The B-52s: B-52s (Island)
Jon Savage, Melody Maker, 30 June 1979
Yesterday's Sound Tomorrow
NO ONE can do the (Boogaloo) like I do. Or something.
Why do all these new American groups come on like cartoons? (And then, not doing it proper, omit to get animated for kids' TV...just who will be the next Archies?)
While British A&R departments settle into blotting up heavy-metal bands or picking the head of the small-label crop, and fashion trips up over the "Mod Revival", the American riposte to punk-as-style (and thus, stylistic rebellion) gets into gear: all those groups who fuelled off the energy they heard was happening, or who – the American way – saw NBC's punk report.
Evolving in a decentralised, mega-dominated context, they chose and need to bounce off a localised and centralised market which is small yet influential out of all proportion (that's England, by the way) to gain the dream: fame and fortune. Meantime Island will use them to "move into the Eighties."
The true sound of the Eighties: cash-registers ringing with money that can't buy anything...
So why...? It's the American way: "He don't have roots/and he's proud of it." A saturation diet of media, especially TV, life as images, social fragmentation, people divorced from the consequences of their actions. Dynamism yet heartlessness. Life lived in freeze-frame. Bombardment leading to synthesis as the only escape. Fragmentation through success as the only goal makes collapse the more obvious, yet the means of dealing with it harder. How to start? Awww – why bother? Hedonism, solipsism, cuteness: Everybody Watusi! Everybody do the Megabuck!
Well, sometimes England's not that much better, and, all that apart, the B-52s are infectious fun, occasionally cutting. If the Cramps – latest reference point – plunder one American underbelly, the B-52s feast off another angle: teenbeat wackiness, fads, hula-hoops, kids-next-door rinky-dink gangs, Oxfam (or rather, thrift-store) fun, endless bad TV programmes. Everything is, forever, ginchy. (Except it's Manhattan, and Gidget doesn't live there anymore).
The music is an apt amalgam of influences: dance, garbage and garage – from the Randells to the Human Beinz – through girl groups – the Adlibs to Petula Clark – to more obvious moderns like Patti Smith. Wide-ranging, and – yes! – their roots do show, but most often the synthesis is carried off with wit, style and freshness.
Much of the wit has to do with a well-developed sense of the absurd as well as flash-fast word-play. In this, the occasional shrieks, high harmonies and sharp gurgles of Cindy and Kate are a constant delight. And, in best garage tradition they have all the asides down.
The music behind them is a constant, skeletal yet kinetic mixture of tight rhythm section – bass, drums and Stax-style rhythm guitar – and chips of weedy, piping ? & the Mysterians organ. Light yet forceful. As with many beat groups however, they walk a tightrope: while they're walking, you want to boogaloo too, when they fall...it's into candy-floss – a throw-away cuteness.
But, I suppose permanence is never the name of the game. At their most mundane, the B-52s threaten to fall into that self-conscious Sixties revivalism that is being set up for the next mainstream of American music – a new conservatism.
Sometimes, you can too easily hear the sound of not-so-distant influences: the opener, 'Planet Claire' (a pink-tinged '(I Married A) Monster From Outer Space') whizzes the rhythm riff straight off 'Secret Agent Man', adding only mildly offbeat lyrics and suitable space noises. 'There's A Moon In The Sky' rabbits on about Red Kryptonite, with charming asides like "You better move over/Here comes a supernova" yet remains rooted in Sixties love. Their charming – again that word! – yet faux-naif version of Petula Clark's 'Downtown' suggests that perhaps such deliberate innocence may be one way of coping with the Big Apple. Else, it's revivalist kitsch. Surely, no-one can be that innocent anymore?
Within that kitsch ambiguity lie the B-52s strengths and weaknesses. It provides freshness, yet leaves a soft centre, which may well mean that the group, like to many others have already (including – loosely – their English counterpart, the Rezillos), will crumple before market pressures and dynamics.
'606 0842' injects a slightly new twist (or frug) into the old 'No Reply' routine: man finds number in 'phone booth, rings to "have a good time", finds number disconnected. "Sorry," the girls croon, "sorry."
Side One ends with two conceptually perfect dance craze tunes: 'Do The Mess Around' mixes spoilt suburban voices with instructions on how to do the "Mess Around", plus guest dances the "Hypocrite", the "Dirty Dog", and the "Camel Walk", which I'm anxious to reprise in front of the mirror. 'Rock Lobster', their only 45, is here given an extended treatment, a fuller, more ludicrous guide through nether depths: how you react to the idea of the line "Here comes a norwhal" sung with accompanying ridiculous noise may well determine your reaction to the whole album.
As a litmus, 'Rock Lobster' isn't bad: it highlights both the charm and the lurking flimsiness of the B-52s approach. Perhaps it's the production (which isn't proper), but both songs don't make you want to shimmy like they should: 'Lobster's length, in particular, is only redeemed when the girls come out of a near halt with pure Yoko Ono shrills.
Yet: there are three songs I have shimmied to. 'Hero Worship' has, somehow, a deeper sound and vocals, which while more obviously indebted to Patti Smith, cut where others merely skate. The aces are 'Hot Lava' and '52 Girls'. The former has similarly Smithlike, yet emotional vocals and clever, slurring words ("Hot lava/lover": a conceit performed with pizazz). '52 Girls' is the album's only claim to greatness: a song which transcends the apparent banality of subject – in the true American way, they're talking about themselves – to become a manifesto. To do what? Produce dance music with emotion, without pandering or underestimating. I hope they achieve it. The swooping vocals (female) tease the music, which for once really drives.
Pop is such a messy way for people to trade their lives for fame – but people need it, and I'm glad the B-52s bothered. They'll be good live – the bare bones of the album given flesh, their good humour and sense of fun made more immediate.
As for the album itself, it ultimately appears (as do the group) as a witty, danceable, sophisticated cabaret. Yet, realistically, '52 Girls' would be as good on the radio as the best disco. At least, let's have new flesh aired!
© Jon Savage, 1979
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