The B-52s, the seminal new wave band, are heading out on the road in September for what may be the final time. The band is best remembered for their mega-hits "Rock Lobster" and "Love Shack," but they are so much more than those two songs.
The B-52s aren't just pop culture icons; they are living queer history.
The band was formed in 1976 by five close friends: Kate Pierson, Fred Schneider, Keith Strickland, and siblings Cindy and Ricky Wilson. It's now public knowledge that the group is primarily composed of queer individuals (Cindy is the lone straight member); however, this wasn't always clear. Strickland, drummer and later guitarist, admitted in a 1992 interview that no one in the music press had ever asked the B-52s whether they were gay. It's unfathomable to think of a band that presented so overtly queer.
Then again, those were the seventies and eighties for you!
I grew up during those years, and being a music fan was very puzzling. Freddie Mercury and George Michael were closeted, Elton John married a woman in 1984, and even Boy George stated he preferred a cup of tea to sex to avoid answering questions about his sexuality. If those guys weren't gay, who the heck was? Adding to the confusion were the likes of Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet playing with makeup, hair, and fashion in a way straight guys hadn't really done before.
Meanwhile, the B-52s quietly did their thing, and no one asked about their sexual identity. There was no shortage of opportunities to question a band that looked and acted so outrageously. Kate and Cindy were often mistaken for drag queens during their early performances, which helped bring a drag aesthetic to mainstream culture. The band blazed through an iconic performance on SNL in 1980, performing "Rock Lobster" and "Dance This Mess Around," looking like they had just landed from outer space. They wrote songs like "Lava" and "Dirty Back Road" with thinly veiled references to queer sex.
Then, in 1985, guitarist Ricky Wilson died of complications from AIDS before their fourth full-length album was released. His death was a footnote in the music press at the time, overshadowed in the mainstream by Rock Hudson's passing from AIDS complications a few weeks prior. Still, no one asked.
Why the lack of curiosity? I guess that no one wanted to know the answer. The music press was made up almost entirely of straight, white guys, and they likely wanted nothing to do with any queer people. It's also possible they were just blind to it; there was very little representation for queer folks at the time, especially in popular music.
The band took a few years off to heal after Ricky's passing and then dusted themselves off to make the record that would cement them in popular culture: Cosmic Thing. It was their fifth full-length record that was released in the summer of 1989. It contained the massive hits "Love Shack" and "Roam," eventually selling over four million copies. Cosmic Thing was a radical act in defiance of a virus decimating their band and creative community, set against the conservatism of Reaganism and Thatcherism. The B-52s were going to honor their friend, give a nod to the political climate of the time, and have a great time doing it.
Like thousands of queer people every weekend, the B-52s wanted to dance their troubles away.
The B-52s provided a Technicolor example of what it could be to live as a queer person, even if they weren't waving a gay flag for most of their career. Their outfits were wild, Kate and Cindy's wigs outrageous, and their music was sometimes silly and campy. They made dressing up and making music look fun as hell. They also backed up that goofiness with killer musical chops and even better songs.
I was only ten years old when I first heard "Rock Lobster" on the radio, and I immediately wanted to hear more from whoever was making this radical noise. When I finally got a hold of their first album with the iconic yellow cover and heard Fred sing that there were "thousands of others like you" deep on side two, I knew he was talking to me. I couldn't wait to meet whoever those 'others' were.
From that moment on, the B-52s were like my little secret. Sure, I shared my records and danced to them with straight friends, but the band always felt like it was meant for me. I didn't have the language to call it, or them, queer yet. Though I couldn't name it, I knew the band was for the outsiders; the people who didn't fit in, the ones who were sometimes picked on. And later, I would discover the B-52s were definitely for the kids who were gay. Around the same time that a journalist finally asked the band if they were gay, I found the courage to come out to a few close friends.
If the B-52s could officially come out, I could too.
The band released their last album of new material in 2008, and Strickland retired from touring in 2012 while the remaining trio continued to perform. The Bs aren't just queer elders at this point, they're bona fide senior citizens who are still out there shaking their things. We should all be so lucky.
Will it be their last tour? We all know how these things usually go, and Kate Pierson has joked about a 'Cher-well' tour in the past, so we will see. Whether you go to see them perform or not, let's show up for the B-52s. Their queerness was so evident to our community from the beginning, I think we forget to celebrate them as much as we should. Their sheer existence in the seventies and eighties, let alone their artistry and survival, was truly revolutionary.
Their upcoming concerts will be jam-packed with straight folks, and that's ok: the B-52s always invited everyone to their party. As queers, though, let's not forget them, their music, or their place in modern queer history. We owe them that, and we should never forget it.
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