The B52's - The B52's (1976)

(originally posted on Facebook)

The first song apes the famous bassline from "Peter Gunn" and repeats it mercilessly for three minutes before that obnoxious guy from the "Love Shack" song starts saying "She came from Planet Claire" a bunch of times. The second song includes a bunch of lady names as lyrics. The third song ends with a repeated chorus of "Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah!"

I need to stop for a minute to keep my head clear. In general I don't give a crap about lyrics. One of my favorite songs has the singer lamenting about being in love with a prostitute. My guilty pleasures include "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm" by Crash Test Dummies. And does anyone really understand the lyrics to "A Horse With No Name"? Bad lyrics can ruin a song, but usually the rest of the music can make up the difference.

So far The B52's have done nothing but set up a 2 or 4-bar lick that repeats for four minutes while they "sing" some weak melody supporting even weaker lyrics. Wikipedia calls the lyrics "kitschy", I just call them annoying. Kitsch works best and is actually funny when it doesn't feel like an artist is trying to be awful. Listening to The B52's I can't help but think they really were trying to be awful.

So I wrote all that after 3 songs. I unpaused the album really hoping to be proven wrong so I could erase all that. I really want to be impressed by music I've never heard before. I really want to hope that bands I've never delved into have something new to say. I guess The B52's are different from most bands I've heard, but their debut album sounds like a joke nobody is meant to understand.

Sample lyric: "There's a moon in the sky. It's called The Moon. And everybody is there. Booty!" I might have misheard that last part, but it's too stupid for me to go back and relisten to get it right.

Saying all that, I'm torn between hating it and simply not liking it. There's plenty of awful on this album, and also some wasted talent. Even if this band can't write a lyric or sing worth a damn, they can play a pretty chunky lick and have a decent instrumental sound. I don't know, I'm disappointed but not really angry at The B52's. I guess I'll give it 2 stars.