The B-52's: Cosmic Thing : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

On their first LP in three years, the B-52's go on summer vacation, hanging out in the heat, fashioning insouciant odes to sloth. In other words, anyone looking for the band to make a somber statement on its first album since the death of guitarist Ricky Wilson will be disappointed. The B-52's still communicate any sense of seriousness they possess through an impassioned commitment to goofiness.

No wonder the best songs on the new LP – produced by Nile Rogers and Don Was – are the ones that most proudly declare silliness as a central part of identity. In "Deadbeat Club," the band members find a sense of belonging through mutual laziness. In "Roam," they present restlessness as a kind of mission unto itself. Unsurprisingly, the music on these tracks is also the most convincing. As the B-52's have proven in the past, their most consistently exciting songs are not their wildest but their ballads with a backbeat – songs where Cindy Wilson and Kate Pierson really get to show how broad their emotional range can be. In "Roam" their voices intertwine like fine braids. Better still is their plaintive reading of "Dry County," aided by a soulful melody and a twist in lyrics that move the song from extolling the joys of summer heat to a complaint about desires that can't be quenched.

True, the album does have its dry patches. "Cosmic Thing" is just your average party-in-space number, "Junebug" is "Rock Lobster" in hiding, and "Follow Your Bliss" is an instrumental throwaway. And there's always the problem of Fred Schneider's one-joke voice to deal with. But the light tone of the record deflects too much scrutiny. For a summer record, it generates sufficient heat.