The B-52's

Cosmic Thing documents two very significant events in the B-52's career. First, it is the band's most mainstream album ever, spawning a certain huge hit song about a Chrysler as big as a whale that you may know. The professional wackos had ironed out just enough of their quirky underground kinks to appeal to an audience that just wanted to dance. The B-52's were ready to deliver. They'd lost guitarist Ricky Wilson to AIDS, but rather than making their first album since his death a somber eulogy, the band created a jubilant celebration of life, dancing and the passionate power of having fun.

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... More >

AIDS having robbed them of their most essential musician, this is an almost touchingly brave attempt to dance away from the edge of ecocatastrophe. Earthquakes, tidal waves, bushfires, waste dumps, toxic fog, maybe even that Chrysler big as a whale are counterposed to and in theory renewed by positive natural forces--junebugs, spaceships, cosmic vibes, an expanding universe, poor rebellious kids having innocent fun. They're trying to be seriously silly, and they're right to believe serious silliness is a healer. But between Ricky Wilson's guitar and the permanent defeat his loss doesn't merely signify, they can't quite bring it off. It's enough to make a grown man cry. (Grade - B)