B-52s: Classic or Dud.

No. I have no problem with the B-52s, but saying that is like saying "A Regular Ass Candy Wrapper / The Candy Wrapper With The Golden Ticket??"

In any event, I'm listening to Nude on the Moon right now, so REVIVE!

And look.....even Killing Joke approves! (check out Youth's shirt!)

http://www.an-irrational-domain.net/images/youth/youth15.JPG

CLASSIC

This description is so classic, it hurt my hips.

Ricky Wilson was essential.

Of course, the story is sad (literally speaking) immediately after, so I can't blame the band for Bouncing.. not being up to par (though I love "Summer Of Love").. but I only like 3 songs from Cosmic Thing and can't stand the rest and what followed.

the Fred Schneider solo record Fred from 1996 is awesome, however. (and I have Martin Mushrush to thank for turning my head to it.)

Oh and if I can make anybody feel old here, then :)

Just Fred is indeed great. letting Fred rage over Albini production with backup from Six Finger Sattelite and Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet was an inspired move.

Good to see love for Whammy!, which often seems to be overlooked. But now I'm very worried about my version of Mesopatamia.

xpost: Haha, I just listened to that goofy white funk on Gabriel's So for the first time since I was a child. Woo-hoo!

It's really grand. Both albums, actually!

I'd say Good Stuff is not their worst album. That would be Bouncing Off The Satelites.

"Planet Claire" and "Rock Lobster" are classic in the extreme. The vocal on "Planet Claire" begins like two or three minutes in, and Fred is such a delightful spaz. It is a deeply weird track.

Hearing the B52s reminds me YET AGAIN about how rampantly eclectic was the mainstream pop music in my youth.

I mean, one still hears people saying that the 80s were a time of cookie-cutter bubblegum; of Reagan-era bright conformity. But right there on the top 40 as beamed by Casey Kasem into the American heartland, there were some strange-ass records being made--records that I doubt you could get in front of the youth of today.

I would assume one would be playing mostly unison on the top two strings, rather than a lot of minor and major seconds?

Yes, the "down!" riff is literally just placing one finger over both strings at the 12th fret, descending each step down the fretboard. The two unison strings create a sort of wavery sound, probably aided by just a touch of reverb, and voila.

“Without anything but the love we feel”

otm

bought "Good Stuff" on CD at Half Price today, but listened to another acquisition ("Chorus" by Erasure) on the way home instead

Waiting for bus number 99
Goin to the store for hot dogs and wine

A number of songs are CFxxFF, where x is missing string.

― Three Rings for the Elven Bishop (Dan Peterson), Wednesday, October 6, 2021 8:25 AM

imagine if he had gotten his hands on one of those guitars with moveable frets.

Cracked case copies of Good Stuff (probably harvested from long boxes) were staples of late-'90s Walmart cutout bins.

yeah, that album was made for cutout bins.

I remember buying it the day it was released at Peaches Records in Seattle and being disappointed.

I remember spending a summer almost wearing my cassette copy of Good Stuff out, even though I knew in my heart that it wasn’t quite as awesome of the prior album

This one's been stuck in my head all weekend:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpKEzFZYqBg

It’s a good track. The 9 minute Shep Pettibone one works really nicely if you are a fan of 80s extended mixes.

nice, thanks, I do love extended 80s/90s mixes

I like the Good Stuff remix too

I had Bouncing Off the Satellites on tape in high school (I took my car in for service and it was in the cassette player when I picked it up) and I think it's kinda slept on... has some of their very best songs (Summer of Love, Ain't It a Shame, Girl from Ipanema, Wig). She Brakes for Rainbows kinda points the way to Cosmic Thing, too.

yeah it's a solid LP imo, better than Whammy (which, in turn, sounded MUCH better when I revisited it recently)

Bouncing Off The Satellites has been out of print for ages. Don't remember ever seeing a copy in the UK.

Good Stuff forms part an extremely incongruous 2-for-1 CD package.

https://countrymusicusa.com/cdn/shop/products/20190320_123_740x.jpg

Ahahaha!

Well, there are too many horn arrangements on Good stuff imo

That’s the Blood, Sweat and Tears album where Fred Schneider joined as lead singer

Revisiting Whammy a few days ago, I was struck by how tinny and crudely programmed those sequencers and drums are. The songs are okay.

By contrast, Bouncing Off the Satellites bounce off the walls. "Ain't It a Shame" is their Secret Best Song. Sinead O'Connor killed it a decade ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUF5mrKUOVA

can't be doing with any version of that song that doesn't have the Galaga samples

I totally love Whammy. Alfred, have you heard Plastics? I’ve written this elsewhere but the second time I saw the B-52s Plastics toured with them, and I’ve long thought the “tinny” rhythms on Whammy may have been Plastics-inspired. That period after Wild Planet that yielded Party Mix and Mesopotamia they were obviously casting about for what to do next.

I thought Bouncing off the Satellites was a minor letdown on release, but I’ve come to love that as well. It lacks anything that rocks me like “Trism” or “Queen of Las Vegas” though.

…which is crazy because Plastics were certainly inspired by the B-52s; Whammy seems to me like returning the favor.

I think I've said it before, but I love the Mesopotamia outtake version of Queen of Las Vegas (from the Nude on the Moon anthology):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4SAclO9JAE

Absolutely, it’s wonderful. I wish there were more outtakes like that, but there really aren’t.

yo I like The Plastics!! I have their Rough Trade 7"

Yay! I often use ilx threads to decide what to play. This afternoon: Good Stuff, Whammy, and Welcome Back Plastics.

Good Stuff needed to be 20 minutes shorter, resequenced, and preferably done with other producers.

That "Queen..." outtake is what I heard in my head that the Whammy version doesn't produce.

i completely forgot bouncing off the satellites even existed until we were listening to a b-52s mix in the car the other week and Wig came on. What a great song.