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February 1, 2018 9:20 PM   Subscribe

Like it's literally as thrilling now as it was then. Oh wait, that's a comment.The B-52's (1979) [40m]: Side A: Planet Claire, 52 Girls, Dance This Mess Around, Rock Lobster [video] posted by hippybear (48 comments total) 40 users marked this as a favorite
 
YOUR NUMBER'S BEEN DISCONNECTEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED!
posted by hippybear at 9:21 PM on February 1, 2018 [3 favorites]


God is Lobster, so says DJ Soulslinger
posted by filthy light thief at 9:34 PM on February 1, 2018 [1 favorite]


ALL sixteen dances included.
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:36 PM on February 1, 2018 [3 favorites]


BUT YOU PRESENTED WITH A COMMENT
posted by shoesfullofdust at 9:41 PM on February 1, 2018 [1 favorite]


yeah, OK
posted by lefty lucky cat at 9:43 PM on February 1, 2018 [1 favorite]


I'll comment: dude, you can't just post the mere songs; you gotta do the actual performances/videos!

(besides Rock Lobster)

Dance This Mess Around

and so on :)

edit: please give me back my man, if you would be so kind ok.
posted by Guy Smiley at 9:51 PM on February 1, 2018 [4 favorites]


Some say she's from Mars
posted by yhbc at 9:53 PM on February 1, 2018 [1 favorite]


Someone broke into my car (way back in the day) and stole a bunch of stuff, including all of my CDs (that were in the car).

Except. They clearly. Clearly. Clearly left all the B-52's CDs behind. With distaste, I might add. The CDs had been flung around the interior.

I've never quite known how to feel about that.

Hopefully that car thief, wherever they are, have improved both their lot in life and their taste in music.
posted by barchan at 9:53 PM on February 1, 2018 [19 favorites]


A+ indispensible crucial shit. Thanks, hippybear.

Has anybody seen / a dog dyed dark green?
posted by mwhybark at 10:03 PM on February 1, 2018 [3 favorites]


Went to see the B-52s on Halloween in San Francisco last year - they saved everyone's favorite musico-aquatic hit until the final encore, and then every lobster-costumed reveler at the Fillmore went NUTS...
posted by PhineasGage at 10:03 PM on February 1, 2018 [5 favorites]


Hate to be "that guy" but while this is a tremendously great album, is a post without context (it's not the anniversary of the album, no one has recently passed, etc.) of YouTube album tracks metaworthy?
posted by milnak at 10:29 PM on February 1, 2018 [1 favorite]


It's a fantastic album, a poke in the eye to disco, but the late 70s b&w live performance, floating round the net, is probably a better video to post.
posted by Beholder at 10:41 PM on February 1, 2018 [2 favorites]


God is Lobster

Have mercy on us (every one).
posted by The Tensor at 11:23 PM on February 1, 2018 [6 favorites]


Hate to be "that guy" but while this is a tremendously great album, is a post without context (it's not the anniversary of the album, no one has recently passed, etc.) of YouTube album tracks metaworthy?

Totally.
posted by ashbury at 11:49 PM on February 1, 2018 [6 favorites]


Planet Claire is the Platonic ideal of.... something. Not sure yet what exactly but it is exactly perfectly that and if we can pass that on, somehow, to those beyond us in time and space, we can consider our mission here in the physical world an unqualified success.
posted by Meatbomb at 12:39 AM on February 2, 2018 [7 favorites]


Cindy Wilson can't be stopped, and continues to make some quality sounds.
posted by Packed Lunch at 1:02 AM on February 2, 2018 [5 favorites]


I was pleasantly surprised when Plant Claire came up on the "Monsters vs. Aliens" soundtrack when I got around to watching it recently.
posted by mikelieman at 4:09 AM on February 2, 2018 [2 favorites]


Philip put it on. The begininning was interminable. We listened to it over and over. We couldn’t listen to anything else. He also introduced me to Devo - Are We Not Men. Same deal. I miss Philip.
posted by unliteral at 4:34 AM on February 2, 2018 [3 favorites]


The B-52s first two albums were as avant-garde as anything Joy Division ever did.


