The B-52's: With The Wild Crowd: Live In Athens, GA

THE B-52'S: WITH THE WILD CROWD: LIVE IN ATHENS, GA (2011)

1) Pump; 2) Private Idaho; 3) Mesopotamia; 4) Ultraviolet; 5) Give Me Back My Man; 6) Funplex; 7) Whammy; 8) Roam; 9) 52 Girls; 10) Party Out Of Bounds; 11) Love In The Year 3000; 12) Cosmic Thing; 13) Hot Corner; 14) Band Intros; 15) Love Shack; 16) Wig; 17) Planet Claire; 18) Rock Lobster.

«Classic era» B-52's never put out a live album, which does not mean they couldn't put on a great live show: most likely, they saw no real need for this, since they allowed themselves so much freedom of action on their studio albums already — and the concerts were more remarkable in terms of show-biz flashiness and visuals (aw, those wigs!!!) than music, which mainly just strived to reproduce the whirlwind hooliganry and extravagance.

If so, why put out a live album when you're old and gray? Well, for one thing, it somehow seems easier to put things out in our modern era of overproducing everything. For another thing, this live CD is technically just an appendage to the live DVD — recording an entire show that the band did for their 34th anniversary at the Classic Center in Athens, GA. Hence, it does not really make much sense to hunt for the audio separate from the video, even if the level of energy and the sheer ratio of crazy things done onstage is predictably nowhere near the stuff one can see in the band's early, sketchy, skimpy camera relics.

But, with all the necessary age-related corrections introduced, the band still looks and sounds great. Somehow, Kate and Cindy manage not to come across as freaky grandmas, and it has far less to do with the wonders of plastic surgery than with the amazing fact that their vocal powers have remained practically intact. Well, almost — it is a fact that they can no longer hit the high­est notes on the "wigs on fire, fire, fire, fire" bit, but the scale is still scaled to an impressive height all the same. And Fred... well, Fred will always be Fred, even after they freeze him out of the storage locker in ten billion years' time.

The «anniversary setlist» is a little disappointing — you'd expect it to be a more representative career overview, but instead, they focus too closely on Funplex material, as if, three years into its release, there'd still be people around needing to be convinced to buy it. Five out of eleven songs is definitely a bit of an overkill. Although, granted, the live performance of these numbers scrapes away some of the stuffy production polish — ʽLove In The Year 3000ʼ, in particular, benefits heavily from a little less electronics and a bit more liveliness from the rhythm section.

The «oldies», meanwhile, are quite predictable: most of the big hits are here, with just a few no­table exceptions like ʽDeadbeat Clubʼ, and the only album that gets completely snuffed is Good Stuff — probably not because it is their worst offering, but because it lacked Cindy's input, and she might have been unwilling to add her parts to the likes of ʽHot Pants Explosionʼ (and I can so totally understand it). The only unexpected, and much welcome, inclusion is ʽ52 Girlsʼ from the debut album; elsewhere, you just know that the setlist has to end with ʽLove Shackʼ (for all the young hedonists), ʽPlanet Claireʼ, and ʽRock Lobsterʼ (for the certified veterans).

What else is there to say? The sound quality is expectedly perfect, the stage banter is limi­ted (even the entire band introduction, what with all the extra players, is performed in a matter of about fourty seconds), and the professionalism is undeniable — they still put on an energetic, funny, and intelligent live show, and all it takes is about thirty seconds' worth of ʽPrivate Idahoʼ to understand this (you try reproducing all these woo-hoo-hoos without erring as you hit sixty). If With The Wild Crowd is destined to become the last bit of semi-original product from The B-52's — although they might easily have another Funplex-level album somewhere deep inside their systems — it's a nice, well-rounded swan song. And am I really glad they did not forget about ʽMesopotamiaʼ: this live version is a real atmospheric super-killer even compared to the studio version, which was no slouch either. Thumbs up.

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The B-52's: Funplex

THE B-52'S: FUNPLEX (2008)

1) Pump; 2) Hot Corner; 3) Ultraviolet; 4) Juliet Of The Spirits; 5) Funplex; 6) Eyes Wide Open; 7) Love In The Year 3000; 8) Deviant Ingredient; 9) Too Much To Think About; 10) Dancing Now; 11) Keep This Party Going.

