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 FANTASTIC FOUR
The last time The B-52s dropped an album on us, it was 1992: There was no Internet, no iPods, and people still shopped the shelves at retail dinosaurs like Musicland. But if 16 years seems like a lifetime ago to us—and for some of our younger readers, it might be—it’s an eternity in the music industry, where one day you’re hot and the next you’re the Backstreet Boys.
Quite to the contrary, the beehived ones are back, ready to strap on the go-go boots, dust on the body glitter and get the party bumping again. (Incidentally, they’ve cut the long-standing apostrophe from their name.) Their newest album, appropriately titled Funplex, features 11 brand-new tracks covering everything from futuristic robot lovin’ (“Love In The Year 3000”) to heartbreak at a mall crawling with—what else?—pleasure-seekers, diet-pill poppers and sasstastic waitresses (“Funplex”).
“I certainly wanted to keep everything upbeat and write shameless dance floor party music,” explains B-52s guitarist and hottie Keith Strickland. “We had to think, What do The B-52s do now?”
With this in mind, he went to work, laying down all the musical tracks at his home in Key West, Florida, saving them to his hard drive and traveling to Atlanta, where Fred, Cindy and Kate wrote the lyrics and melodies. This colorful, cosmic-thing collaboration has been working for the quirky surf-rock group since 1977, when they had their first jam session back in Athens, Georgia. “There was this sound that happened, and we all felt it,” says Strickland.
Since then, the band has cranked out a major radio hit in every decade: from “Rock Lobster” to “Love Shack” to “Roam,” which means the group is due for another one, especially since now they’re singing about everyone’s favorite topic.
“I never know what Fred, Cindy and Kate are going to do, and I was surprised that they were getting all sexy with it. We would finish one song and then say, ‘Well, there’s another song about sex!’” says Strickland. “I think some of that was a reaction to the political and social mood that’s been blanketed over the country for the last eight years. And I think that’s why everything was so upbeat and energetic. It’s like, come on, enough already. Let’s get back to something that we can all enjoy.”
Tiiiiiiiin roof…sexy!!
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