Cosmic Thing
	Produced by Nile Rodgers, Don Was
	Released on June 20, 1989
	US CHART POSITION #4 . . . 4x PLATINUM RECORD
	Find it at GEMM
W4 25484 cover

F lat Fred, Keith Strictly Instrumental and the Handmaidens of Impossible Hairdos starring in Happily Ever Afterland. Which is, you’ll say, where they bee long. The dynamic between Fred and the girls has always been their secret weapon, but producers Nile Rodgers and Don Was replaced the warhead with radioactive party favors and the whole thing exploded into an HUgladUcame2Dparty-bomb. Call it cosmic karma, the planets aligned for Cosmic Thing, and it was the summer of love all over again. Added to the lexicon of lobster were “Love Shack” and “Roam” as The B-52s went from mothballed oddballs to generational ambassadors. The reason? Perhaps it was eight years of sunny Reaganomics, MTV, REM and a decade of really bad hair. But I suspect it’s the music: a nuclear mutation of the coed call-and-response first created when female backing singers stood behind their man on the primordial stage. It’s always had a subliminal sex appeal. So The B-52’s were campy, kinky and cosmic; what wasn’t to love? They were selling the same philosophy on Bouncing, but nobody was buying it. By Good Stuff, they were sold out. Cosmic Thing clicked. There’s no other explanation, short of hyper-funky aliens who dug the happy orbit of the Georgian satellites and controlled our radio and TV waves to get it. And so The B-52s became an overnight sensation. Again, ten years after. No denying that these Go Go Byrds are far friendlier creatures than the crusty crustaceans of old. Nothing on here is as bug-eyed as “Private Idaho” or “Planet Claire.” This is a love bomb, baby. Bomb shelter? Love shack. You can’t hide.

W4 25854 lyric sleeve

TRACK LISTING

1. COSMIC THING
2. DRY COUNTRY
3. DEADBEAT CLUB
4. LOVE SHACK
5. JUNEBUG
6. ROAM    (The B-52's/Robert Waldrop)
7. BUSHFIRE
8. CHANNEL Z
9. TOPAZ
10. FOLLOW YOUR BLISS
    
    All songs written by The B-52's unless noted

CREDITS

KATE PIERSON -- vocals, keyboards
FRED SCHNEIDER -- vocals, percussion
KEITH STRICKLAND -- guitar, keyboards, vocals
CINDY WILSON -- vocals
Leroy Clouden -- drums
Charlie Drayton -- drums
Sonny Emory -- drums
Steve Ferrone -- drums
Richard Hilton -- keyboards, programming
Sara Lee -- bass guitar, keyboards, backing vocals
Tommy Mandell -- keyboards
Nile Rodgers -- guitar, mixing
Philippe Saisse -- keyboards
Uptown Horns:
  Carl Beatty
  Chris Cioe
  Bob Funk
  Arno Hecht
  Paul Literal
Dave Cook -- engineer
Tom Durack -- engineer, mixing
The B-52's -- cover concept
Manhattan Design -- cover concept, design
Virginia Liberatore -- photographer

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