THE B-52'S: MESOPOTAMIA (1982)
1) Loveland; 2) Deep Sleep; 3)
Mesopotamia; 4) Cake; 5) Throw That Beat In The Garbage Can; 6) Nip It In The
Bud.
This six-song EP, an important turning point in
the B-52's career, frequently gets a bad rap from critics and fans alike. Not
too happy, perhaps, with the perspective of recording the same album third time
in a row, and also looking for a little «artistic maturity», the band eagerly
took up the offer of teaming up with David Byrne to produce their next album —
a heavenly match, one might think, given the many intersection points between
the B-52's and the Talking Heads; in a way, one could even think of classic-era
B-52's as «Talking Heads for kiddos».
For some reason, the relationship turned out
sour: the parties ended up disagreeing on the final mixes, and this, together
with excessive pressure on the part of the record label, brought the sessions
to an early halt — what was conceived as a full LP came out as a six-song EP
(although three other songs from the sessions were later re-recorded for Whammy!). And when it did come out, people were disappointed.
Gone was the humor and the young teenish rave-up atmosphere that ruled supreme
on The B-52's and Wild Planet. Instead, we found cold
wobbly-funky Heads-styles riffs, a Byrnish atmosphere of absurdist paranoia,
and synth/horn arrangements that would rather suit boring parties than awesome
ones.
But in all honesty, I fail to see what exactly
is wrong with that. Yes, Mesopotamia
is all that and more, but it works fairly well as a «second-rate Talking Heads»
experience with a few shades of classic B-52's carried over and a few extra
influences thrown in the mix as well. This is not so much a «loss of direction»
as a conscious attempt to give it a slight change, and the actual songs —
credited, by the way, exclusively to the band members, never to Byrne — do not
sound at all like they didn't believe in what they were doing: the music, as
usual, is rather calculated and detached, but the singing, especially when the
girls join in, is fab. All in all, Mesopotamia
really does sound like the «grown-up» version of Wild Planet. Those sharing the preconception that a band like The
B-52's cannot possibly grow up, but can only explode trying, should stay away.
Others may, and hopefully will, find a lot to like.
The title track is the clear highlight — it
takes a huge risk starting off with exactly one minute and five seconds of a
repetitive groove that does sound
like second-rate Talking Heads (I personally get a splitting headache from the
jungle-jangle around the twentieth second), but then turns into a cool mix of
robotic dumbness. "I ain't no student of ancient culture", Schneider
sings, "before I talk, I should read a book", and he's not joking
about that one: trying to locate "the third pyramid" in Mesopotamia, of all places, hardly makes
any more sense than inviting us to "turn your watch back about a hundred
thousand years", but that is just the point — the song is not about
Mesopotamia as such (bring on somebody like Al Stewart for historic accuracy),
it's about the distorted perspective on things that can fasten itself to
anybody's mind, and the dogmatic «rectangular» guitar lines and half-zombified,
half-somnambulized back vocals from the girls only enforce the feeling. Could
the Heads have done it better? Not sure. Byrne would probably have gone
hysterical at some point, and that would not be what the song requires.
Cindy Wilson bakes up terrific performances on
ʽLovelandʼ, which opens the EP, and ʽNip It In The Budʼ, which closes it — the
songs may not be built on the best grooves in the world, but the girl is
capable of sexy solemnity on the former, and of cocky impertinence on the
latter. Actually, ʽNip It In The Budʼ and ʽThrow That Beat In The Garbage Canʼ
are the only two songs on here to conjure an atmosphere of moderate hooliganry,
reminiscent of the days of old — except now they use synth loops and horn
overdubs to back it (but it still works).
On the other hand, ʽCakeʼ is something they
never did before — a rather straightforward dance number so full of GROSS
sexual innuendos that it could make Prince blush (speaking of Prince, the
dialog that Kate and Cindy get going in the mid-section is basically
proto-Wendy-and-Lisa stuff. "It says in this cookbook it takes a long time
to rise...", yeah, right). But it is
a fun, sexy number, if not exactly fit for a nice little college party. ʽDeep
Sleepʼ, a slow mood number, may perhaps be the one true weak link in the chain,
but it does have an attractively melancholic piano hook, and even on a six-pack
like this, one slightly saggy slow-burner is not enough to drag down the
overall impression.
Mesopotamia is available in several guises these days, including
a UK version with extended mixes of several of the tracks, and a new remix from
1991, released on CD together with Party
Mix! (originally an EP of remixes of the band's «classic» tunes from 1981).
Too much honor for an album that almost destroyed the B-52's reputation, some
critics would grudgingly say; but I have the pleasure of disagreeing, and
happily award the record a thumbs up. In all fairness, I cannot even say how
much Byrne himself was responsible for this shift of direction — but if he was, after all, it's a pity they didn't
get to spend even more time together.
I'm kind of glad that they never managed to make this into a full LP. It's a good record for sure, but I think it may have dragged at full length. There's nothing wrong with some 2nd-rate Talking Heads but too much of it and you'll just start wondering why you aren't listening to the real deal instead. With only 6 tracks this album hardly has a chance to grow old on you before it's over. However the title track is the only song here I really love. The other songs are just fine but don't really blow me away in any big capacity. So while still being a decent record this is my least favourite of their Ricky-era output.
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