5 ms·

There's fine stuff in pretty much every era of the B-52s. Bouncing of the Satellites is probably their weakest moment but even that has Girl From Ipanema Goes T

by moomin 5y ago

There's fine stuff in pretty much every era of the B-52s. Bouncing of the Satellites is probably their weakest moment but even that has Girl From Ipanema Goes To Greenland. Cosmic Thing is a damn fine album even if Love Shack is overplayed. Good Stuff is cracking despite them being down to three and Funplex is actually... kind of amazing. Honestly I wish they'd record another, but they're probably happier touring.

tptacek 5y ago
Channel Z is an OK song on an otherwise kind of dreadful album, and that's where I get off the B-52s train. It's OK for bands to stop being good! Try to make a whole album worth of good post-Monster REM songs!
- moomin 5y ago
  I mean, New Adventures in Hi-Fi, Up and Accelerate are right there... The first two suffer from bad choices of first track. Up is weird because it takes absolutely ages to get into it but I contend it's a surprisingly fine album that was extremely badly received. I'm not gonna try to defend Reveal and Around The Sun. Even REM seem to hate Around The Sun in particular. (For post-Cosmic thing gems, try "Revolution Earth", "Juliet of the Spirits" or "Pump" (not on YouTube, though, boy there's some lousy sound quality there...)
  - tptacek 5y ago
    They're right there, but the problem with them is that they're bad. There isn't an album worth of listenable songs between them. I tried working this out on Twitter and this playlist was all I could come up with: https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/post-monster-r-e-m/pl.u-YmMeMtg27GX https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/post-monster-r-e-m/pl.u-...
    - moomin 5y ago
      Sadly I can’t view that, because I’m sure I’d have a great time debating the various merits. But we don’t have to like the same things. :)
      - tptacek 5y ago
        Using the best available R.E.M. expertise available on Twitter, I've qualified the following post-Monster songs as "listenable": Supernatural Superserious and Living Well Is The Best Revenge off Accelerate, Imitation of Life, Hope and Daysleeper off Up, and Leave and Electrolite off New Adventures.
bigiain 5y ago
I'm 100% OK with Love Shack being "overplayed". It's such a happy silly infectious song. My all time favourite B-52s song is Private Idaho though. > but they're probably happier touring. I saw them way way back, probably 1990 or 91 in Sydney, and again ~5 years back when they toured with Simple Minds. (And I had tickets to see them last July, but fuck you Covid...) They are great fun live. I highly recommend seeing them if you get the chance - if anything, they're better at it now than they were back when they were younger and still charting. They seem to be having more fun on stage than any band I've ever seen.
- moomin 5y ago
  I think Private Idaho is perfection. The album's a bit all over the place, though. :D The weird thing with Love Shack is that the B-52s are misremembered as being one-hit wonders.

by moomin 5y ago

tptacek 5y ago

Channel Z is an OK song on an otherwise kind of dreadful album, and that's where I get off the B-52s train. It's OK for bands to stop being good! Try to make a whole album worth of good post-Monster REM songs!

moomin 5y ago
I mean, New Adventures in Hi-Fi, Up and Accelerate are right there... The first two suffer from bad choices of first track. Up is weird because it takes absolutely ages to get into it but I contend it's a surprisingly fine album that was extremely badly received. I'm not gonna try to defend Reveal and Around The Sun. Even REM seem to hate Around The Sun in particular. (For post-Cosmic thing gems, try "Revolution Earth", "Juliet of the Spirits" or "Pump" (not on YouTube, though, boy there's some lousy sound quality there...)
- tptacek 5y ago
  They're right there, but the problem with them is that they're bad. There isn't an album worth of listenable songs between them. I tried working this out on Twitter and this playlist was all I could come up with: https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/post-monster-r-e-m/pl.u-YmMeMtg27GX https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/post-monster-r-e-m/pl.u-...
  - moomin 5y ago
    Sadly I can’t view that, because I’m sure I’d have a great time debating the various merits. But we don’t have to like the same things. :)
    - tptacek 5y ago
      Using the best available R.E.M. expertise available on Twitter, I've qualified the following post-Monster songs as "listenable": Supernatural Superserious and Living Well Is The Best Revenge off Accelerate, Imitation of Life, Hope and Daysleeper off Up, and Leave and Electrolite off New Adventures.

bigiain 5y ago

I'm 100% OK with Love Shack being "overplayed". It's such a happy silly infectious song. My all time favourite B-52s song is Private Idaho though. > but they're probably happier touring. I saw them way way back, probably 1990 or 91 in Sydney, and again ~5 years back when they toured with Simple Minds. (And I had tickets to see them last July, but fuck you Covid...) They are great fun live. I highly recommend seeing them if you get the chance - if anything, they're better at it now than they were back when they were younger and still charting. They seem to be having more fun on stage than any band I've ever seen.

moomin 5y ago
I think Private Idaho is perfection. The album's a bit all over the place, though. :D The weird thing with Love Shack is that the B-52s are misremembered as being one-hit wonders.