The B-52s

This article is about the band The B-52s, for the music album of the same name see The B-52's (album) .

The B-52s
The B-52s at the Festival Internacional de Benicàssim 2007: Keith Strickland, Cindy Wilson, Fred Schneider and Kate Pierson (from left)
General information
origin	Athens , United States
Genre (s)	New wave , pop rock
founding	1976
Website	theb52s.com
Current occupation
Vocals , keyboard , guitar	Kate Pierson
Vocals , keyboard	Fred Schneider
Singing , guitar , bongos	Cindy Wilson
Drums , guitar	Keith Strickland
former members
guitar	Ricky Wilson (until † 1985)

The B-52s is an American rock band formed in Athens , Georgia , in 1976 . Until 2008 the band was called The B-52’s .

history

The band was formed by five students Kate Pierson, Cindy Wilson, their brother Ricky Wilson, Fred Schneider and Keith Strickland in October 1976. After a night of partying in a Chinese restaurant in Athens, they came up with the idea of ​​forming a band, although they actually had little or no experience. They were called B-52's. The name is derived from a southern nickname for the beehive and beehive hairstyles of the two singers, who were tupled and then kept in shape with hairspray . The name for this hairstyle in turn refers to the shape of the nose tip of the aircraft of the same name: Boeing B-52 .

For most of their early appearances and shows, they played recorded guitar chords and accompanied each other with percussion .

After pressing two thousand copies of the single Rock Lobster , they made their first paid gig at Max's Kansas City nightclub . Soon the New York press became aware of the group. An Island Records manager happened to listen to the single Rock Lobster and immediately signed the group. In mid-1979 the first LP was released , which also contained the first successful single. The following albums sold very well. In 1980 the band released their second album, Wild Planet . This reached the twentieth place in the US album charts.

In 1985 the band was hit hard: Ricky Wilson died. First it was said that his death had natural causes, then it was announced that he had died of cancer. Eventually, however, it turned out that AIDS was the cause of death. After his death, the album Bouncing off the Satellites was released in 1986 , in whose creation Ricky Wilson was still involved. After that, the band went quiet for a while. In 1989 she made a comeback with her album Cosmic Thing, which became the group's most commercially successful album to date. It contains some of the best-known titles from the B-52s, including Love Shack and Roam . The album sold 4 million times in the US alone. The two mentioned hits also both reached gold in the USA.

In 1990 Cindy Wilson left the band. The album Good Stuff , released in 1992, appeared without her participation. In 1994, the group created another hit with the song (Meet) The Flintstones for the feature film Flintstones - The Flintstones . For this publication they used the band name BC-52’s (based on the fact that the story of the Feuersteins takes place before the birth of Christ , English before Christ or abbreviated BC).

In mid-1998 the best-of album Time Capsule: Songs for a Future Generation was released, which also marked the band's resurgence; Cindy Wilson has been a permanent member of the band since then and was also on the promotional tour for the compilation with the party. In addition to a collection of their greatest hits, Time Capsule also included two new songs: Hallucinating Pluto and Debbie. The latter piece, also released as a single, is a throwback to Deborah Harry (lead singer of the band Blondie ) and the music scene that formed in New York in the late 1970s with the legendary punk club CBGB as a focal point.

The retrospective Nude on the Moon: The B-52's Anthology , published as a double CD in 2002, is another best-of of the band from Athens.

Kate Pierson was also in 1990 in the song Candy by Iggy Pop and 1991 in Shiny Happy People group REM (also come from Athens) to hear. Fred Schneider recorded some solo albums.

On March 25, 2008, 16 years after Good Stuff, the album Funplex was released under the now apostrophic name The B-52s . The first single of the same name from this album was released in January 2008 as a paid download.

In October 2011 the live album With the Wild Crowd! . This is the live recording of a concert by the band that took place in Athens in February 2011 .

On December 13, 2012, Keith Strickland announced on the band's official website that he would no longer accompany the group on tours. Since then, Greg Suran has taken on the role of lead guitarist on tour . Tracy Wormworth ( bass ), Sterling Campbell ( drums ) and Ken Maiuri ( keyboard , rhythm guitar ) are currently part of the tour .

Style and effect

The idiosyncratic mix of rock 'n' roll , punk and funk was particularly well received by the American student movement and new wave fans. The B-52's managed to combine rock with new wave. The often shrill, often melodic singing of the two singers, comical lyrics and rocking guitar playing alongside some science fiction-like keyboard melodies are the trademark of the B-52s. Many of their covers are typical of the New Wave.

The B-52's were a style-defining group that established Athens' reputation as a center of alternative rock. Since the B-52's, the University of Georgia there has repeatedly produced well-known bands such as REM. By merging rock and roll with new wave, they exert a great influence on music groups to this day.

Discography

Albums

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)					Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US
1979	The B-52's	-	-	-	UK22 (12 weeks) UK	US59 platinum (74 weeks)US	152nd place in the Rolling Stone 500
1980	Wild planet	-	-	-	UK18 (4 weeks) UK	US18th gold (27 weeks)US
1981	Party mix!	-	-	-	UK36 (5 weeks) UK	US55 (11 weeks) US	Remix version of Wild Planet (six tracks)
1982	Mesopotamia	-	-	-	UK18 (6 weeks) UK	US35 (18 weeks) US
1983	Whammy!	DE40 (3 weeks) DE	-	-	UK33 (4 weeks) UK	US29 gold (26 weeks)US
1987	Bouncing off the satellites	-	-	-	UK74 (2 weeks) UK	US85 (15 weeks) US
1989	Cosmic Thing	DE25 (22 weeks) DE	-	-	UK8th platinum (27 weeks)UK	US4th × 4 Quadruple platinum (65 weeks)US
1992	Good stuff	DE22 (17 weeks) DE	-	CH26 (9 weeks) CH	UK8th silver (7 weeks)UK	US16 gold (15 weeks)US
2008	Funplex	DE38 (4 weeks) DE	-	CH71 (1 week) CH	UK73 (1 week) UK	US11 (7 weeks) US

gray hatching : no chart data available for this year

More albums

• 2011: With the Wild Crowd! (Live in Athens, GA)
• 2013: Live in the UK 2013: August 17, 2013 - Rewind Festival Henley-on-Thames

