.
Not that that's bad! Selling out is only really a problem when it noticeably decreases the quality of an artist's songs, like in the cases of David Bowie, Heart or the Psychedelic Furs. The difference here is that the song quality is significantly increased from that of the last couple of albums. The singles such as the dark, politically-charged "Channel Z" and the rolling, gorgeous "Deadbeat Club" are prime pop music and some of the best stuff to come out of 1989. The two big hits off of the album were "Roam," a fun, shiny guitar-pop song with infectious hand-clapping during the chorus, and the infamous "Love Shack," a wild party song which is catchy but wears a little thin after it passes the three-minute mark. I could entirely do without the "bang bang" part at the end, but that's just me.
Elsewhere, the title track is a fun and fast-paced boogie in spite of stupid lyrics, "Junebug" is a bizarre schizophrenic mess of an awesome song, "Bushfire" is a good guitar rocker (or close to it) and the last two tracks "Topaz" and "Follow Your Bliss" close the album on a really pretty, dreamy note. The only downsides are the end of the aforementioned "Love Shack," along with "Dry County," a repetitive, dreary song that tries to update the bleak sound of Wild Planet for the '80s but doesn't really go anywhere. Still, the band sounds top-notch, the distinctive B's vocals are here in full effect (the counterpoint vocals between Cindy and Kate are used to incredibly good effect over the course of almost the entire album, and Fred is still sounding as random and flamboyantly gay as ever), and even though this sounds absolutely nothing like the first two classics, this is a great pop album and definitely one to pick up. Plus, it has the band's only good album cover, if you don't count the one used on the Time Capsule hits collection.
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COMMENTS
I don't really have much to add here, but Rich hit the nail on the head with his assessment of "Deadbeat Club"---although like most B-52 songs i've heard it has some truly horrible lyrics. I actually bought this album as soon as "Roam" hit the airwaves, and dammit, like many an album i bought that long ago, it has probably ended up recycled as a ruler or something by now. Still, "Love Shack" aint bad, and those two other songs ( I can only remember those three) are better.
(reviewed by Rich Bunnell)
All of a sudden, Nirvana came along in 1991 and killed off dance-pop, leaving the B-52's with a completely dated sound despite the fact that they had just adopted it. This followup album therefore bombed on the charts and produced zero hit singles, and were it a particularly good album I would be inclined to complain about how it didn't get the success it deserved. But...well....it did. An astonishingly mediocre album, this album was recorded in the wake of the loss of Cindy Wilson (who took a five-year sabbatical from the band to stay at home and raise a family), and yeesh, it shows. Kate handles all of the female vocal duties herself, and her sing-songy voice just can't hold up on its own without Cindy's raspier vocals to counterpoint them. They try to hide this by multitracking Kate's vocals every chance that they get, but that just makes it sound even worse. Fred, on the other hand, probably turns in his best vocal performance here, actually incorporating a hint of melody into some of his usual barking, but it still doesn't help the album a whole lot.
The material on this album is simply weak. Whereas on Cosmic Thing every song lived in its own tightly-constructed pop universe, here the band just tends to lay down a dull backing beat and have Kate and Fred trade off vocals for 5 minutes, expecting the listeners to consider it a song. The worst offender is "Hot Pants Explosion," a stupid horn-spiked song that doesn't go anywhere and doesn't have a particularly good melody. The title track also follows this pattern, though I'm willing to put up with the dumb, bouncy verses and the idiotic music video because the chorus is gleeful, harmonious and wonderful, and saves the rest of this song. Anyway, if the songs don't follow the pattern I just described, they're usually boring, tuneless "spiritual" songs like "Dreamland," "Breezin" or "Vision Of A Kiss" which are all overlong and far too light, sort of like the last two songs on Cosmic Thing, but really bad.
The album isn't without its merits, of course - "Revolution Earth" is a gorgeous pop song and a worthy successor to "Roam," "Tell It Like It T-I-Is" is a fun piano boogie, "Is That You Mo-Dean" is a slow, spacey tune about an alien abduction that I'd like a lot more had I not just heard a completely rocking version of it in concert, and "Bad Influence" is an uncharacteristic rocker with a neat guitar hook (though the song really could've used Cindy) and stupid, but forgivable political lyrics. Still, the few good high points aren't worth wading through the dreck, unless you find the album for $4.99 like I did (which isn't hard). The most annoying thing about the album, however, are the wannabe-spiritual liner notes, filled with astrological symbols and pictures of dolphins, manatees, and anti-fur propaganda. Yuck. I want toy pianos, surf guitar and bouffant hairdos, NOW!!!
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I hated Goodstuff!! IM a huge B-52s fan, and I wish they did the album with Cindy. Unfortunately for us listeners and concert go-ers, Kate decided to give up her signature keyboard playing during live concerts for this album and to this date she only plays on one or two songs at most, which is VERY NOTICEABLE!! If you had the privilege of seeing them in concert over the years, you too will notice the songs used to sound Rich and full when she did play her keyboard. Now during live shows, Pat Irwin is left to do the playing and his keys sound absolutely AWFUL!
(reviewed by Rich Bunnell)
Not too much to say here - it's a greatest hits compilation. Three songs from the debut, four from Wild Planet, only ONE each from Whammy! and Bouncing, four from Cosmic, two from Good Stuff, the awesome, artsy title track from the Mesopotamia EP, and two new songs. It all adds up to a very good and well-rounded compilation, missing basically nothing from any of the albums. Well, I personally would've liked to have "Give Me Back My Man" from Wild Planet, but one miss isn't any biggie. "Summer Of Love" is presented in a bouncier mix which is an improvement over the album version, "Song For A Future Generation" still blows mighty wind (but it's really the only one), and of the new songs, "Debbie" is an awesome guitar-rock single showcasing the return of Cindy Wilson, while "Hallucinating Pluto" is an okay but slightly forced dance tune (with great vocals from Fred). All in all, this collection doesn't miss much, and if you don't want to pick up any of the albums for some bizarre reason, here you are!
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