Skip to main content

168. The B-52's: Funplex (2008)

The B-52's are simple and complicated all at once. Their party-all-the-time persona belies a tough, resilient history. The runaway success of 1989's Cosmic Thing album pegged them as a mainstream commercial band, but at heart they are an innovative group with avant garde influences.

And here we have Funplex, their first studio album since 1992's Good Stuff, and the first with the full band since Cosmic Thing. It's one of those comebacks you didn't even know you wanted. Who knew how much we missed the strong melodies and harmonies of Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson, non sequitur shouting from hype man Fred Schneider, and the garage rock and rhythm of Keith Strickland?

While Funplex isn't a masterpiece, credit has to go to the band simply because it seems more like 16 months than 16 years since we've heard new material from them. The old musical chemistry obviously never went anywhere.

Pump kicks it off, surprisingly distorted and unsurprisingly off-kilter. There's some surf guitar and the whole affair brings to mind the Black Eyed Peas song Pump It. That would be an unpleasant association, until you realize how much better the B-52's are than Will.I.Am and Fergie. And if you really think about it, you realize the band's sound is wholly unique and has never been replicated, save by "Weird Al" Yankovic (on the excellent Mr. Popiel).

Hot Corner is the first high point. With its gleeful allusions to illicit behavior, it's a spiritual successor to Love Shack. On the chorus, the girls state: "I'm looking for some fun, waiting for that bus from Winder to come." Winder is located in the band's native Georgia, and according to the website, is the "city of opportunity."

Juliet Of The Spirits is also strong, an ultra-melodic tune in the vein of Summer Of Love, She Brakes For Rainbows or Roam. Fred Schneider is no doubt integral to the band, but things sure get pretty when he stays quiet for a song.

The title track is an infectiously sad story of a breakup at a mall. Eyes Wide Open is a hypnotic change of pace that takes the torch back from new new wave bands like Franz Ferdinand. The track is saved from monotony by a discoey chorus.

Unfortunately, not everything works. Love In The Year 3000 is tedious, a 4 minute sci-fi fantasy that offers little you couldn't have gotten from simply reading the title. And the band has always been horny, but songs like Ultraviolet and Too Much To Think About take it a little too far with repeated mentions of stroking and g-spots. I'm all for some well-placed entendre, but that's just dirty talk.

Finally, despite the vow to "take this party to the White House lawn" on Keep This Party Goin' On there's nothing on Funplex of any true lyrical weight, a la Channel Z or Revolution Earth. Granted, no one is looking to The B-52's for deep meaning. Afterall, this is a group that wrote a song about a miniature green poodle named Quiche Lorraine. More than likely, the band wanted some fun songs to perform on a summer tour. On that count, mission accomplished. But I would have liked to have seen the facade come down just a little.

Despite the faults of Funplex, the highlights make it well worth a listen. Thus, The B-52's can definitely mark me down to get their next offering, even if it doesn't come out until 2024.

Grade: B
Fave Song: Hot Corner

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

12 by Matthew Sweet (2002 - 2021)

Sometimes a huge part of an artist's career has not been summarized. Case in point... Matthew Sweet has a couple of compliations out there, but neither of them cover the past couple of decades, a span that has seen him release 8 albums of original material and 3 albums of covers.  I followed Sweet's career religiously early on, with my ardor gradually diminishing after the magnificant one-two punch of In Reverse (1999) and The Thorns (2003) That's not to say he hasn't produced some great work since then, it's just that it requires bit of effort to pick out the gems. Here's my college try: (Two of these albums are not available on streaming servies, so here's a slightly modified version of the playlist on YouTube .) 1. "I Can't Remember" ( The Thorns , 2003) The Thorns was a rootsy, close-harmony early-aughts version of Crosby, Stills, and Nash, featuring Shawn Mullins (of "Lullaby" fame) and Pete Droge (of "If You Don't Lov

2022: The Album

Since 2003 I've made a mix of some of my favorite songs of the calendar year. Here's the cover art and track listing for the 2022 edition. 1. BODEGA - "Pillar on the Bridge of You" 2. Harry Styles - "Late Night Talking" 3. Vicious Vicious - "Evolution" 4. Hot Freaks - "Lovely" 5. Carly Rae Jepsen - "The Loneliest Time" 6. Tears for Fears - "End of Night" 7. Spoon - "Wild" 8. Death Cab for Cutie - "Here to Forever" 9. Citrine and GUKKO - "Feel Better" 10. Rhett Miller - "Fascination" 11. Broken Bells - "Fade Away" 12. Leah Marlene - "Flowers" 13. Robbie Williams - "The World and Her Mother" 14. Jimmy Eat World - "Something Loud" (acoustic version) 15. Sloan - "Dream It All Over Again" If you have Amazon Unlimited, you can listen at this link . 

Weezer: SZNZ Abbreviated

One of the most oldest and most enticing thought exercises in pop music is: What if (artist) had released the best songs from (double album) as a single disc instead?  Pre-Internet, folks used their cassette decks to create their own truncated versions of likes of The Beatles'  White Album ("Revolution 9" has to go, for sure) and Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (sorry, "Jamaica Jerk-Off"), some out of artistic vision, others because the tape just wasn't long enough to hold all the songs. Now, with mp3s and streaming, we have the ability to curate everything for ourselves, which means even a single album could be reduced to an EP of your faves, with the shuffle feature making it so the order doesn't even have to be the same every time. Here's where I could detour into a healthy digression about the negative consequences of that total freedom, but I'll resist the temptation. Our good friends Weezer - who are not typically known for rest