So here is the question. Is it at all possible for the once greatest nerd-party band of all time to still put out something even vaguely credible once its members are all pushing past fifty? (Kate Pier­son, the eldest of the lot, actually turned 60 in 2008). Yes, in the past two decades we have all learned to cope with the «too old to rock'n'roll, too young to die» mentality, and some of us have even been able to come to terms with Grandpa Mick still wiggling his bellybutton with an oxygen tank waiting backstage. But the B-52's — well, there is something different here. Despite Meso­potamia and David Byrne, despite Ricky Wilson's tragic experience, despite all of the ups and downs and changing fashions, they never really managed to grow out of the «college party sound­track» genre — they just reshaped its angles from time to time.

And now, here is one more record from the B-52's — more than fifteen years after the success of Cosmic Thing and Good Stuff gave them enough moolah to finally have the guts to call it a day and retire... for a while. Well, actually, they did not retire as such: they just banned themselves from the studio (only recording a couple new tracks for the 1998 Time Capsule anthology) and cut down on live appearances, but still regularly appeared on public every now and then. Until, it is said, Keith Strickland heard New Order's Get Ready and decided that here was just the kind of sound that the band could turn to their advantage in the 21st century. So they grabbed New Or­der's producer and went into the studio. And?...

Well... I like it. It is advisable to forget about the age problem, or else the vision of a 60-year old Kate Pierson (or is that Cindy? I still have some occasional trouble telling one from the other, not that it seriously matters) opening the show with "I look at you and I'm ready to pump" might be a gross turn­off (unless you're into cougarism, that is). But reality is such that, even after all these years, both Kate and Cindy sound almost exactly the same way they sounded in 1979 — more experienced, perhaps, more professional, disciplined, and taking a little extra care so as not to over-exert themselves, but essentially just ringing out with the same clarity and youthful audacity as they always did. So does Schneider, although this is less of a surprise: his «nerdy-talky» vocal style obviously takes less effort to preserve through the years. Let's take a look at him when he's pushing ninety, and then start expressing admiration.

Also, this new sound works very well. An excellent balance between some new-fangled electro­nics and old-school guitar rock, masterminded by Strickland — everything sounds modern and trendy, yet, at the same time, is quite consistent with the basic legacy of the B-52's. The melodies themselves are not particularly memorable or original, since the main effort, as always, is inves­ted in the pop choruses, but they sound swell: the guitars either pack a good deal of distorted crunch or play funny funky riffs, and the synthesizers throw on a huge variety of tones and modes, imitating organs, electric pianos, strings, jumping from sci-fi to techno to ambient colors with each next number. Yes, everything is way too polished and calculated to hope to match the old glories, but nothing else could be expected anyway ever since Cosmic Thing convinced the band that «polish» is one of the major keys to success. Besides, being reckless and chaotic is fun for the young ones. As you grow older, it is quite natural to calculate your fun in advance.

And these «calculated» songs are all excellent samples of the calculated approach. The first three songs are all fast-paced variations on the same single topic, but they are all exciting variations, and I have no idea which one I like better — "pump it up, give it up, turn up the track!", "shake it to the last round, shimmy in a Lurex gown!", or "lovin' it, lovin' it... ultraviolet!" Maybe the se­cond one, with its echoes of 1960s dance-pop. You might prefer the much more modern ʽUltra­violetʼ. Who cares? "Keep doin' what you're doin' cause you're doin' it right", Schneider says in ʽUltravioletʼ, and that's the ticket indeed.

They actually break away — just a little bit — from the formula only once, on the (still danceable) neo-disco ballad ʽJuliet Of The Spiritsʼ, a surprisingly adequate adaptation of the subject of a Fellini movie (mid-aged matron daring to open up and discover the «sensual world») to the cur­rent B-52's aesthetics (mid-aged perennial nerds still justifying their own seclusion in that same world). The arrangement is a little dumb, especially considering that, while still in their prime, the B-52's normally shunned disco (also in its prime), but the catchy vocal hooks and the reasonable sentiments are still attractive. (And if the song urges somebody to go see Juliet Of The Spirits — well, it ain't one of Fellini's best, for my money, but a little enlightenment never hurt anybody).

After that, the «party» formula reasserts itself in dictatorial mode. "It's a shallow existence, but oh yeah... I need it, I want it, I got to have it" — these words, spoken in breathy, sensual mode (ʽDe­viant Ingredientʼ) pretty much say it all, as usual: superficial shallowness, seriously deepened by some acid irony, which might go unnoticed by those listeners who only saw the B-52's as «party animals», without paying attention to the «nerdy» part of the formula. But even without the irony, these songs have a fine rock sound, lively, pulsating grooves and brilliantly worked out vocal hooks, so what's not to like?

