The B-52's
Wild Planet

THE REVIEW

Maybe you don't know, but...

... "even before New York and L.A. discovered it, Entertainment! was the soundtrack of all the parties in Athens".

It's not me saying this, but the singer of a band... let's say, QUITE famous from Athens. The most famous. He says it referring to a time when he still had hair. Come on, it's not that hard to figure out...

If you put on "Party Out Of Bounds", track no.1, with its fade-in that gradually raises the volume of Keith Strickland's snare/shotgun and Kate Pierson's synth-bass, you'll hear (after a few seconds) the late Ricky Wilson strum a metallic chord that will remarkably remind you of Andy Gill. The Gang Of Four were devoured in Athens during those months. Little to say. But the "entertainment" of the B-52's was entertainment in the strictest and most laugh-filled sense possible. Athens wasn't Leeds, there were no steel factories; there was the spirit of the college town where all the South's crazy deviants arrived (mostly to study art) and wore wigs and thrift-shop clothes for the sheer fun of it, to "be strange" at night. Athens wasn’t even New York: when the B-52's landed up there, it was like landing on another planet – the environment was too depressed, too intellectual, too inclined to take itself seriously. And they didn’t know the meaning of the word "serious".

If you want to understand who the B-52's are, go watch a video of "Dirty Back Road" - preferably from '80 or so. For someone like me who has always kept a respectful distance from dance floors, and never lived through or understood disco music, seeing Cindy Wilson and Kate Pierson MOVE while singing that piece was a revelation. They were cool as hell, way more than John Travolta and Newton-John – bleah... Cindy with an aircraft carrier on her head, Kate looking like Ann Margret in some movie with Elvis. Sparkling B-movie '50s outfits, heavy makeup: pure kitsch, so brazen it was sublime. EVERYTHING was sublime in those three minutes, and the lyrics (a triumph of double entendres) were not a detail: "you RIDE me like a road" (!), over chords that infectious doesn't begin to describe. And when at the end they started the synchronized "dance" on the tile, it was nothing short of an apotheosis.

And even more enjoyable was listening to two voices blending perfectly. Because Cindy and Kate sang (and sing) like goddesses. But they wouldn't have achieved the status of a perfect party band if between them there wasn't that non-singer, animator, driving force (and great musical brain) that is Fred Schneider. When "Rock Lobster" and the first LP came out, they were the absolute new-thing, and just a few months later they replicated with this second album that - in part - loses a touch of unpredictability, but still holds surprises (just by skimming through the titles)...

...imagine an avid Yes fan asking you, to stump you, what a "topographic ocean" is. Well, you don't need to resurrect faded school memories to silence him, you would just need to counter-question: "And why, do you know what it is, a PRIVATE IDAHO...?". Oh-oh-oh. "Private Idaho" is a masterful piece. For the music (the guitar riff that reveals Ricky's surf training, Kate’s organ sound that preludes to the refrain), but also for the lyrics. Idaho is a metaphor of isolation and sociopathy, a luxurious villa opening onto a bottomless blue pool, and that pool signifies the whirlpool of depression. For this, the song’s message is: "yes, enjoy yourself as much as you can in your golden refuge outside the world, but be very careful (YOU BETTER BEWARE, Fred’s voice sounds menacing), because behind the beautiful facade lies a nasty surprise...". How many party bands could write lyrics of this level?

And how many could transition from the futuristic post-punk of "Running Around" and "Devil In My Car" to the dark scenarios of "Quiche Lorraine", to the stroboscopic rockabilly of "Strobe Light", before reserving an interstellar jaunt "53 Miles West of Venus" for the final 5 minutes of spaced-out cosmic hallucinations...?

...but if you want my personal Masterpiece, that’s "Give Me Back My Man": a rhythm in which there’s all the New Wave of 1980, a tightened sonic structure enriched by ruthless electro-percussions, and... lyrics that encompass all the B-52’s - "I'll give you FISH, I'll give you CANDY, I'll give you everything you want, but you give me back my man...". And that's not all: it’s a spectacular proof of Cindy’s vocal range and endurance - listen closely to the lines "if she don’t get her man back she’s gonna drown", and hear how many moments the "O" of "drown" is prolonged... And in the final part – having fun with overdubbing – a personal concert of voices and counter-voices is constructed to great effect.

Real rating: 4 and something. Personal rating: no less than 5...

...but in this case, I make subjectivity prevail.