Compilations

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)					Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US
1990	Best of the B52's - Dance This Mess Around	-	-	-	UK36 silver (3 weeks)UK	-
1991	Party Mix - Mesopotamia	-	-	-	-	US184 (3 weeks) US
1998	Time Capsule - Songs for a Future Generation	-	-	-	UK- silver UK	US93 (11 weeks) US

More compilations

• 1995: Planet Claire
• 1997: Pop Giants
• 1998: Time Capsule - The Remixes
• 2002: Nude on the Moon: The B-52's Anthology (double CD)
• 2003: The B-52's 3 original CDs (box with 3 CDs, including Mesopotamia , Planet Claire and Whammy! )
• 2012: Original Album Series (box with 5 CDs)

Singles

year	Title album	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes)					Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US
1979	Rock Lobster The B-52’s	-	-	-	UK37 (5 weeks) UK	US56 (8 weeks) US	First published: 1978
1980	Give Me Back My Man Wild Planet	-	-	-	UK61 (3 weeks) UK	-
	Private Idaho Wild Planet	-	-	-	-	US74 (5 weeks) US	First published: 1979
1983	Future Generation Whammy!	-	-	-	UK63 (3 weeks) UK	-
	Legal Tender Whammy!	-	-	-	-	US81 (4 weeks) US
1986	Rock Lobster / Planet Claire The B-52's / Wild Planet	-	-	-	UK12 (9 weeks) UK	-
1987	Wig Bouncing Off the Satellites	-	-	-	UK79 (4 weeks) UK	-
1989	Love Shack Cosmic Thing	-	-	-	UK2 gold (13 weeks)UK	US3 gold (27 weeks)US
	Roam Cosmic Thing	DE40 (10 weeks) DE	-	-	UK17 (7 weeks) UK	US3 gold (20 weeks)US
1990	Deadbeat Club Cosmic Thing	-	-	-	-	US30 (11 weeks) US	First published: 1989
	Channel Z Cosmic Thing	-	-	-	UK61 (3 weeks) UK	-	First published: 1989
1992	Good stuff, good stuff	DE37 (11 weeks) DE	-	-	UK21 (6 weeks) UK	US28 (13 weeks) US	First published: 1990
	Tell It Like It Ti-is Good Stuff	-	-	-	UK61 (3 weeks) UK	-	First published: 1990
1994	(Meet) The Flintstones The Flintstones: Music from Bedrock (OST)	DE9 (15 weeks) DE	AT11 (10 weeks) AT	CH12 (11 weeks) CH	UK3 silver (12 weeks)UK	US33 (8 weeks) US	as The BC-52’s from the soundtrack The Flintstones
1999	(At The) Love Shack Time Capsule - The Remixes	-	-	-	UK66 (1 week) UK	-	The B-52's meet DJ Tonka First published: 1998

More singles

1979: Dance This Mess Around 1979: Planet Claire 1979: 6060-842 1979: 52 girls 1980: Dirty Back Road 1980: lava 1980: Strobe Light 1982: Mesopotamia 1982: Deep Sleep 1982: Loveland 1982: Cake 1983: Party Out of Bounds 1983: Whammy Kiss 1986: Summer of Love 1986: Girl from Ipanema Goes to Greenland

1989: Megamix 1989: Cosmic Thing 1992: Is That You Mo-Dean? 1992: Revolution Earth 1993: Hot Pants Explosion 1998: Hallucinating Pluto 1998: Time Capsule - The Megamixes 1998: Debbie 1998: Time Capsule - The Mixes (2 vinyl maxis) 1998: Summer of Love '98 (Time Capsule - The Mixes) 2005: Whammy! - 2005 Remix EP 2006: Mesopotamia - 2006 Remix EP 2007: Wild Planet - 2007 Remix EP 2008: Juliet of the Spirits 2008: Funplex

Video albums

• 1990: 1979–1989 (US:platinum)
• 1998: Time Capsule Videos for a Future Generation 1979–1989 (Laserdisc)
• 2011: Live Germany 1983
• 2012: With the Wild Crowd! Live in Athens, GA

Awards for music sales

Note: Awards in countries from the chart tables or chart boxes can be found in these.

Country / Region	silver	gold	platinum	Sales	swell
Awards for music sales (country / region, awards, sales, sources)
United States (RIAA)	-	5 × gold5	6 × platinum6th	7,600,000	riaa.com
United Kingdom (BPI)	4 × silver4th	gold1	platinum1	800,000	bpi.co.uk
All in all	4 × silver4th	6 × gold6th	7 × platinum7th

literature

• Irwin Stambler: The Encyclopedia of Pop, Rock and Soul . 3rd revised edition. St. Martin's Press, New York City 1989, ISBN 0-312-02573-4 , pp. 23-25.

swell

1. ↑ theb52s.com ( Memento of the original from August 1, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved December 27, 2010 
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Chart sources: Singles Albums UK1 UK2 US2
3. ^ The Billboard Albums by Joel Whitburn , 6th Edition, Record Research 2006, ISBN 0-89820-166-7 .

Web links

Commons : The B-52's  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Official website (English)
• The B-52s at Allmusic (English)
• The B-52s at Discogs (English)
• Detailed discography (English)