The Alternative Number Ones: The B-52’s’ “Love Shack”

In The Alternative Number Ones, I'm reviewing every #1 single in the history of the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks/Alternative Songs, starting with the moment that the chart launched in 1988. This column is a companion piece to The Number Ones, and it's for subscribers only. Thank you to everyone who's helping to keep Stereogum afloat.

The B-52's already had their party rock anthem. They might've already had the party rock anthem, and they had it from the very first day that they were a band. When the B-52's played their first show -- an Athens house party on Valentine's Day 1977 -- "Rock Lobster" was already part of their set. In the years that followed, "Rock Lobster," the B-52's' debut single, became one of the definitive bangers of the early new wave moment. John Lennon praised the song just days before his death. The B-52's played the song in Paul Simon's 1980 movie One-Trick Pony and on Saturday Night Live. "Rock Lobster" took the B-52's from regional obscurity to the actual pop charts; it peaked at #56 on the Hot 100. To this day, "Rock Lobster" is the song that the B-52's use to close out their live shows.

I wasn't around to experience it, but in its moment, "Rock Lobster" must've felt like a perfect novelty song. Perfect novelty songs are randomly occurring miracles, and you can't simply recreate them. In a way, the most unlikely thing about the B-52's isn't that they made a song as great as "Rock Lobster" in the first place; it's that they continued to have a career after that song did what it did. Typically, groups as fundamentally silly as the B-52's don't stick around for long, especially when they make a cultural impact early on. But the B-52's endured, and they made another decade's worth of giddy, explosive, ridiculous party rock anthems. None of those songs were as big or as great as "Rock Lobster," and nobody expected any of those songs to be as big or as great as "Rock Lobster." But then the B-52's shocked the world.

When the B-52's made their 1989 album Cosmic Thing, I have to imagine that they were still widely known as the "Rock Lobster" band. The B-52's had a few more hits to their name, but none of those hits had come close to the impact of "Rock Lobster." They were still mourning the 1985 death of guitarist Ricky Wilson, the band's original musical mastermind, and they'd just watched as 1986's Bouncing Off The Satellites, the last album that they'd recorded with Wilson, bricked hellaciously. If the B-52's broke up before Cosmic Thing, everyone would've understood. Hell, everyone would've understood if they broke up after "Rock Lobster."

Instead, in the face of tragedy and failure, the B-52's regrouped. Keith Strickland, formerly the band's drummer and Ricky Wilson's longtime best friend, stepped out to the front. He picked up the guitar, mastered Wilson's bugged-out tunings, and assumed the role of the band's chief songwriter. The B-52's spent months working on new music, jamming in isolation and taking inspiration from their early days in Athens. They recorded a good chunk of their comeback album with former Chic leader and '80s super-producer Nile Rodgers, and when Rodgers ran out of time, they finished the LP with Don Was, another guy who was approaching super-producer status. The vaguely political "Channel Z," the first single from Cosmic Thing, was a modern-rock radio hit that never crossed over to the pop charts. But then there was "Love Shack."

What the fuck can you even say about "Love Shack"? It's a giddy, joyous nonsense riot, and it feels ridiculous to describe it when you could use that energy to attempt Fred Schneider's nasal bray and start yelling about a Chrysler as big as a whale that's about! To set! Saillllll! "Love Shack," like "Channel Z," got its start on college and alt-rock radio stations. Unlike "Channel Z," "Love Shack" went on to become a commercial behemoth, and it totally changed the B-52's' trajectory. Pretty soon, the B-52's were arena-level pop stars, and they had a party rock anthem that dwarfed even "Rock Lobster."

Inside the whole "Love Shack" narrative, you can see an inspirational story about a group of people getting through hard times and finding success beyond anything that anyone could've ever predicted. But when you're actually listening to "Love Shack," it's hard to keep any of that in mind. "Love Shack," on its own, is simply too much fun.

