After taking a year off, The B-52's, who were all living together at this time, began working on their next studio album. However, struggles with coming up with new material together would prompting them to instead try writing tracks individually.
When recording commenced in July of 1985, band member Keith Strickland, was the only one aware that guitarist Ricky Wilson was suffering from Aids. It would be a secret he opted to keep up until a few days before his death when he finally told his remaining bandmates, which included sister Cindy Wilson, and the rest of his family.
Though the album was completed, Wilson succumbed to AIDS in October of 1985, derailing the band as a result. Devastated, they would go their separate ways, and instead contemplating if The B-52's were over. When Bouncing Off The Satellites was finally released in September of 1986, the band opted to no tour, and promoted its release sparkly, which included a music video for Girl from Ipanema Goes to Greenland.
Summer Of Love, and Girl from Ipanema Goes to Greenland start the album off on that quirky B-2's sound, and things continue for the remainder of what would technically be called, "side A", if it weren't a continuous CD. Detour Thru Your Mind does have a fun, and intentional, backwards track, which when played in reverse has Fred Schneider stating, "Watch out, you might ruin your needle."
Overall, there's a lot of playful back and forth banter between the vocals of Schneider and Pierson, a common staple for their music. The back half, though, seems bland in comparison. It doesn't have that same level of excitement and pop that you get in the first several songs. It all just kind of falls into background noise, albeit, weird sounding background noise. It's the type of music you'd hear in a fever dream. Hmm...That may very well sum up The B-52's in general. They're okay, as a whole, but they're definitely not my favorite. I couldn't see myself listening to them often.
As noted above, The B-52's went on hiatus throughout most of 1986 and 1987, with little promotion being given to the album. However, time would help heal wounds, and in 1989, they reemerged from the darkness to release their biggest hit to date, and finally experience a mainstream breakthrough. You know the song. It's all over 80's pop culture, and we'll talk about it next time.
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| THIS WEEK ON THE CHARTS August 26, 1989 |
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