In many ways, the [B-52’s] was a perfect contradiction: With their beehive haircuts and covers of Petula Clark’s “Downton,” they were hearkening back to a day and age when dancing was still the currency of rock ‘n’ roll, and this made them able to cash in on the danceable potential of New Wave before just about anyone else. At the same time, with Fred Schneider’s mechanical-sounding voice and material like “Planet Claire” as well as the mutants-on-the-loose barrage of “Rock Lobster”, they were nudging into a futuristic void that made them psychic allies with androids like Devo and Gary Numan.
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Joe S. Harrington describing The B-52’s self-titled album in VH1’s 100 Greatest Albums book (the band places at #99).
I’ve never noticed a contradiction in the group’s sound, since their aesthetic was so singular and cohesive. The album’s kitschy futurism is hardly futuristic; it’s campy, “retro”. Then again, the parallel to Numan and Devo is an interesting one, since their futurisms also had a campy dimension to them.
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