Once it all ends with the aptly titled «message» song ʽKeep This Party Goingʼ ("we've gotta be part of the universe, keep this party going all night long"), you would expect to be tired and worn out from the monotousness — just how many mid-to-fast-tempo party-pop-rockers can one's organism stand without overdosing? — but I never felt any tiredness, certainly not with these sharp brain-needles (like the girls' frenzied "things are getting dirty down in Washing-TOON!...") strategically inserted at all the right spots.

In the end, although, overall, this is a «typically late-period» B-52's record, I'd say that it knocks down Good Stuff with a vengeance, and that it is slightly less embarrassing than Cosmic Thing — and more consistent, too: there are no particular high points here, but this is only because it is hard to imagine how any of these songs, all based upon the same winning formula, could be much better than others. The very fact that the album managed to reach #11 on the US charts — after fifteen years of silence, coming from a band of old nerdy farts, and on a fiercely competitive mar­ket at that — shows how much seductive power this Funplex has, and my own experience does not deny that power, so a thumbs up by all means. Plus, check out their videos from circa around 2008 — hard to believe, yes, but they still look cool (or hot, whichever you prefer).

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The B-52's: Good Stuff

THE B-52'S: GOOD STUFF (1992)

1) Tell It Like It T-I-Is; 2) Hot Pants Explosion; 3) Good Stuff; 4) Revolution Earth; 5) Dreamland; 6) Is That You Mo-Dean?; 7) The World's Green Laughter; 8) Vision Of A Kiss; 9) Breezin'; 10) Bad Influence.

You'd think that, perhaps, a band as nerdy-hip as the B-52's would know better than to respect the law of «never change a winning formula». But apparently, the temptation was too heavy: three years after the successful «sellout» of Cosmic Thing, Freddie «Slick» Schneider and his gang are back, still goaded by Nile Rodgers to do more of the same. Cindy Wilson, however, took some time off, and thus avoided directly involving her name in this project — arguably the silliest and slumpiest in the band's entire career.

Essentially, Good Stuff is just a laughably pale copy of its predecessor. The overall sound is just as generic and just as «non-awful», but the «risqué» songs sound more silly and the «serious» songs sound more boring. The three opening numbers have plenty of energy, but much of it goes to waste already on ʽTell It Like It T-I-Isʼ, which holds a flat boogie pattern over five minutes to inform us that the band wants to «tell it like it is» without saying a word about the «it» in ques­tion — faintly funny for about two minutes, then starts getting repetitive and annoying as heck. ʽHot Pants Explosionʼ puts us shin-deep in sexual territory, blankly firing with some of the stupi­dest lines to grace a B-52's record ("If you would be so kind / Put on those red hot pants and take a stroll through my mind" — what?). And the title track is a certified exercise in double entendres — "gonna wallow in your lovin' hollow", yeah right.

But at least, if all these tracks do make it seem like the band has completely forgotten its magic touch where words are concerned, the dance grooves and Kate Pierson's vocal flourishes on all three are still enough to redeem the sinners. Particularly the flourishes — the lady works authen­tic magic with the aiyee-aiyeehs on ʽTell Itʼ, the whoah-whoahs on ʽHot Pantsʼ, and the bom-bom bom-boms on ʽGood Stuffʼ so fervently that I find all three cases irresistible. Schneider has the unfortunate disadvantage of always sporting the same robotic-nerdy personality that does not al­low for a lot of variation (a robot is a robot) — Kate, with her reckless party gal stance, always gets to be more versatile and expressive.

Once the album starts getting bogged down in less gimmicky compositions, however, not even the vocals help much longer. ʽDreamlandʼ sacrifices seven and a half minutes in an attempt to join dance-pop and psychedelia on a groove that never seems to change upon initial installation and, overall, sounds like it needs many more overdubs and attention to detail in order to achieve its goals. ʽThe World's Green Laughterʼ manages to be a quirky, completely instrumental eco-an­them, but it states its point in thirty seconds and then wastes my time for another hundred and fifty. Finally, ʽVision Of A Kissʼ pushes us into completely generic territory — is this song at all worthy of the B-52's signature? Doesn't it belong in the world of Whitney Houston?..

In this pathetic, undeserving «sequel» attempt to cash in on their newly found fortune, the band seems to have finally «jumped the shark» — taken completely out of context, Good Stuff is a semi-decent dance-pop exercise, but as a conclusion to a fifteen-year old career, it is embarras­sing. Even the sci-fi references (ʽIs That You Mo-Dean?ʼ) now sound wedged in between cliché and nostalgia. And if we can tolerate some tastelessness on the part of these guys — they are too smart, after all, to be disgustingly tasteless — tolerating boredom is something we should not be doing in anybody's case, much less a band that used to regularly infuse their grooves with surpri­singly emotional content.

