The B-52’s – Dance This Mess Around

I just learned that today is Cindy Wilson’s birthday so in honor of that, some vintage B-52’s from 1978. I think seeing them like this, especially if you are not old enough to have known them in anything pre-Cosmic Thing, you get a different sense of the band.

They were always a campy band out for fun but I think the whole Love Shack era had a weird effect. I’m having a hard time putting my finger on it but it’s almost like the difference between laughing with someone and laughing at someone. In the early days, dancing around with your friends to the first (yellow) album or Wild Planet, especially as a newly minted junior high student, meant you were cool. I had the good fortune of having older siblings who brought home all kinds of music I might otherwise never have been exposed to at that age. By the time Cosmic Thing came out and large-scale fame had found them, it was no longer cool.

The other great thing about this video is that you now know how to do the Aqua-velva and the Escalator.