B-52s - Wild Planet
#331
by Aaron Conte
August 27 1980
B-52s
Wild Planet
Allen’s Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Aaron’s Rating: 4.5 out of 5
I have so many feelings about this album, I'll try to keep this to a review and not a diary entry. No promises.
A sophomore release from The Great B-52's came to your local Record Town, Camelot Music, Peaches, Strawberries, Coconuts or Tape World in August of 1980. Fred the Cancerian from New Jersey, sister and brother Cindy and Ricky, both Pisces. (She likes Chinese noodles and he likes computers.) Kate the Taurus and Keith the Scorpio.
We forget that the B-52's first self-titled release happened in the late seventies, pre-dating their Athens, Georgia brethren R.E.M. people. People! These guys were torch bearers that led the new wave revolution.
Blondie, X, Siouxie and the Banshees, Talking Heads, also from the late seventies were just maybe a bit too serious.
When you put on a B-52's record, either of the first two, there is a distinct feeling that you're in for a "Sue-pr-EYE-z!!! Yeah, we just thought we'd drop in!" Cancel your date. Turn off the tv. Unplug the phone. Who's to blame?
Live they were also a force. Keith bashed it out on a mismatched second hand set of drums, swinging those uptempo beats as well as anyone. Kate softly and purposefully keyed out the bass notes and melodies on her synthesizer. Cindy hard rocked all the extras from cowbells, to tambourines, to bongos and sang like a siren. Fred was an entertainer like we had never seen. Unassuming, and confident in his lazy know-it-all substitute English teacher who found himself filling in for gym class. Ricky deserves his own review. There aren't enough words to say how he much he influenced guitar bands. Playing a six string guitar with only five, sometimes four, strings, that were heavy gage (like bass) strings, creating at times, two separate guitar lines, he aggressively plucked out notes and melodies that became everlasting anthems to an "alternative" music scene.
You lean in when you put on "Wild Planet" because it opens with a fade in. A fade in! On the first track of a new wave record in 1980! That kind of confidence is enough to demand you play this album start to finish. Not to mention they open with "Party Out of Bounds". Introducing the phrase to the Kids in America that would sadly be co-oped in 2006 by brohaim Guy Fieri (for those of us who actually do watch the Food Chanel). Amazing guitar inter-play, call and answer, with keyboards and the classic lead vocal sharing of Fred and Kate. Plus someone's "getting bombed" as in drunk, and that was a term I hadn't heard from my friends yet (only my parents) so curious; very curious.
"Dirty Back Road". Where I grew up, we had lots of dirty back roads that I wasn't allowed to drive on yet, but somehow this song was what it felt like to take those roads to school, home or to grandmas house. Plus it had Kate and Cindy (two of the fifty-two girls) singing it to me together. *swoon* Their melodies are just heavenly on this track. Really sweeping and it moves along at a nice strut.
"Runnin' Around". I'll take this cigarette break to relax a minute and say, maybe not the best song to put third on their second release ever. I would've saved this one for the second side, close to the end. Turns out, like all the songs on this album, this was written when they were also writing the first album, AND it was an instrumental. So that tells you something. Save it for pre-show music over the P.A., or release it in twenty years with a box set. If you listen to it as imagine the vocal not there, it's a pretty kick-ass piece of music. What a band.
"Give Me Back My Man". Cindy Wilson, the Stevie Nicks of new wave, the shy sister of your pal Ricky, who tells her girlfriend who tells you that she wishes you asked her to prom, I mean...dear reader, as a young boy in central New York, this opened up the doors of perception as the boomers say. Kristy McNichol, Tatum O'Neal, a couple of girls from The Facts of Life, and Cindy Wilson. Sorry...this has become a diary entry. I'll mention Ricky's guitar playing here again because it can not be overstated that this guy was a trailblazer who has never been given his comeuppance nor the respect he deserves. There are so many guitar lines here (you might need headphones) that it's amazing he could so this live - and for that matter I highly suggest you open a new YouTube window here right now, type in "b52 1980 Capitol Theater November 7" to see it for yourself.
Brings us to close out side one with the beloved "Private Idaho". A dance classic, and for a band who already had two dance classics under their dance belt, this solidified their future as a preeminent party band. "Private Idaho; on the ground like a wild potato." I mean C'mon. I dare you to make a record now with actual instruments and people, sing that and wait for the internet to burn down your house. At this point in the review, I'm not going to mention how great the music is because they made a near perfect second record, in the same place (the Bahamas) with the same people, with the same songs they wrote in the late seventies when KISS was so fat they had a laser show, all the Eagles had bloody noses, and college rock, or new wave, or even worse, alternative music was only left of the dial under your covers late at night.
"Devil in my Car" opens side two. Okay okay bad choice here. This song may be the definition of "filler". A song that simply fills space on a full-length album. This would be where my mother yells from the kitchen, "will you please turn that sh*t down?! All they do is yell the same thing over and over again!!" (Yeah mom, and 'she loves you yeah yeah yeah' was real poetry.)
"Quiche Lorraine" picks you back up and throws you into the stratosphere. With its Twilight Zone opening and spoken/sung lyric by our master of ceremonies Fred, we learn about his very small, two inch tall, toy poodle named Quiche Lorraine. Dyed dark green, with a strawberry blonde fall (hairdressing), sunglasses and bonnet, designer jeans with appliqués on 'em. What a punk this little dog is; needlepoint sewing designs on its designer jeans, and running away from its devoted owner who gave it so much leash.
"Strobe Light". A fantastic phone sex song for the new generation. We all knew the words and enjoyed playing it out as much as any Rocky Horror Picture Show.
"53 Miles West of Venus". Perfect close out track. Eerie and friendly at the same time. Light hearted and smart. They could've very easily titled it "52 Miles..." but who wants that? They already gave us "52 Girls" on their debut album, no need to belabor the point, and speaking of belaboring the point, the only lyric in this last song is the title of the song. Over and over yet it doesn't become annoying. They had that quality The B-52's; they walked a line where they had great catchy songs, and could attract people on the side lines of life.
A very real powerful rock band live, yet seemingly friendly and inviting. Their volume and madness wasn't pushing away as many bands were doing, they definitely wanted you at their party and were happy to supply the punch.
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