Yes, Good Stuff is about as exciting as you'd expect any album with such a title to be — if you knew your record was going to be a masterpiece, a title like Good Stuff would hardly be on your list of serious candidates. I am not giving it a thumbs down for only one reason: I am totally in awe over how such an obviously, blatantly fail-oriented record still manages to have occasionally catchy hooks and devote enough care to convincing us that all those thirty or so session musicians  credited in the liner notes actually did play on it. In other words, Good Stuff should have been awful stuff — through some miracle of the human brain, it is actually mediocre stuff. But there is still a long distance to be covered from mediocre to good — or, rather, from merely existing as a band to the stage where that existence continues to be justified. In 1992, there seems to have been little justification for the continuing existence of the B-52's.

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The B-52's: Cosmic Thing

THE B-52'S: COSMIC THING (1989)

1) Cosmic Thing; 2) Dry County; 3) Deadbeat Club; 4) Love Shack; 5) Junebug; 6) Roam; 7) Bushfire; 8) Channel Z; 9) Topaz; 10) Follow Your Bliss.

Three years into Ricky's death, with Keith Strickland switching to guitars and keyboards from drums, the B-52's once again appeared on the scene. Three years can be a long time, though, and this is not quite the same old B-52's we used to know. If there is an objective proof for that, it would be the almost unexpected commercial success — Cosmic Thing went quadruple platinum, spawned a whole bunch of hugely popular singles, and turned the band from semi-underground club favorites into a mainstream attraction. The closest analogy to this whole situation that I can think of is the 1987 «comeback» of Aerosmith.

The good news is that the B-52's did not have to sink to the same bottom of the tastelessness pond that Aerosmith chose to: Cosmic Thing preserves a large chunk of the old spirit, humor, sarcasm, and wittiness. But things have changed. All of the songs here sound extremely polished — calcu­lated, measured, rehearsed, with no space at all left to the delightfully unpredictable «hooliganry» of old. This becomes less surprising when one learns that the album was produced by Nile Rod­gers, the slickness master behind Chic, Bowie's Let's Dance, Madonna's Like A Virgin, and, most notably, Mick Jagger's seminal masterpiece She's The Boss; but that does not make the con­trast between Wilson-era and post-Wilson-era B-52's any less jarring.

Still, it makes little sense to complain. It is clear that after the shock of 1986, the B-52's could no longer be quite the same, and, besides, they were ten years older than when they started — and had every right to polish up their sound, adjusting it to their current age. At least none of these songs sound «unnatural» or, God forbid, «nostalgic». And, furthermore, at the end of the day what really matters is whether these songs have hooks (they have), show intelligence (they do), and manage to cleverly bypass or tone down the sonic clichés of late 1980s pop.

The latter is actually quite important: the music relies on a healthy mix of real drums, guitars, and keyboards (most of them supplied by a host of session musicians; Strickland is the only band member credited with a lot of instrumental work). It is sometimes mildly spoiled with electronic en­hancement, but, on the whole, Cosmic Thing does not come across as something tightly tied to the year of 1989 — most of it could have been recorded, say, in 1981. Only one track, ʽChannel Zʼ, bears the «experimental» trademarks of generic late-Eighties dance-pop, and might therefore polarize audiences; I think it actually works, and the robotic dance-pop arrangement fits in well with the song's thematic message ("I am livin' on Channel Z, getting nothing but static, static in my attic from Channel Z"), but any band that goes all the way from ʽRock Lobsterʼ to ʽChannel Zʼ goes a long way indeed, and once you remember that, it gets a little disturbing.

The big hits — ʽLove Shackʼ, ʽRoamʼ, ʽDeadbeat Clubʼ — are all catchy, pleasant enough pop tunes, and now they mostly work on the contrast between Fred Schneider's eternally nerdy vocals (one thing that hasn't changed a bit since the early days) and Kate and Cindy's now-well-disciplined singing. The reason why they became so popular probably has to do with the «party atmosphere», particularly on ʽLove Shackʼ, which one could almost see coming from the likes of Prince — of course, as usual, the new generation of fans mostly missed the irony. It would be much harder to miss it on ʽDeadbeat Clubʼ, one of the most sentimental tributes to wasting one's life away in the history of pop music, but I suppose that it can be done, too — there are, after all, quite a lot of people who are genuinely happy to belong to the «Deadbeat Club».

