♫ Before I talk, I should read a POLL! ♪ ILM Artist Poll #93 ♪ B-52’s ♫

I couldn't not vote for "Love Shack", but my love for it diminished a bit over the years from overhearing it. It was the video that introduced little me to RuPaul and shocked my mother, so it still holds a special place in my heart.

“Ain’t it a Shame” really the hidden gem of their catalogue, and reason alone to check out BOTS.

I liked your Chevy Duster
I liked your brand new trailer
I liked your colour TV
But you looked at that colour TV
More than me

I never noticed the error in that first line. Plymouth made Dusters, not Chevy.

and they should know better, having cited the Plymouth Satellite in "Planet Claire"!

Oh it's so hot
Oh, it's burnin' up in here
Oh look out, it's about to erupt
Oh, my body's burning like a lava from a Mauna Loa
Let it flow!

who is ready for the top 15?

yeah!

https://i.imgur.com/MviectO.jpg
15. Dirty Back Road

342 points, 16 votes. Highest position on ballot: 3

Wild Planet
tv performance, early 1980s (anybody know details?)

this song is horny as hell

Good start! It's looking likely that all the songs from Wild Planet will place. I guess, maybe Strobe Light could miss out?

If Strobe Light misses out, I will never log on to I'll again.

I'll = ilm

I def voted for Strobe Light

Top 40 Spotify Playlist

My #3. I love this track. It's so effortlessly cool and alluring.

yeah, it's got one of those classic, simple ricky wilson riffs

https://i.imgur.com/sGjnxxZ.jpg
14. Song For A Future Generation

394 points, 17 votes. 1 first place vote.

Whammy!
live on Switch tv, 1983 (they also play Whammy Kiss and Butterbean)

way too high

perfect

favorite song image so far

Yay, back for the final day.

"Meet the Flintstones" is still to come, right?

Let's meet and have a baby now!

And Strobe Light has to place. Top 10?

I find it fascinating that 1960s bouffants and better-living-through-chemistry illustrations were thoroughly ironic fodder for new wavers by 1978. Culture shifted so quickly in the seventies.

way too high

― sleeve, Wednesday, November 14, 2018

Yep. All their songs are songs for future generations.

"Song For Future Generations" is really good but got slightly old for me. You reach the bottom of it fairly quickly.

although as late as 2003, I dealt with a car salesman sincerely sporting a blazer and pencil mustache a la Fred or John Waters.

https://i.imgur.com/KgihCvL.jpg
13. Topaz

400 points, 16 votes. 2 first place votes.

Cosmic Thing
learn how to play this on guitar, I guess

I still like Future Generation a lot even though I think I should be sick of it. Usually spoken words in part of songs gets old fast.

Nice showing for Topaz.

Ah, I was hoping this would sneak into the top 10. My number one and one of my ten favourite songs of all time. One of the most beautiful melodies there is.

DJP's enthusiasm for "Topaz" a decade ago taught me to love it.

Strickland's slink guitar sounds marvelous.

holy shiiiit at love shack this low. i'm not sure there is *any* band that has sixteen songs better than "love shack," so poll is anyone's game i guess. the song is a fucking masterpiece if you didn't notice. there's a reason it's never gone away, it's so joyous and dynamic and the interplay between fred and kate-n-cindy is maybe some of the best ever. it's like they're riffing on the squarest of old "there's a little place down the way" kinda songs - like, say, "sugar shack" and just leaning right into it with all their might. they don't try to sex it up or imply shady business at the love shack (tho it ends up being kinda sexy anyway, in the way that happy people are sexy), and then at the same time it is an incredibly, unashamedly, untearfully gay song about gay communal spaces, in 1989...

and so many fun parts to sing along to!!! the different ways of delivering "it's as big as a whale"... the james-browny "bang bang" breakdown and build-up, and of course, "TIIIIIIIIIIIIN ROOOF!" it will still be getting the love it deserves on wedding dance floors in fifty years.

xp "Song for Future Generations" is the opposite of the way I like the Bs to sound. The lyrics and delivery are too twee and self-consciously camp, the music too soft and pretty. They're at their best when they're straight-faced and urgent.

Dr. C. OTM hearing James Brown in "Love Shack," it's a better song that the ones that have placed above it so far

didn't get the chance yesterday to join in the "quiche" love but man that's a delightful song. love how fred doesn't turn moody and vindictive until the very end, finally catching up to the sinister, pylon-y, post-punk energy of the music. the gauzy, earnest backing vocals are also beamed in from another genre and yet it just seems obvious and natural that they should be there. and this is the story of a guy and his poodle and how having a good time on a crummy day is their game. half a million people bought this album. i love it.

https://i.imgur.com/QJdXbJJ.jpg
12. Strobe Light

406 points, 18 votes. 1 first place vote.

Wild Planet
fan video (well done though)

live 1980

live 1990

woooooooo

lol that fan video is well don!

i didn't vote for "strobe light" but it's great. i don't think i've ever been in any dance party context where it was playing, that would probably bump it up a lot as it seems like it'd be a blast.

yessss

Too low

I didn't realise this was so popular. I always think of it as one of the lesser songs on Wild Planet.

That fanmade video is really great!

love how their queer sensibility fucks with the Bo Diddley rhythm of "Strobe Light."

https://i.imgur.com/qUauay5.jpg
11. Legal Tender

432 points, 18 votes. Highest position on ballot: 2

Whammy!
music video

live in Rio, 1985 (with Tina Weymouth and her dull husband)

lol Karl

Exhibit A in my Whammy! is underrated thesis.
My #4.

this song is so great, sort of an angular Devo thing, mixed with Kate Bush's "There Goes a Tenner"... so joyful

I heard this for the first time because of the poll. It's beautiful.

Ten!
Twenty!
THIRTY MILLION DOLLARS!