The sets will drop this summer
The dance floor’s never been the same since The B-52’s set out from Athens, Georgia, on their way to becoming the world’s greatest party band. Now, their early run of classic releases, all featuring newly remastered audio, has been collected in The Warner and Reprise Years, available on June 20th on 8 CD and 9 LP sets via Rhino Records.
Spanning 1979 to 1992, the albums collected here chart the creative and commercial evolution of the B-52’s—an era that saw the band sell over 20 million records worldwide. Five of the eight albums in the set have been certified gold or higher by the RIAA, including Cosmic Thing, their self-titled debut, Wild Planet, Whammy!, and the Grammy-nominated Good Stuff.
The collection also highlights some of their best-known songs, including “Rock Lobster,” “Private Idaho,” “Mesopotamia,” “Legal Tender,” “Channel Z,” and “Good Stuff.” Cosmic Thing — produced by Don Was and Nile Rodgers — remains the group’s biggest commercial success, powered by the back-to-back hits “Love Shack” and “Roam.” At the 1990 MTV Video Music Awards, the band won Best Group Video and Best Art Direction for “Love Shack.” Grammy nods followed for “Love Shack” and “Roam.”
The group just wrapped a five-run show on their wildly successful Las Vegas residency at The Venetian Theatre inside The Venetian Resort Las Vegas.
It is well known that The B-52s are The World’s Greatest Party Band. Forty-five years and over 20 million albums into their career, there can be no doubt as to why they remain one of pop music’s most beloved and enduring bands. Any mystery concerning the band’s longevity and ongoing appeal is immediately solved when exposed to a B-52s concert experience. From groundbreaking songs like “Rock Lobster,” “Dance This Mess Around,” “Private Idaho,” “Roam” and “Deadbeat Club” to chart-topping hits like “Love Shack,” to their thrilling reemergence on the pop scene with their 2008 CD Funplex, which bowed at No. 11 on the Top 200. The B-52s’ unforgettable dance-pop tunes start a party every time their music begins.
Formed on an October night in 1976 following drinks at an Athens, GA, Chinese restaurant, the band played their first gig at a friend’s house on Valentine’s Day 1977. Naming themselves after southern slang for exaggerated bouffant hairdos, the newly-christened B-52s (Fred Schneider, Kate Pierson, Keith Strickland, Cindy Wilson and Ricky Wilson) began weekend road trips to New York City for gigs at CBGB’s and a handful of other venues. Before long, their thrift store aesthetic and genre-defying songs were the talk of the post-punk underground. A record deal soon followed and their self-titled debut disc, produced by Chris Blackwell, sold more than 500,000 copies on the strength of their first singles, the garage rock party classic “Rock Lobster,” and “52 Girls.” The album placed at No. 152 on Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Albums of All Time” and No. 99 on VH1’s “Greatest Albums of All Time.” The B-52s began to attract fans far beyond the punk clubs of the Lower East Side — galvanizing the pop world with their ‘stream-of-consciousness’ approach to songwriting and outrageous performance. They had clearly tapped into a growing audience for new music that was much larger than anyone could have anticipated.
The B-52’s
1. Planet Claire
2. 52 Girls
3. Dance This Mess Around
4. Rock Lobster
5. Lava
6. There’s A Moon In The Sky (Called The Moon)
7. Hero Worship
8. 6060-842
9. Downtown
Wild Planet
1. Party Out Of Bounds
2. Dirty Back Road
3. Runnin’ Around
4. Give Me Back My Man
5. Private Idaho
6. Devil In My Car
7. Quiche Lorraine
8. Strobe Light
9. 53 Miles West Of Venus
Party Mix!
1. Party Out Of Bounds
2. Private Idaho
3. Give Me Back My Man
4. Lava
5. Dance This Mess Around
6. 52 Girls
Mesopotamia
1. Loveland
2. Deep Sleep
3. Mesopotamia
4. Cake
5. Throw That Beat In The Garbage Can
6. Nip It In The Bud
Whammy!
1. Legal Tender
2. Whammy Kiss
3. Song For A Future Generation
4. Butterbean
5. Trism
6. Queen Of Las Vegas
7. Moon ’83
8. Big Bird
9. Work That Skirt
Bouncing Off the Satellites
1. Summer Of Love
2. Girl From Ipanema Goes To Greenland
3. Housework
4. Detour Through Your Mind
5. Wig
6. Theme For A Nude Beach
7. Ain’t It A Shame
8. Juicy Jungle
9. Communicate
10. She Brakes For Rainbows
Cosmic Things
1. Cosmic Thing
2. Dry County
3. Deadbeat Club
4. Love Shack
5. Junebug
6. Roam
7. Bushfire
8. Channel Z
9. Topaz
10. Follow Your Bliss
Good Stuff
1. Tell It Like It T-I-IS
2. Hot Pants Explosion
3. Good Stuff
4. Revolution Earth
5. Dreamland
6. Is That You Mo-Dean?
7. The World’s Green Laughter
8. Vision Of A Kiss
9. Breezin’
10. Bad Influence