Meanwhile, ʽJunebugʼ and ʽBushfireʼ are fast-tempo pop-rockers that mostly get by on the strength of their vocal hooks (wonderful arrangements of the girls' vocals on ʽBushfireʼ, in parti­cular); ʽTopazʼ is a lightly anthemic bit of musical utopia with an atmosphere of disarming inno­cence; and the final instrumental ʽFollow Your Blissʼ is romantic surf-pop with electronic over­tones that certainly makes much more sense than ʽWork That Skirtʼ, for instance.

Essentially, I cannot fault any of these songs — not a single one of them ever drifts towards adult contemporary (an easy temptation) or completely generic dance-pop that places most of its faith in the beat rather than the melody; and I am certainly less troubled about the commercial win of Cosmic Thing than about the insane popularity of late-era Aerosmith, and join the fray with an assured thumbs up. But nobody who wants to understand what the B-52's were «all about» should ever begin with Cosmic Thing, because this here party is set up according to strict rules, whereas classic era B-52's rarely ever gave a damn about rules in the first place.

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The B-52's: Bouncing Off The Satellites

THE B-52'S: BOUNCING OFF THE SATELLITES (1986)

1) Summer Of Love; 2) Girl From Ipanema Goes To Greenland; 3) Housework; 4) Detour Thru Your Mind; 5) Wig; 6) Theme For A Nude Beach; 7) Ain't It A Shame; 8) Juicy Jungle; 9) Communicate; 10) She Brakes For Rainbows.

Goodbye Ricky Wilson, hello 1986. Had we not known the circumstances, it would be tempting to speculate that Ricky Wilson took his own life so as to be free of the terror of witnessing the worst year in musical history, but in reality, of course, he died of AIDS several months after the initial sessions for this record were completed. Predictably, the band plunged into depression, distractedly patched up the final product, released it with relatively little promotion, did not go on tour, and eventually just took a long, long hiatus.

But the main problem with this album is certainly not Ricky's death, since, after all, most of it was written and much of it was recorded while he was still alive, and carefully concealing his ill­ness from his friends and relatives. The main problem... wait, there are two main problems, actu­ally. First, that musically they have practically completed the transition to regular synth-pop. Not all of the record is electronic, but when the opening number populates the entire first minute with nothing but drum machines and synths, you know where the priorities lie.

Second, and even worse, is the realization that the band's ship finally collided with the reef of seriousness, and it isn't the reef that's going down. From top to bottom, Bouncing Off The Satellites is loaded with quasi-sincere romanticism (ʽSummer Of Loveʼ, ʽShe Brakes For Rain­bowsʼ), social messagism (ʽCommunicateʼ), eco-friendly anthemism (ʽJuicy Jungleʼ), and stone-faced absurdism (ʽGirl From Ipanema Goes To Greenlandʼ, a straightforward synth-rocker whose title is far more interesting than its contents).

There is only one number on the entire album that tries to recreate the old party atmosphere, and in doing that, it goes over the top — ʽWigʼ, celebrating the principal visual fetish of the band's en­tire career, ultimately sounds like somebody's rather flat parody on the B-52's, filled with cheap «wig humor» and minimal lyrics. And in the context of the album its absurdly fast tempos, «ex­uberant» group harmonies, and repetitive mantras ("wigs on fire, wigs on fire!") sound like some­thing they forced on themselves at the last minute ("hey guys, this thing's coming out too morose, let's make the silliest song in the universe or something").

It is not utterly without redeem. The band still remembers the craft of vocal hooks, the girls and Fred are still in fine voice, and they still know how to weave a good mood, even if the thread now consists of about 80% electronic fiber. ʽShe Brakes For Rainbowsʼ, in particular, is a very pretty conclusion, which could, in a way, be seen as Cindy's paradise-evoking eulogy for her brother: considering the circumstances, Bouncing Off The Satellites could be justified to end on a color­ful, melancholic-romantic note. Pierson's ʽHouseworkʼ is hilarious — a wicked send-up of the «tough girl» image of 1980's pop culture that you could read literally, ironically, or both ("don't need a man to make me mean / I need a man to help me clean"). And ʽDetour Through Your Mindʼ, Fred's stream-of-conscious collage of sci-fi, psychedelia, and social critique run through a simple, but not too annoying dance track and the girls' cloudy harmonies, merits additional listens (including a backwards one, in order to decode the spoken message at the end — which, unlike Wiki­pedia, I won't ruin for you).