Some say she's from Mars
Or one of the seven stars
That shine after three-thirty in the morning
WELL SHE ISN'T!
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 4:37 AM on February 2, 2018 [13 favorites]


"But she isn't"

That line, and how it's delivered, never, ever, fails to make me smile.
posted by parki at 4:42 AM on February 2, 2018 [5 favorites]


Yeah, I came to say that surely 'Give Me Back My Man' should properly be regarded as a pinnacle of Western Civilisation.

1979 really was a strange and wonderful time.
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 5:00 AM on February 2, 2018 [2 favorites]


the late 70s b&w live performance, floating round the net

In walked a jelly fish
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 5:03 AM on February 2, 2018 [4 favorites]


is a post without context (it's not the anniversary of the album, no one has recently passed, etc.) of YouTube album tracks metaworthy?

I personally am drawing the line when he posts a Bruce Hornsby album
posted by thelonius at 5:11 AM on February 2, 2018 [4 favorites]


I was just introduced to RuPaul's Drag Race yesterday. I have no idea how I missed out on this for so many years other than just not being clued into TV in general, but at least now I have something to watch back to back streaming. It prompted me to read up on RuPaul and I found out he was in the Love Shack video as an extra dancer.
posted by waving at 5:24 AM on February 2, 2018 [3 favorites]


The whole Capitol Theater show is great (see also pretty much every Capitol Theater show from the late 70s-early 80s).
posted by aspersioncast at 5:28 AM on February 2, 2018 [2 favorites]


Back in the dot-com boom, I went to Vegas for the 2002 Qwest annual sales meeting. The secret entertainment was the B-52s. It was very cool seeing them up close and personal, and at the same time kind of depressing that the venue was a bland ballroom in the Bellagio. Later that night a very drunk Marketing VP told me we paid them $50K plus expenses for the show.

Related to hippybears' Styx post from last week, somebody had run into Tommy Shaw in the hotel earlier that day, so we all thought we were getting Styx as the surprise entertainment.

(Also, Grammerly really wants to change hippybears' to happy bears.)
posted by COD at 5:31 AM on February 2, 2018 [2 favorites]


I personally am drawing the line when he posts a Bruce Hornsby album

Oh god now I can't get Mandolin Rain out of my head!
posted by hippybear at 6:24 AM on February 2, 2018 [2 favorites]


is a post without context (it's not the anniversary of the album, no one has recently passed, etc.) of YouTube album tracks metaworthy?

Would you rather see more outrage/politics/sexualharassment on the front page, or is this more fun?
posted by hippybear at 6:30 AM on February 2, 2018 [10 favorites]


milnak: is a post without context (it's not the anniversary of the album, no one has recently passed, etc.) of YouTube album tracks metaworthy?

I read fun posts like these by hippybear as "here's some awesome music that I dig, enjoy!" flapjax does this, but with more general comments on the content, but not a ton of context. And both ways are great, because sometimes (many times?) good music doesn't need context - it's just good music. (And if you disagree that it's good music, make your own posts to share your own ideals of good music! MOAR MUSIC!)

hippybear: Would you rather see more outrage/politics/sexualharassment on the front page, or is this more fun?

Exactly my thoughts! Thanks again and always, hippybear!
posted by filthy light thief at 7:25 AM on February 2, 2018 [7 favorites]


Went to see the B-52s on Halloween in San Francisco last year

I saw them a couple years back working the nostalgia circuit at the casino, and -- my god -- they gave a great show. Fully engaged, fully indulgent of the crowd, even though they've been doing this for decades. Which is not to say that this was equal to seeing them in their prime, but we couldn't have had more fun. A+++, would see again.
posted by Capt. Renault at 7:51 AM on February 2, 2018


Their most recent album was a thing of joy too. Likely their last album because it didn't especially sell and they're doing fine financially with the oldies show. That said, check out (in no particular order):

Pump
Juliet of the Spirits
Eyes Wide Open
Deviant Ingredient
Dancing Now
Funplex
posted by Joey Michaels at 8:14 AM on February 2, 2018 [3 favorites]


1979 really was a strange and wonderful time.

I had such high hopes for the future at that point but it's really been downhill since then.
posted by octothorpe at 8:32 AM on February 2, 2018 [4 favorites]


It prompted me to read up on RuPaul and I found out he was in the Love Shack video as an extra dancer.

