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

and i'll post the spotify playlist, one more time:

https://open.spotify.com/user/weinventyou/playlist/6I6dvoE1Vd3qOKe8fvRZRD?si=2NW2gSvzTOa1it-AGiv3mg

in that tour of Athens clip you can tell they've been out of town for most of the 1980s

"Nip It in the Bud" is wonderful.

karl the b-52's need to hire you to do all their typography and layouts. love these.

"dry county" is underrated but i can understand it placing here, it's definitely got that "album track" vibe. the backing track always gives me a STRONG whiff of Sonic the Hedgehog music.

but it's an important part of the album i think, and a perfect tee-up to "deadbeat club" which is also about young people killing time and being grateful for having friends in an often-dumb, conservative town. here though we're getting the mostly happy, lazy, daytime version of that memory: there are blues, but they're as easily canceled as the heat of the day: the blues may kick you in the head, but they require no more drastic remedy than lazing around on the porch and wait for some of the people who live your same lifestyle to come ambling up the road, laughing and grumbling about how they can't get their hands on any booze. some of my love of this is ineffable and idiosyncratic, as this whole porch-bumming thing resembles very much the athens i knew in the early 2000s and is a huge part of what us athens expats tend to reminisce about and miss now that we live differently. my porch didn't have a swing, and i wasn't drinking yet, but i remember friends struggling to scrounge up drinks, or anything much to do, on some lazy sundays of summer. it was good.

just checking in, amazing rollout.
happy for the Whammy! and Queen of Las Vegas showings.

seeing this on a computer for the first time and not my phone, i'm even more impressed. listened to the Spotify on the way home from work tonight, i feel like i don't even know these songs.

is that Julian Casablancas in photo 35?

The quiet triumph of the B-52's is how Keith Strickland adapted to the death of their primary songwriter: he taught himself to play guitar something fierce.

Good, er, stuff so far. I almost voted for "Deep Sleep" - I quite like that one. Only a couple from my ballot have placed yet.

Not much of a shock with the album rankings. In retrospect, I should probably have voted for Party Mix/Mesopotamia instead of Mesopotamia itself - the CD remix is better than the original EP.

xp
that is julian, yep. it was a last minute re-do. before that it was a really intense close-up shot of a dog making out with its owner, tongue waaay out there.

i've got the final top 40 on a separate playlist and this may shock you all, but...there are some really good jams on there. it makes for a fine listen

Really enjoying the rollout. The images all look great.

No real big shocks so far, although I was expecting/hoping that Cosmic Thing would be in the top two albums.

I regret leaving Dry County off my list, but I already had six Cosmic Thing tracks on there.

these images are superb!

SUPRIIIIIIIIIIIIIZE! PAAAAAARTY!

where's the icebox?

and where's the punch?

:/

Ewww, BALLOT-osis!

^^YES^^

https://i.imgur.com/6hH6vCd.jpg
30. Is That You Mo-Dean?

122 points, 7 votes. Highest position on ballot: 7

Good Stuff
Music video

Up and running again, yay!

LOL love the graphic! On the bus, to the plane, to the UFO, and to outer space baby!

ON A UFOOOO

B-52's fact i didn't know before starting all of this:

In late 1990 Cindy Wilson took time off from the band, with Julee Cruise filling in for her on tour. The B-52's released Good Stuff in 1992 as a trio (Fred Schneider, Kate Pierson, Keith Strickland).

there are some vids floating out there on youtube with Cruise, not just in the early 90s, but also some clips from 1998 and beyond.

