THE B-52s

Time Capsule (Reprise Records)

THE B-52s have always been good at serving up an eccentric amalgam of ’50s rock’n’roll, surf pop, rock, punk and shiny happy pop, and this “best of” package (plus two new tracks) brings the world a generous helping of their infectious trash art aesthetic.

Somehow The B-52s always manage to sound funky without the heavy bass lines (check ‘Good Stuff’), and hip without being serious. Theirs is music with a smile on its face, its lyrics usually focussed on the joyful frivolity that beats at the heart of pure pop. They have a spot-on rhythmic sense which is finely displayed in one of their earliest hits ‘Rock Lobster’ under its meaningless, but gleefully-delivered, couplets about an underwater dance party.

The unreleased mix of ‘Summer Of Love’ is sublime electro dance pop, while ‘Channel Z’ and ‘Deadbeat Club’ come on like effortless rehearsals for the exuberance that comes with ‘Love Shack’ and the cute ‘(Meet) The Flintstones’. Even real men could dance to ‘Quiche Lorraine’, one of the toe-tappingest tracks of the early ’80s, and it loses none of its sparkle in the live version included here, alongside such timeless studio classics as ‘Roam’, the spacy, quirky surf-anthem ‘Planet Claire’ and others.

The new track ‘Debbie’ is vintage B-52 material, with some charming Byrdlike chiming guitars over a tough rock beat and a chorus to kill for. The other newcomer, ‘Hallucinating Pluto’, is a funkier effort with noisier guitars. It brings the album to an exhilarating conclusion and leads your finger inexorably towards the repeat button.

Time Capsule is good, slightly-soiled fun, full of cheerfully mischievous, quality rock stripped back to the bare basics of pop rarely achieved this side of the Atlantic.

Jackie Hayden