I have also learned to near-enjoy ʽJuicy Jungleʼ, despite its straightforward environmentalism (nothing wrong with environmentalism, but when I want to hear about jungle preservation, I don't think Fred Schneider should be the first person I'd have in mind) — the «stern» chorus is just too catchy. On the other hand, ʽSummer Of Loveʼ and ʽGirl From Ipanemaʼ let their synth-pop arran­gements overshadow the vocals, vibes, and lyrics; and ʽTheme For A Nude Beachʼ is literally the worst B-52's song up to date — it gets easier to swallow if you keep reminding yourself that it is really a parody on the decade's epitome-of-tastelessness «beach romance dance numbers», but it's still hard to do because the song itself, every now and then, seems to forget that it's a parody and takes on a quasi-serious life of its own.

Overall, I'm on the fence here — initial pure hatred for this record has slowly dissipated once the hooks and some intelligence came through, so, in the end, I would just regard it as an ill-fated product of its epoch, infected by its most frequent viruses. All of these songs could have been written and recorded in 1979, with a completely different effect. One should hardly force oneself to like Bouncing Off The Satellites, but to me, it is clearly a product of a «misguided» band here rather than that of a «washed up» one. In retrospect, we can probably forgive and ignore the flaws — in a way, it's a wonder that, given the circumstances, they still managed to come up with something listenable in the first place — and concentrate on the strengths.

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The B-52's: Whammy!

THE B-52'S: WHAMMY! (1983)

1) Legal Tender; 2) Whammy Kiss; 3) Song For A Future Generation; 4) Butterbean; 5) Trism; 6) Queen Of Las Vegas; 7) Moon 83; 8) Big Bird; 9) Work That Skirt.

Goodbye David Byrne, hello electronic age. The B-52's have tasted maturity and found it some­what unpalatable, so Whammy! is all about rolling back into nerdy adolescence, but with proper respect to changing musical tastes. The biggest technical change is that this time around, only two out of five members are credited for actually playing any instruments — Strickland and Wilson handle all the guitars, bass, keyboards, and percussion duties, with synthesizers and drum machi­nes being far more notable than anything else (there is also a small brass section guesting on ʽBig Birdʼ), whereas Schneider and the girls only contribute their vocal talents — that is, besides wri­ting most of the material.

The discrimination of guitars in favor of electronics was trendy at the time, but, like most of such decisions, turned out to be «artistically incorrect» in the long run. «Live» instrumentation was an essential part of the early B-52's, and their quirky guitar riffs were just as important in creating their nerd party atmosphere as the vocals. The electronic arrangements are not as good an alterna­tive to go along with that atmosphere, although, to be honest, there is still plenty of guitar parts scattered around, and the synth melodies try, as best they can, to generate the same cheesy mix of mystery and hilariousness as the earlier stuff, so my main beef is probably with the drum machi­nes — most of the drum machine parts do not offer us a good reason for being there. Peter Gab­riel could handle them meaningfully, but the B-52's just used them because everybody else did at the time, with hordes of angry hungry drummers in line for the soup kitchen.

On the good side of things, the B-52's had not yet traveled a sufficiently long way with Byrne so as to be unable to slip back into their old hooliganish skins. Four years deep into their recording career, they can still easily plunge you into the same old world of New Wave-processed pop culture — best illustrated on the album's two «shiniest» tracks, ʽSong For A Future Generationʼ and ʽButterbeanʼ. The former was released as a single and remains one of the band's most de­fining anthems — every member voices his or her Zodiac sign and all the band joins together in listing every pop cliché they can recollect ("wanna be the captain of the Enterprise / wanna be the king of the Zulus / let's meet and have a baby now!"). And everybody gets so involved that it is al­most tempting to forget the irony. Fortunately, tempting, but impossible.

The rest of the songs cling to more particular mini-subjects: the lyrics usually stick together in little storylines, such as a tale of successful counterfeiters in ʽLegal Tenderʼ, or an account of a successful gambling strategy in ʽQueen Of Las Vegasʼ, or an ode to sci-fi means of transportation in ʽTrismʼ, or ʽBig Birdʼ, which, as amazing as it is, is really a song about a big bird. These are all fairly straightforward subjects, and the real charm of all these songs is in how vehemently, with complete devotion and abandon, Fred and the girls launch into the respective deliveries — which is where it all turns from triviality into high-class absurd.

Mind you — not nearly as high-class as in the «old days», when the lyrics used to be more unde­cipherable and the guitar passages took active part in the formation of silly mysteries. Whammy!, from an overall part of view, is more straightforward and accessible. In addition, ʽMoon 83ʼ is a somewhat unnecessary electronic remake of the earlier ʽThere's A Moon In The Skyʼ (as it now stands — replacing the track on the original LP, which was a cover of Yoko Ono's ʽDon't Worry Kyokoʼ, later taken off for legal reasons), and the final instrumental ʽWork That Skirtʼ is a rather bland bit of «electronic boogie» that could really use some vocal hooks.