Hm, I'm not really digging this on first listen.

yeah...it's not my fave. i like the little pre-chorus where kate's sings "on the bus, on the plane, to the ufo and to outer space baby". but then it continues for 5 and a half minutes.

i can imagine a good version of this song, though, sped up considerably (making it shorter), with cindy on board

https://i.imgur.com/dFmryGD.jpg
28 (tie). Quiche Lorraine

128 points, 7 votes. Highest position on ballot: 10

Wild Planet
live 1980

The first one that made my ballot.

that image <3 <3

QUICHE LA POODLE

Has anybody seen a dog dyed dark green
About two inches tall, with a strawberry blonde fall
Sunglasses and a bonnet
And designer jeans with appliques on it?

i just want to say that the b-52's are amazing because they made me consult this meme as a serious reference

Ha, where did you find that image?

i edited this image of doris day

Like many Good Stuff tracks, "Is That You Mo-Dean?" is a minute too long.

https://i.imgur.com/zpsaIg2.jpg
28 (tie). 53 Miles West Of Venus

128 points, 7 votes. Highest position on ballot: 6

Wild Planet
live 1980

If I'd voted, this might have been my #1. xp to Quiche Lorraine

the last tie on the rollout

'Quiche La Poodle is her name / And having a good time on a crummy day is our game' is such a great lyric

in 1982 when I was maybe in 10th grade a guy dressed in full on 80s new wave weirdo Square Pegs regalia did a lip-synch version of "Quiche Lorraine" at a talent show, it made a big impression on me

Alright, I got something into "Highest position on ballot." I just love the cool simplicity of this song.

"Is that you Mo-Dean" is based on a bit of call-and-response they used to do in the early days. There's a bit of it on the "Anola Gay" bootleg from '78.

I love Mo-Dean and wish I'd had more room for it on the ballot

Like many Good Stuff tracks, "Is That You Mo-Dean?" is a minute too long.

Certainly not that euphoric last minute though...

https://i.imgur.com/hbRnc4W.jpg
27. Cake

176 points, 8 votes. Highest position on ballot: 3

Mesopotamia
fan video

this song is horny as hell

The groove on "Cake" is fabulous in its post-Byrne re-mix. This is the B-52's track to which James Muprhy was avidly listening.

I don't know if Wilson or Byrne handles the guitar, but this is about the only time its thin, hard insistence works.

27 wtf? i love this thing

yeah, cake is super good. it made my ballot, but it was one of those that i wanted to bump up near the top as i listened to it more.

just ran across this:

Follow
Mesopotamia - The B-52's - Full third album fan edit

Loveland (Byrne mix)
Big Bird (Whammy version) - 8:30
Adios Desconocida (extra rare demo) - 12:44
Mesopotamia - 17:02
Deep Sleep - 20:48
Cake (Byrne mix) - 24:20
Throw That Beat In The Garbage Can (Byrne mix) - 32:08
Butterbean (Whammy version) - 37:56
Queen of Las Vegas (Byrne mix) - 42:17
Nip It In The Bud - 48:00

I know that "Mesopotamia" is not the record fans always prefers, but when reading about the story of that record, (David Byrne, the few tracks that never make it and all that stuff...) I was fascinated.
Between 2012 and last year, I've searched all the internet to find any of these outtakes and "special long versions" of "Loveland", "Cake" and "Throw That Beat" that didn't make it on the american version of the record. I did find almost all of these. The english version of the record is available on youtube. One outtake, "Queen of Las Vegas", is available on "Nude On The Moon". I even find some kind of a demo of the "Adios Desconocida" song, which is pretty rare. But the "Mesopotamian versions" of "Butterbean" and "Big Bird" are unavailble, or simply don't exist.
Anyway, with all the tracks I've found over the years, I made some kind of a "fan edit project" (with all the David Byrne's versions and outtakes) of the original third album from the B-52's.

Enjoy !

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3leq9q

The groove on "Cake" is fabulous in its post-Byrne re-mix.

the post-byrne, 1991 remix is the only version i've heard, i think! i think that's the version of spotify.

i'm listening to the original now (via the dailymotion upload just above), and yeah, the doubling of the snare hits is annoying the living hell out of me

My first vote! Cake was the big revelation for me in the poll, it's really top-tier imo. Byrne, like a total pro, zeroes in on the real source of sexual tension in the band--between Cindy and Kate...

but actually, the annoying delay on the snare is mostly confined to the beginning. and i like the way the chorus sounds, without the horns! i like both versions a lot tbh

mesopotamia rules

https://i.imgur.com/PRPV8t8.jpg
26. Bushfire

178 points, 9 votes. Highest position on ballot: 5

Cosmic Thing
live 1990