There was a real love shack. There were a couple of them, in fact, though neither one, as far as I can tell, had a faded sign by the side of the road that said "15 miles to the looooooove shack!" (If I ever see such a sign, I will immediately drop all my plans, whether or not my kids are in the car.) In different interviews, the band members have said that they had a couple of inspirations in mind for "Love Shack." One was the cabin where Kate Pierson lived and where the band jammed and rehearsed in their early years. That's where they wrote "Rock Lobster." That particular shack burned down in 2004.

The other "Love Shack" inspiration was the Hawaiian Ha-Le, a small and predominantly Black nightclub outside Athens. Talking to the AV Club in 2011, Kate Pierson compared it to "the juke joint in The Color Purple." In a 2018 Rolling Stone oral history, Cindy Wilson, Ricky's sister and bandmate, said, "It used to be this funky building with a tin roof that was old and rusty. They would have Soul Train lines. They just put a condemned sign on it, so it’s closed down." But there's still a Facebook page for a Hawaiian Ha-Le Club And Event Center in Athens, so maybe some version of the Love Shack lives on.

"Love Shack" was the last song that the B-52's recorded for Cosmic Thing. Its funky dancefloor exuberance owes a clear debt to Chic and Nile Rodgers, but like "Channel Z," it's one of the tracks that they recorded with Don Was, not Rodgers. If the band hadn't been ahead of schedule when they were putting the album together, they might never have recorded the track that changed their lives. The songs on Cosmic Thing came together through long, rigorous freeform jam sessions. Keith Strickland would come up with basic musical ideas, and then the band would play them for hours at a time in their rehearsal space, with the singers belting out whatever came to mind. They'd go back and listen, editing together the best bits with a dual-cassette recorder, and turn the jams into songs.

When the band played their demos for Don Was, they mentioned that they had another unfinished track. The initial "Love Shack" demo, which has sadly never been made available for consumption, was apparently a 15-minute jam with no real structure. Fred Schneider had the title and the basic concept, but there was no chorus. Was thought the jam could become a hit. At one point in the jam session, Kate Pierson sang that the Love Shack is a little old place where we can get together, and Was figured out that this should be the chorus. Keith Strickland was convinced that the song still wasn't finished, but Was helped the band edit it down into a shiny, propulsive four-minute burst of joy, and it became what it is now.

The B-52's and Don Was recorded "Love Shack" in Woodstock, New York, where some of the band members were living. Even after Don Was helped the band structure "Love Shack" into a digestible song, the recording sessions were still wild and improvisational. There's a great story about one of the song's more memorable moments. At one point, the singers were freestyling over a pre-recorded track while a thunderstorm was raging outside. Out of nowhere, Cindy Wilson roared out a line about a "tinnnnnnn roof! Rusted!" When she screamed it, she was so caught up in the moment that she didn't realize the power had gone out.

It's hard to imagine anyone getting that excited about a rusty roof, but Cindy Wilson was apparently so emotional when she yelled the line that she cried afterwards. When the song came out, people didn't know what she was saying -- something about Henry being busted, maybe? A few apparently thought it was a reference to pregnancy, which doesn't make any sense, but maybe you had to be there. The band tried to record more takes, but Wilson just couldn't summon that same intensity again, so they just kept that take of the song and spliced in another ending. That story could be apocryphal. If the power went out, how did they get Wilson's yell on tape? But whatever. I like it. Print the legend. She sounds utterly awesome in that moment, and if the B-52's want us to believe that this was a blast of mid-thunderstorm raw feeling, who am I to argue?

The moral of the whole backstory, I guess, is that you can't write a song like "Love Shack." It's too goofy, too immediate and weird and leftfield, to be the work of a songwriter sitting alone somewhere. Instead, you can only get the raw materials for a song like "Love Shack" if you get a bunch of charismatic freaks who trust each other implicitly into the same room, if they keep grinding away at an idea until the most inspired moments emerge. The final track is sharp and polished and professional, but it still has some of that wild charge -- as if the people singing the song can't quite believe the things that are coming out of their mouths.

