B-52’s (1979) The B-52’s

Written by Adrian McLean

I cannot stand R.E.M. On paper, I really should like them. In practice, I feel that all of their songs are two minutes too long. My neighbour, on the other hand, loves R.E.M. He seems to derive a particular joy from playing them loudly in the middle of the night. The only other thing I know about this neighbour is that his favourite R.E.M. song seems to be 1991’s Shiny Happy People. Hated by many R.E.M. fans, this is also my favourite R.E.M. song! I first heard it during one of his late night jam sessions and was immediately taken aback by the harmonies. Behind Michael Stipe’s anxious, too-earnest lead vocal, a woman sings with absolute conviction and a striking force. This woman is Kate Pierson, one fifth of The B-52’s. And yes, that apostrophe is supposed to be there. 

Hailing from R.E.M.’s home town of Athens, Georgia, The B-52’s are half band, half costume party. The cover of their debut album, B-52’s, almost prepares you for the 40-minute riot of absurdist, kitschy rock-n-roll that follows. Each member of the band is dressed like they’re in a low-budget James Bond parody. Opening track Planet Claire immediately captures the spirit of the band’s oeuvre. Ricky Wilson’s guitar is sparse and angular, punctuated by sharp, discordant synth stabs that build a rising tension. And then it gets weird. The lyrics seem to parody the science-fiction B-movies of 1950s drive-ins, but its overtly silly premise (a planet of immortal beings presumably all called Claire?) suggests a real love of the source material. The B-52’s are just as sincere as R.E.M. but without Stipe’s treacly soul-searching - they are truly and sincerely ridiculous. Their biggest hit from the album is the seven minute long surf-rock number Rock Lobster. The lyrics are complete nonsense, delivered alternately in Fred Schneider’s lisping drill-sergeant cadence and his falsetto yelps. The energy is infectious, and the surreal sound effects delivered by Pierson and Cindy Wilson manage to feel like an utterly anarchic, euphoric rejection of good taste. 

Much of the album’s fun comes from this feeling of being in on the band’s joke; their lyrics feel like first-drafts, if not at times completely improvised, delivered mostly with deadpan seriousness. The second track, 52 Girls, has an aggressive, punk energy, and consists purely of a list of women’s names. The names are chanted like slogans, and their retro flavour - ‘Madge and Mabel and Biddie’ - accentuates the band’s garage-rock twist on their obvious Motown roots. ‘Jackie O.’ is namedropped, referring to Jackie Kennedy. With her signature beehive and dark glasses, she’s an obvious style icon for Pierson and Wilson. There’s also ‘Anita.’ As most of the names allude to pop icons of the 1950s and 60s, I can’t help but wonder if this is an ironic reference to Anita Bryant: short-lived popstar, orange juice saleswoman, and raging homophobe. By 1979, her campaign against LGBT civil rights was two years underway in The B-52s’ neighbouring Florida. Though this is only conjecture, it leads me onto the band’s vocal, front and centre queerness. Throughout the album, gendered expectations are playfully invoked and subverted (see Rock Lobster’s ‘boys in bikinis / girls with surfboards’). In the underrated track 6060-842, Schneider campily narrates the story of Tina and her futile attempts to dial a number from the womens’ bathroom for a (dryly conservative) ‘very nice time.’ The song presents a surprisingly rich queer text - it invokes the cruising culture of the pre-AIDS era, inverting the gender of the speaker. It may be cheating to bring up a song that’s not on the album, but it reminds me of contemporaneously recorded Song For A Future Generation: the members of the band are effectively playing dress up, performing a drag parody of heterosexuality. 

The band’s jokes don’t always land. There’s a Moon in the Sky (Called the Moon) takes a similar anti-humour factual tone as 52 Girls. Comparatively, it feels uninspired - ‘well there’s a moon / it’s in the sky / it’s called the moon’ is a real nothing-burger of a lyric. Still, There’s a Moon features one of the best guitar tones on the album. Ricky Wilson plays simple riffs in unusual tunings, and really shines on this song. The guitar rings out cleanly, playing chords rather than his usual monophonic countermelodies, but his staccato delivery still complements the drums to drive the song forward. On the other hand, some of the slips into melodrama are genuinely effective when juxtaposed with the deadpan irreverence of the whole album. Dance This Mess Around opens with Cindy Wilson in a rare moment of candour, accusing a love interest of playing games when he only means to break her heart. She oozes charisma, carrying a level of pathos to otherwise unserious songs. Lava likewise slows down the pace and features a growling, sludgy riff, underscoring the silly innuendo of the lyrics with tension. 

Ultimately, the album is a difficult one to review. The B-52’s have maintained a cult following for decades, and I unabashedly love them. However, I’ve been unsuccessful in converting anyone who doesn’t already share my enthusiasm. Even in the aforementioned ‘serious’ songs, the band seem allergic to such moments if they’re not undercut with jokes. In Dance This Mess Around, Wilson half screams the line ‘why won’t you dance with me?’ as the backing track builds in intensity and discordance. Yet the song quickly tips into absurdity; she begins listing fictitious dances (‘do the shu-ga-loo, do the shy tuna’) and Schneider demands that the audience ‘do ‘em RIGHT!’ You might criticise this approach for feeling flippant, unwilling to open up in the way that their New Wave peers such as Pylon and Blondie frequently do. I’d have to disagree. Not only does their total commitment to the bit make The B-52’s truly unique, but in their best moments it becomes something like a philosophy. Their biggest hit, 1989’s Love Shack, is a tribute to the sudden loss of Ricky Wilson to AIDS in 1985, but you’d never know it - the lyrics are fun, goofy, and innuendo-filled as ever. That is why I love the B-52’s. They’re weirdos, outsiders, and clowns: they don’t care if you dance along to their music or not, because they know you can’t resist it.