My All-Timers: 15. The B-52’s — The B-52's
For a few months in the summer of 1999, as I was taking Driver’s Ed and contemplating what 16 would feel like, I could not explain what exactly had happened to me: I was a punk rock kid obsessed with The B-52’s. The band that any friend of mine would only have been able to identify as the lame weirdos behind “Love Shack” had taken over my life. “Rock Lobster” especially wouldn’t leave my head, and I wondered if it was my new favorite song ever. Pretty much anyone to whom I revealed this obsession gave me a friendly pat on the back and a hearty “No thanks.”
It became clear as to why I had latched onto The B-52’s that fall when I took a Photo Art class, taught by Mr. Weiss. He was a curly-haired, somewhat wild-eyed and frenetic personality who was wholly unlike any other teacher at Johnston High School. He regarded my XL Anti-Flag shirts with a friendly raised eyebrow, but his opinion of me completely shifted when it somehow came up that I loved The B-52's.
Mr. Weiss leapt from his chair and opened his cabinet door to reveal a huge B-52’s Mesopotamia poster. He came around his desk and almost hugged me, telling me he never got to have students who loved The B-52’s beyond just “Love Shack.” From then on, I could do no wrong. And trust me, I did a lot of wrong because I am terrible at art of all kinds, especially photography. But when I wrote a paper about one of my pictures, Mr. Weiss wrote in the middle of it, almost as an aside, “You are an excellent writer. Do you know this?” You can pretty much blame the fact that I still actively write today on this one comment, which gave me all the confidence I ever needed to put words together for the world to see.
But Mr. Weiss also made clear what it was that drew me to The B-52’s: the freedom felt by smart people to act stupid. Mr. Weiss was a genius who frequently made himself the butt of the joke. That’s exactly what The B-52’s did too. They were brainy, fun-loving college students from Athens, Georgia who joined up in an effort to make silly music that people could dance to, brainiacs and idiots alike. Their self-titled debut album is the purest example of this goal, and it still sounds like it was made by cool aliens from a cooler future.
As stated, “Rock Lobster” remained one of my absolute favorite songs of all time. It’s in the Top 10, at least. And why do I adore it so? It’s that riff — dirty, low-tuned, plunked out on a lousy guitar with four strings and yet carrying all the attitude in the world. Entire civilizations could be built on that riff. And I was delighted to read an interview years later in which co-lead vocalist Kate Pierson told the story of the band writing “Rock Lobster:” she walked into their practice spot and found guitarist Ricky Wilson with a grin on his face, and he told her, “I’ve just written the stupidest guitar line ever.” There is a hilarious irony in the guy responsible for one of my favorite riffs ever saying it’s the stupidest. And it also proves my point, that stupidity does a good job of hiding itself in plain sight.
And just look at the sheer exuberance in that video, as they were lip-syncing for some worthless hits TV show. What I love so much about The B-52’s in this era is that they did the absolute dumbest things with the straightest possible face. They are singing a song about a lobster made of rock’n’roll or something, and it’s at a beach party and there are lots of wild sea creatures making crazy noises, but you would never know this if you just watched them. They take this so seriously. Fred Schneider dances like a man who has never seen anyone actually dance, yet he never cracks a smile. Pierson and Cindy Wilson sing ridiculous backing vocals with all the conviction of an impassioned 60’s girl group. They let you in on the joke while never actually appearing to do so.
If I have another favorite on The B-52’s, it has to be “Dance This Mess Around.” It serves as a sufficient mission statement for this group of nutjobs, but that’s the second half of the song. The first two minutes belong to Cindy, who recalls a former lover over a tentative beat with just Pierson’s keyboard and Keith Strickland’s insistent drumming. Everyone else hangs back while Cindy rails against this man for refusing to dance with her, at first declaring that she’s not a “limburger,” but then admitting to being a limburger. A dork, a weirdo. But just before she reaches the edge of despair, Fred jumps in and tells her to dance this mess around, and the song shifts into a total rave-up in which all three singers tell us about a place where people “do all sixteen dances,” which you better believe are all shouted out: the Aqua Velva, the Camel Walk, the Dirty Dog…you name it. The B-52’s can dance it.
Nothing they did after this record erases the magic that surrounds it. They got much more openly silly when they put out Cosmic Thing and did “Love Shack,” but that record made them millionaires who can still go out on tour so many years later, so I don’t begrudge them at all for that. I even paid a good chunk of change to see them a couple years ago at a casino in Riverside, IA, where we were seated in a sterile casino conference hall with a couple thousand people who refused to stand up for the entire show. So I’m way in the back, feeling the social pressure to stay in my seat, but tapping my feet and smiling like crazy at the sight of these wonderful titans of music standing a hundred feet in front of me. And I realize that 40 years after they started, even playing for mostly old people at a casino, The B-52’s are still telling a joke through their songs, and the joke is still very funny.
