Ban the Bombers

IT WAS TOO GOOD to be true; you knew it. Three years ago everyone was listening to ELO and Jimmy Buffett and all of a sudden there was this guy Elvis Costello singing about the end of the world. Elvis became, like his eponym, the King of Rock and Roll, only now they didn't call it rock and roll, they called it the New Wave. Because it was new--that was what made it great, that somehow from this extraordinarily restricted and limited form, when all the possibilities seemed exhausted, these lunatic geniuses brought forth the rock and roll Lazarus.

But records mean record companies; Mistah Kurtz, he alive over at Warner Brothers. Record companies knew that the New Wave could be reduced to formulas and cranked out of the mill, that like everything else this exciting new music was susceptible to the process that had become a metaphor for the decade--cloning. They knew that they could sell overproduced pseudo-New Wave to most of its fans, artsy fartsy students with plenty of money and charge cards from Mom and Dad, ugly girls without taste or talent, nouveau hipsters who found Talking Heads "well, you kneu, so bizarre."

Rich Little-as-Devo--there, in a nutshell, you have the B-52s. These three men and two women--none musicians in any sense of the word--have captured the pose of the New Wave, the mannerisms without the guts. Robot repetition of the rhythm, one finger electronic keyboards, mechanistic vocals--this album is a parody of Devo, which was a parody to begin with. It might sound like the New Wave to the "Under Assistant West Coast Promo Man," but this is polyester music, boring, irritating.

This group has no identity, no vocal personality, no musicianship. Yes, it is "cute" and "weird." The women wear "funny" wigs and the men wear white Oxfords and skinny lapels and one has a skinny mustache that is so "bizarre." Yes, it features some of the worst leadfooted drumming ever recorded. Yes, the guitarist couldn't play a ukelele. Yes, they have no bass player.

THESE SONGS seem to go on forever, mostly because they do go on forever--songs on the first side average close to five minutes. Some, like "Rock Lobster," have a good hook, but a good hook can't sustain a seven-minute song. Some are simply horrible, forced screaming and banal lyrics and a fascination with the specious. Consider this, from "Dance This Mess Around":

Everybody goes to parties

They dance this mess around

Do the Coo-ca-choo

Do the Aqua-velva

Do the Dirty dog

Do the Escalator

Is this funny? Is this imaginative? Is this passionate? Or is this justifiable homicide?

Dial the number to call

Get no answer at all

Dime's in the slot

Ready to trot

They will, of course, have legions of fans. Attribute it to open-air nuclear testing in the late fifties and early sixties.

I have only touched on how worthless this album is, how insipid and unprofessional. B-52s drop things, and cows drop things too, which because they are loose and watery become flat and circular and, in the winter, hard and very much like a record. Get yourself a wig and an electric guitar. In America anything is possible.