“From the start, The B-52’s were unusual. They were a collective with no leader, a five-piece with three singers and no bassist (vocalist Kate Pierson handled keyboard bass along with organ) that sculpted songs via group improvisations, with a postmodern eye on the past. This was clearest in their look – all atomic bouffant wigs, shiny fabrics and garish makeup, a dazzling forerunner to the seedy Lynchian Technicolor of Wild at Heart or Blue Velvet – but also in their music, which blended surf, punk and underground experimentation with the novelty weirdness and outer-space obsessions of the 1950s. They were kitsch, certainly, but surreal and absurdist rather than camp or ironic; an American response to Roxy Music’s high-art trash aesthetic.”
/ Tim Pinnock writing about The B-52’s in Uncut magazine in July 2025 /
“They had the most unique, hypnotic sound. It’s trashy Americana, John Waters, Divine, the Shangri-La’s, high camp and bubble-gum punk. The beat is everything. Fred (Schneider) always reminded me of Dr Zachary Smith from Lost in Space. I never thought about whether the B-52’s had a gay angle. They were just against rules in general – taking classic American kitsch and giving it a punk, space-age irreverence, like a beautiful car crash with pop surrealism. They were very camp but very funky: always on it, melodic but effortlessly free. It’s the sort of pop music that I want to hear.”
/ Boy George reflecting on The B-52’s in The Guardian in January 2023 /
Born on this day: the wondrous Cindy Wilson (née Cynthia Leigh Wilson, 28 February 1957), one of the founding members of essential post-punk party band The B-52’s (and one of Athens, Georgia’s finest exports)! For me, Wilson’s dissonant science fiction anti-harmonies with co-vocalist Kate Pierson define the sound of 1980s American New Wave music. I also cherish her emotion-wracked lead vocals on tracks like “Hero Worship”, “Give Me Back My Man” “Loveland” and “Girl from Ipanema Goes to Greenland.” She also, of course, has exemplary taste in beehive wigs. Pic: portrait of The B-52’s by Lynn Goldsmith, 1980.