All of which makes Whammy! much less than perfect — yet it is still a bona fide B-52's album, capturing the band in a youthful, experimental (maybe a bit too experimental for their own good), and razor-sharp state of mind. Look past some of its dated aspects and who knows, you might be chanting "come on mammy, give me that whammy" in no time. Thumbs up.

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The B-52's: Mesopotamia

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.

The B-52's: Wild Planet

WILD PLANET (1980)

1) Party Out Of Bounds; 2) Dirty Back Road; 3) Runnin' Around; 4) Give Me Back My Man; 5) Private Idaho; 6) Devil In My Car; 7) Quiche Lorraine; 8) Strobe Light; 9) 53 Miles West Of Venus.

This sophomore offspring is by no means a «slump» — it just lacks the novelty and immediacy of its predecessor. The B-52's hit upon a winning formula, and they were not willing to let it go too quickly. Same lineup, same ideology, even the same recording studio (Compass Point at Nas­sau, Bahamas — a perfectly fine place to record wild party albums), even some of the songs were really old standards that they had played live since 1977. And the public had enough time to catch on as well — Wild Planet fared much better on the charts, since the band was by then a well-es­tablished phenomenon.

That said, even if we do know now what exactly to expect from the B-52's, and this friction slows down the excitement force a little bit, the tunes themselves are still consistently strong. Guitar riffs, vocal hooks, energetic tempos are all there, and, most importantly, so is the general «bite» of the band — if anything, they are getting snappier, ridiculing social conventions by the dozen with most people probably not even noticing that they are getting ridiculed.

The punk roots of the band show best of all on ʽPrivate Idahoʼ, which has the sharpest, stingiest «rockabilly-punk» riff of them all (reminiscent of ʽBrand New Cadillacʼ by the Clash) and obscure character assassination lyrics that may just as well be assassinating sociopaths and socialites alike (well, the line "you're living in your own Private Idaho" could easily be taken both ways). The inclusion of the song is a great move — since most of the other tunes are either about partying or about surrealistic kitsch, it sort of sets the band straight for those who would like to dismiss Wild Planet as simply one more bunch of meaningless decadent fluff.

But it's not like that at all, really. The opening single ʽParty Out Of Boundsʼ is not just hilarious — it is also thought-provoking, a wild romp where Schneider and Pierson lambast the party cul­ture to bits (which never prevented the song from becoming a cult party anthem, of course), and the culmination, with the girls chanting "party gone out of bounds, party gone out of bounds" is so symbolic of the B-52's entire existence that Schneider eventually ended up using the song title for his own radio show. ʽStrobe Lightʼ is an irresistibly fast R'n'B dance number, first and fore­most, but also a clear-cut hyperbolic satire on club culture excesses ("wanna make love to you under the strobe light" — yeah, right), featuring the immortal original innuendo "then I'm gonna kiss your... pineapple!" And ʽQuiche Lorraineʼ — now here is an anti-socialite rant if there ever was one, masked in a heart-rending story about the relations between a poodle and her owner.

While there are no melodies on the record that are as instantaneously seductive as the guitar / or­gan interplay of ʽPlanet Claireʼ, every song has at least something going for it in the line of vocal hooks (these usually consist of the girls chanting the song's title or whoo-hoo-hooing), and the keyboards rarely get in the way of pop guitars. That, in fact, is the main problem for the reviewer: the formula is so diligently observed on each of the songs that, mood-wise, there is almost no dif­ference between them, and there is no point in trying to discuss minuscule stuff like the slightly bigger emphasis on paranoia in ʽRunnin' Aroundʼ versus the touch stronger accent on obsessive-compulsive disorder on ʽGive Me Back My Manʼ.

Overall, Wild Planet is a modest success that should be swallowed in one gulp — you could try and take away individualistic highlights (starting with ʽPrivate Idahoʼ), but why? The songs are relatively short, the whole album only runs 35 minutes, and everything is linked together thema­tically as one large, hyperbolic send-up of all the ridiculous things that make people part of the same society. Funny, catchy, kitschy, and smart, there is no way that the album does not deserve an almost equally heartfelt thumbs up as its predecessor.

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The B-52's: The B-52's

THE B-52'S: THE B-52'S (1979)

1) Planet Claire; 2) 52 Girls; 3) Dance This Mess Around; 4) Rock Lobster; 5) Lava; 6) There's A Moon In The Sky (Called The Moon); 7) Hero Worship; 8) 6060-842; 9) Downtown.