Yeah RuPaul was still in Atlanta then and, I'm sure, knew everyone in the Athens scene. One of my regrets in life is missing the yard sale that Larry Tee and Ru Paul had when they moved to NYC.
posted by thelonius at 8:37 AM on February 2, 2018 [1 favorite]


Oh wait, Love Shack was later. But they still knew each other from back in the day, I bet.
posted by thelonius at 9:15 AM on February 2, 2018


So I went to the science fiction exhibition at the British Library a couple of years back and they had this fancy electronic jukebox thing (with headphones) loaded up with loads of music from over the years with sf references. Yeah of course 'Planet Claire' was only one of two I listen to all the way through. Twice.

(The other)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 9:20 AM on February 2, 2018 [1 favorite]


Planet Claire sounds just like Fred Schneider's solo hit Monster. Of course I think both are a riff on the Peter Gunn Theme
posted by ShakeyJake at 9:57 AM on February 2, 2018


My third grader is named Claire, and man does she love that song.
posted by 4ster at 9:58 AM on February 2, 2018 [2 favorites]


I think side one on their first album is one of the greatest album sides ever. I used to have it on this old cassette.
posted by Catblack at 10:00 AM on February 2, 2018


RIP Ricky Wilson.

A whole generation gone.
posted by Nelson at 10:01 AM on February 2, 2018 [3 favorites]


My new orleans band does a faithful cover of Planet Claire. I'll post to music.mefi if they say it's cool.
posted by frecklefaerie at 10:04 AM on February 2, 2018 [6 favorites]


Cheryl & Anna were the two coolest girls at high school. They both had jobs & had moved into an apartment together, so to get invited to hang out with them was a BIG DEAL & the one time I had that privilege, the B-52's first album was on the turntable, & a major topic of conversation. Conclusion: The B-52's are SOOOO COOOL.

I still love that album to this day. Ground-breaking in its sparseness & way more complex that it appears on the surface.
posted by Devils Rancher at 10:27 AM on February 2, 2018 [2 favorites]


My new orleans band does a faithful cover of Planet Claire. I'll post to music.mefi if they say it's cool.

I post covers. So long as it's your band & your recording, it's cool. (though I'm not one of "them")
posted by Devils Rancher at 10:28 AM on February 2, 2018


Yay! Was listening to this just yesterday; I'm currently schooling my almost-4-year-old on the different "flavors" of Rock and Roll. For contrast, we'd listened to the Jesus and Mary Chain prior.
posted by Wizzle at 10:42 AM on February 2, 2018


that "songs playing in another room" tumblr creeped me out a little bit the first time i heard it because inside of my head there is always a slightly distant but nevertheless enjoyable room in which rock lobster has been playing on repeat since approximately 1988
posted by poffin boffin at 11:02 AM on February 2, 2018 [1 favorite]


> Hate to be "that guy" but while this is a tremendously great album, is a post without context (it's not the anniversary of the album, no one has recently passed, etc.) of YouTube album tracks metaworthy?

I figured it was another promotional nod to that Love Shack Shake they've been pimping recently. Glad to see it's just a B's appreciation day or something.
posted by davelog at 11:43 AM on February 2, 2018


frecklefaerie, post that cover! we all post covers over in mefimusic, as long as we did them ourselves.

This record--mostly rock lobster but also planet claire, made a huge impression on me as a teenager. I remember doing the 'cockroach' at a party to rock lobster, pretty certain it was the coolest thing I had ever been a part of up to that point.
posted by umbú at 1:02 PM on February 2, 2018


Likely their last album because it didn't especially sell

Dang. Funplex is a great album.
I'm your daytime waitress at the taco tiki hut
I'm your daytime waitress, here's your stupid 7-Up
You kicked my heart going up and down the escalator
You blew me off and now you've lost the real thing
posted by scruss at 8:21 AM on February 3, 2018 [1 favorite]


Oh yeah Funplex. I bought it the day it came out, I have all the remixes from it I could find, and I think that it's incredibly strong material and also great at pushing the boundaries socially with its lyrics. Go buy it. Help the B's out and maybe encourage them to record new material.
posted by hippybear at 10:27 AM on February 3, 2018 [1 favorite]


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