Bands and musicians BANDS

The B-52's

One of a handful of bands who launched New Wave in the late 1970's, this Athens, Georgia band had quite a long pedigree. They were silly, polarizing, insanely danceable and single handedly made shopping at thrift stores cool. Maybe you loved them or maybe you didn't but, you could not attend any party or club in the 80's without hearing a long re-mix of one of their many zany songs.

It started in 1979 with anthems like "Rock Lobster" or "Planet Claire" and gloriously ridiculous tunes like "Quiche Lorraine". They continued through the mid-80's with hits like "Private Idaho", "52 Girls", and "Throw That Beat in the Garbage Can" as they finished off the decade with dance party classics like "Love Shack" and "Channel Z".

Personally, I loved this band; they were just so amazingly joyous and liberating. Unfortunately, they were a total 'studio band' like New Order or Depeche Mode and completely sucked out loud when they attempted to play live. And for some reason, they never made any videos until their later albums; but who really cares, 'The Bees' were more fun than I should've been allowed to have.


Author of this article:



Contributors to this article:

  • There are no contributors yet

Do You Remember The B-52's?

Do You Remember The B-52's?

  • Anonymous user
    on
    A really great quirky American band. Fairly psychadelic looking - the women of the band had crazy hairstyles and dressed in 50s style clothes.Their best song (in my opinion) was "Rock Lobster", although any Summer BBQ will be incomplete without "Love Shack" being blasted from the speakers.The B-52s had similar cult status to Talking Heads and were often mentioned in the same breath.You could imagine any one of the B-52s being a star in a low-budget B movie although one of their more memorable moments has to be when they played the BC-52s in The Flintstones film with John Goodman (1994).