All through "Love Shack," you can hear the sounds of a party in the background -- as if the B-52's have all their friends in the studio, or as if the song we're hearing is an actual audio document of the stuff that happens at the Love Shack. That's an old recording trick, and some of the '60s R&B rave-ups that clearly inspired "Love Shack" probably were recorded at actual parties, or at least in studios where randos were partying. The quiet-loud buildup of the bridge -- the "bang bang bang on the door, baby" bit -- feels like a clear echo of the Isley Brothers' "Shout," and it serves the same function. When "Love Shack" would come on at middle school dances, people would go off during that part.

Part of the magic of "Love Shack" is that it's the B-52's, veteran weirdos who played CBGB and Max's Kansas City with the Cramps, making a big and bouncy anthem that could get played at middle school dances. If you're looking for it, you can hear subversion in "Love Shack." Maybe the Love Shack is a secluded destination where gay couples go to hook up, but that's pure subtext, and it might even be unintentional. Even if the B-52's meant for that undercurrent to be there, then it still has the "YMCA" effect -- you can party blissfully to the track, whether or not you're aware of any of that.

But it feels boring to even consider the subtext of "Love Shack" when the text itself is such a blast. Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson's harmonies always knocked me dead, and the sheer exhilaration in their voices is a beautiful thing to behold. Fred Schneider's whole wild-and-crazy hypeman act has never worked better. Schneider adds nothing melodic to "Love Shack," but everything he says is just insanely silly and memorable: "Huggin' and a-kissin'! Dancin' and a-lovin'! Wearin' next no nothin' 'cause it's hot as an oven!" Don Was makes the B-52's and their touring band sound as slick as they ever did, and he adds in blasts of brass from the Uptown Horns, a New York horn section who'd been part of the house band at Tramps, toured with the J. Geils Band, and recorded with Tom Waits. (Hell of a resume.)

There are people who do not like "Love Shack." I understand, and I sympathize. Party rock anthems can be divisive; I say this as someone who still hasn't quite come around on "Party Rock Anthem." Some people hear a forced sense of fun in "Love Shack" -- as if the B-52's are screaming in their faces, ordering them to enjoy themselves. My wife is a couple of years older than me, and she has made it clear that "Love Shack" is not a viable car-stereo option when she's around. Maybe "Love Shack" hits different if you had to endure your middle school classmates' Fred Schneider impressions.

A couple of years can make a big difference. I was a child when "Love Shack" hit, and I never even thought to regard it as anything other than a dazzlingly bright burst of joy. It might as well be a song for children. I don't mean that it's cloying or condescending. I mean that the song's dizzy, squelchy silliness works on an instinctive gut level. You don't have to understand anything to love "Love Shack." You just have to get how much fun it would be to walk into the a room when the whole shack shimmies because everybody's moving around and around and around and around.

When you hear "Love Shack," you can practically picture the video in your head, whether or not you've seen it. When the B-52's finished the track, they thought it was a hit and that it should be the first single from Cosmic Thing. In a Vulture interview just last week, Kate Pierson said that their label insisted on leading instead with "Channel Z," which is slightly baffling to think about now: "Who knows the strategies record companies have. I have to say, though, that they were very much behind this record and saw its potential early on."

In any case, "Love Shack" was perfect for MTV, and when it came time to make the video, Reprise paired the B-52's up with director Adam Bernstein, a former animator who'd already made a bunch of videos for fellow modern-rock eccentrics They Might Be Giants. Before making the "Love Shack" clip, Bernstein also directed a bunch of clips for golden-age rap classics: Audio Two's "I Don't Care," EPMD's "You Gots To Chill," Public Enemy's "Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos." The same year as he made the "Love Shack" video, Bernstein directed the Brooklyn rapper Jaz-O's clip for his minor hit "Hawaiian Sophie," which means Bernstein was responsible for giving the world its first look at Jay-Z. In his quick "Hawaiian Sophie" cameo, Jay wears a Hawaiian shirt and a baby mean-mug, and he looks like he could be an extra in the "Love Shack" video.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=emlDKySa8GE&ab_channel=kennylavish

