”Later we [Culture Club] played with them a few times and they had the most unique, hypnotic sound. It’s trashy Americana, John Waters, Divine, the Shangri-La’s, high camp and bubblegum punk. The beat is everything. Fred always reminded me of Dr Zachary Smith from Lost in Space. I never thought about whether the B-52’s had a gay angle. They were just against rules in general – taking classic American kitsch and giving it a punk, space-age irreverence, like a beautiful car crash with pop surrealism. They were very camp but very funky: always on it, melodic but effortlessly free. It’s the sort of pop music that I want to hear.”
/ Boy George reflecting on the B-52’s in The Guardian /
Born on this week: happy 76th birthday to the sublime Kate Pierson (née Catherine Elizabeth Pierson, 27 April 1948) - singer, multi-instrumentalist, bouffant wig enthusiast and one of the founding members of Athens, Georgia’s essential post-punk party band the B-52’s! For me, Pierson’s spine-tingling dissonant science fiction anti-harmonies with co-vocalist Cindy Wilson are one of the defining sounds of American New Wave music.