For all of punk and New Wave's pretense to «alleviating» the heavy, stuffy atmosphere in which prog-rock and arena-rock acts had plunged popular music in the first half of the 1970s, most punk and New Wave acts were fairly stuffy themselves. The songs were either too rabid and angry or too intellectualized, the sound was too quirkily non-traditional, the whole «new school» approach required some getting used to (and many never really got used to it anyway). The Ramones could claim a serious teen pop influence, but they were still punks first and foremost. Only Blondie could be seen as a «fluffy» act, perhaps, but one might question whether Blondie had much to do with «New Wave» at all — mainly in appearance, much less in the music itself.

So when the B-52's came along, and they stuck around for two years at least before landing a se­rious recording contract, the niche they decided to occupy was practically empty — even if, of all the available niches, it was one of the most glaring: combine all these quirky New Wave influen­ces with kitsch, bubblegum, pop culture fetishism, and see what happens. The album cover alone, with its flashy colors, oversize wigs, and fashions that seem stuck somewhere in between the 1960s and 1970s, speaks volumes about what this record might turn out to be: lots of vapor-hea­ded fun with a healthy dose of self-irony, annoying «serious» music lovers, but delighting nerdy college students all over the college world.

Or it could be just a dumb, unmemorable, chaotic load of cretinous kitsch. Fortunately, already the opening track, ʽPlanet Claireʼ, confirms the positive impression. Riding on a grim, but seduc­tive surf-rock / James-Bond riff (they eventually had to co-credit the song to Henry Mancini because of its similarity to the Peter Gunn theme) combined with a robotic organ part that the band might have just as well picked up from Kraftwerk, it's a stylish, thrilling, and completely meaningless dance ride. But by combining the word "planet", invoking psychedelic associations, with the French name Claire, invoking Eric Rohmer and stylish European retro-modern à la 1960s, the B-52's create an illusion that the song is about something — maybe about the seduc­tive magic of fads? — and the guitar/organ duet on the tune still remains one of the most memo­rable flashes of the decade's end.

However, the first time that the B-52's had really caught the public eye was with ʽRock Lobsterʼ, a track that has all the same ingredients as ʽPlanet Claireʼ but keeps them going for a longer peri­od of time, and, more importantly, makes better use of all the vocal talent aboard — Fred Schnei­der sings the absurd lyrics about catching rock lobsters in his best stern Krautrock impersonation, while the band's ladies, Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson, surround him with single and double harmonies, calls-and-responses that tremble, bleat, wheeze, and bounce off each other like a set of pop harmony clichés that, all of a sudden, felt itself bad in the head and had to be straightjacke­ted. Here is the song that killed John Lennon — according to his own words, ʽRock Lobsterʼ was one of the main reasons he returned to an active music career, since it reminded him of what he and Yoko were doing in the early days of Plastic Ono Band. (And, it is true, some of the girls' vocalizing does owe a good deal to Yoko's brand of avantgarde «Nip-pop»).

The formula mostly stays the same throughout the album — sparkling surf-pop or power-pop riffs dressed in New Wave organs, B-movie-influenced lyrics, and inventive vocal arrangements that pin Schneider's overzealous nerdiness against the ladies' «pseudo-bimbo» lines that want to be Yoko Ono one minute and the Shangri-Las the next one. And this is not mentioning that most of the songs are crazily catchy — ʽThere's A Moon In The Skyʼ and ʽ52 Girlsʼ are de­licious swin­ging vignettes; ʽLavaʼ rocks as hard as its relatively wimpy arrangement allows a song whose ly­rics involve lines like "My heart's cracking like a Krakatoa"; ʽ6060-842ʼ is an obvious throwback to young and innocent days when sympathetic, sexy R&B performers could turn phone numbers into hits (ʽBeechwood 4-5789ʼ) — hey, what's a bona fide pop album without a good phone call song?; and the cover of Petula Clark's ʽDowntownʼ dissipates any final doubts about the record's major influences, if you still had any by the time the last track comes along.

In short, thirty years before the Pipettes, there were the B-52's, who showed the world what it really means to preserve the bubblegum legacy without falling into the trap of generic nostalgia — the best way to preserve old stuff is to carefully mix it with the new stuff. And this mix, al­most completely unique for 1979, is really what raises The B-52's status of «dumb catchy pop» to «landmark recording» — and also what makes it so timeless, because it still sounds just as lo­vingly bizarre, and endearing, today as it did back in the age of leisure suits and walrus mous­taches. Thumbs up, of course.

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