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After many years of enjoying "Rock Lobster" by the B-52s, I finally decided to give their self-titled album a shot. I was expecting a decent album that I would listen to once or perhaps twice and then forget about it, but what I got was an immensely enjoyable, fantastically weird album that I've listened to more than ten times.

The album opens with "Planet Claire", which does a great job of building the atmosphere for the rest of the album.  The main riff chugs along for some time before the vocals arrive, and that's fine by me, I think vocals hold too much importance in music for some people. But if an album could change my opinion on them, this would be the one. Fred Schneider, Kate Pierson, and Cindy Wilson all share vocal duties, and each one of them could hold the album up on their own. Cindy Wilson holds nothing back as she unabashedly screams her vocals in a manner that will give you chills.

My favourite trio of songs begins with "Dance This Mess Around", which features everything that makes this album the gem that it is, and those things are weird lyrics, funky bass, females screaming, and a toy piano. Next is "Rock Lobster", which is possibly the best song I've ever heard about rocks that aren't actually rocks, but are crustaceans. If you can find me a weirder single in mainstream music I will give you five dollars. Seriously. Then we have the song "Lava" which is laden with cleverly worded sexual innuendos involving volcanoes. If this song doesn't get your blood flowing, then I recommend you go see a doctor, because you might be a fossil. Also, I want to mention that 6060-842 (read: 606-0842) is a song about finding a number written on a door (technically a bathroom stall) and it was done three years before that unfairly catchy song by Tommy Tutone Brungus.

This album makes me long for summer, with its surf rock influenced riffs and generally upbeat sound. I recommend this to anybody looking for something unique to listen to, it is a truly weird album and I say that in the best way possible. (It's not the weirdest album ever; it isn't even the weirdest of the year. That has to go to Fear of Music by Talking Heads.) To end this I'm just going to leave behind a few of the wonderfully odd lyrics that this album has to offer.

"Planet Claire has pink air,
All the trees are red
No one ever dies there
No one has a head"

"They do all 16 dances
Do the Coo-ca-choo
Do the Aqua-velva
Do the Dirty Dog
Do the Escalator"

"My love's eruptin' like a red hot volcano
Fire, oh volcano, over you
I gotta lotta lava love locked up inside me"

"If you're lucky you get to ride in a gold meteorite
If you're not, you get a mouth, a mouthful of red Kryptonite"

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