The B-52s: Mission Accomplished

How did the kings of kitsch survive years of indifference and the death of a band member to stage such a stunning comeback?

FOLKS, WE HAVE A DILEMMA here, because we’re tearing down the house — literally. The plaster’s falling off the balcony. So people in the balcony, if you would, don’t dance.”

Strange words, coming from the mouth of Fred Schneider, whose band, the B-52’s, has spent its entire career encouraging people to do just the opposite. But the 5000 fans in the aging Northrop Auditorium at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis are shaking their cosmic things so vigorously that the balcony is bouncing a good twelve inches up and down, and large shards of plaster are falling into the crowd below. So serious is the situation that the show’s promoters, fearing that the whole balcony might collapse, had to send someone onto the stage to ask the band not to play its certified barn burner “Rock Lobster.”

Fortunately, as the B-52’s launch into their encore, “Planet Claire,” the crowd upstairs happily obeys singer Kate Pierson‘s request to “dance in your minds,” or at least shimmy in place. But down onstage, the action is anything but tranquil: Pierson, in a fringed red satin outfit and gigantic au-burn wig, whirls like a genie, while Schneider unveils a host of new dances, including the hai-karate, the game-show winner and the panty fling. Guitarist Keith Strickland hangs back as always, and singer Cindy Wilson does a saucy cakewalk, to the obvious delight of the guys in the front row. As the band rocks out, a couple jumps up onto the lip of the stage, then twirls off like a spinning firecracker.

The B’s omit a second encore, but everybody goes home happy, having seen a very danceable, upbeat and surprisingly rocking band in peak form. A few people even carry away bits of the balcony’s plaster, cherishing them as if they were chunks of the Berlin Wall. Yet backstage, in the catering room, Schneider says dismissively, “Oh, that was our light set.”

A YEAR AGO THE SCENE AT THE UNIVERSITY of Minnesota would have been unimaginable. To most people in the music business, the B-52’s were a thing of the past, having gone the way of skinny ties, theories of devolution and most things New Wave. The band hadn’t had a hit since 1981’s Party Mix, an EP of remixes, and it hadn’t even released an album since 1986’s ill-fated Bouncing of the Satellites.

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But in the past six months the B-52’s have staged a stunning comeback. Their latest album, Cosmic Thing, has climbed all the way to Number Five on the charts; at press time, it was selling 200,000 copies a week, with projected sales of 4 million copies. The single “Love Shack” shot up to Number Three and was expected to sell at least a million copies. The current single, “Roam,” is headed for similar success, and the band’s tour — which began at San Francisco’s 1300-seat Fill-more Auditorium and graduated to 14,000-seaters, including four sold-out nights at the Universal Amphitheater, in Los Angeles, and three at Radio City Music Hall, in New York — has taken them through more than fifty cities in eight months.

The first inkling that there might be a change in the B-52’s’ fortunes came at a Warner Bros. Records marketing meeting last spring. Instead of dismissing Cosmic Thing as a lost cause, four of the label’s vice-presidents vehemently argued about which of five songs should be the first single. They eventually selected “Channel Z,” which they first promoted to college radio, long a supporter of the band’s music. The song soon topped the college charts (helped along by Buzz Bin airplay on MTV), and the album began to sell. But it was “Love Shack” that put Cosmic Thing over the top.

The song was a throwaway, recorded as an after thought during sessions in Woodstock, New York, with Was (Not Was) mastermind and producer Don Was. The B-52’s’ first choice to produce the album was Nile Rodgers, the former Chic guitarist who had previously produced both Madonna and David Bowie and who had been behind the board when the band recorded the song “Cosmic Thing” for the soundtrack to the movie Earth Girls Are Easy. (In typical B-52’s fashion, Kate Pierson gave a psychic a list of potential producers. The psychic responded by asking: “Who is this Nile guy? The spirit gods really love Nile.” The choice was obvious.) But Rodgers was tied up, so the B-52’s decided to spend a month with Was.

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The original plan was to record three songs. When the band and its producer finished early, Keith Strickland pulled out a rough tape of “Love Shack” and played it for was. The band then tried recording vocals, but it didn’t work, and Was was ready to scrap the song. They gave it one last shot the next day and nailed it on the first take.

“When we handed it in,” says Was, “I don’t think there was a single person who said, ‘Hah! That’s the hit the B-52’s have been needing for the past twelve years!’ “

After “Love Shack” was finally released as a single, the biggest thrill for Strickland was actually hearing it on the radio next to the likes of Billy Joel and Warrant. “I was in a car when I first heard it,” says Strickland, “and I just cranked it up and enjoyed the moment.”

The success of the song, which was nominated for a Grammy, has also helped the B’s feel somewhat vindicated. “Now maybe people won’t be saying we’re a novelty band,” says Strickland. “It’s nice that we’re finally being recognized as actually having something.”