Someone who really is an extra in the "Love Shack" video is RuPaul, who wasn't yet famous but who is still extremely recognizable in the clip. RuPaul was old friends with Fred Schneider; they'd met on a bus in New York years earlier. In 2019, Keith Strickland told Billboard that the band wanted a Soul Train line in the video but that Adam Bernstein "didn't get the process." So RuPaul took over and essentially guest-directed that part of the video. That part of the video rules -- the B-52's and all their friends taking turns frantically frugging down the center of the room. Decades later, the B-52's served as guest judges for a "Love Shack" lip-sync face-off on RuPaul's Drag Race.

Maybe Adam Bernstein didn't understand how a Soul Train line should work, but he got everything else about "Love Shack." Bernstein and the B-52's shot the clip in upstate New York, and it really does seem to take place in the middle of nowhere. The actual set has all the cartoonish unreality of Pee Wee's Playhouse, and the extras, RuPaul included, seem to be there because they look fun and interesting, not because they fit standard MTV party-time demographics. Three years later, Bernstein directed Sir Mix-A-Lot's eternal "Baby Got Back" video, which has some of that same wacky "Love Shack" magic. These days, Bernstein is a prolific Emmy-winning TV director, and he's married to Jessica Hecht, the lady who played Gretchen on Breaking Bad.

In recent interviews, the B-52's say that pop radio stations didn't get "Love Shack" at first but that it really took off at college radio. The chart history backs that up. Just a few weeks after "Channel Z" fell out of the top spot on the Modern Rock charts, "Love Shack" rose up and replaced it. "Channel Z" never crossed over to pop radio, but "Love Shack" sure did. Two months after the song went #1 Modern Rock, "Love Shack" reached its peak of #3 on the Hot 100 -- stuck behind Bad English's "When I See You Smile" and Milli Vanilli's "Blame It On The Rain." This was a time when alternative bands didn't often make that jump. The B-52's did it when they'd already been around for a decade. Kate Pierson, the band's oldest member, was already past 40. That kind of thing simply does not happen, but "Love Shack" couldn't be denied.

The huge, unprecedented success of "Love Shack" basically moved the B-52's, at least temporarily, out of the Modern Rock category. The band followed "Love Shack" with "Roam," another perfect and beautiful piece of music. "Roam" is one of the songs that the B-52's recorded with Nile Rodgers, and there's no Fred Schneider on the track. Instead, it's all Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson belting out huge harmonies about about a trip around the world that begins with a kiss. I can't even explain why I find this song so weirdly, deeply moving. "Roam" was a huge pop hit, and it followed the same trajectory as "Love Shack," peaking at #3 on the Hot 100. On the Modern Rock chart, however, "Roam" only made it to #6. (It's a 10.)

"Deadbeat Club," the B-52's' next single, didn't even make it onto the Modern Rock charts, even though it's all about the band's early days as creative Athens bums and even though Michael Stipe was in the video. Doesn't matter. That song is amazing, too. The B-52's spent the next year touring around the world, and Cosmic Thing went quadruple platinum. In 1990, Cindy Wilson took a hiatus from the B-52's to go raise her kids, and the late Julee Cruise stepped in as her touring replacement. (Julee Cruise's only Modern Rock hit, 1990's "Falling," peaked at #11. It couldn't possibly sound less like the B-52's, but it's another perfect song.) When the B-52's finally recorded their Cosmic Thing follow-up, they did it without Cindy Wilson.

In the early '90s, the B-52's graduated to a sort of wacky-aunt version of elder-statesman status. In 1990, Kate Pierson sang on Iggy Pop's comeback single "Candy," another Don Was production. She didn't get a feature credit or anything, but it's a full-on duet, and she's all over the video. ("Candy" went all the way to #28 on the Hot 100, giving Iggy Pop his only hit on that chart. On the Modern Rock chart, "Candy" peaked at #5. It's an 8. Iggy Pop's highest-charting Modern Rock single, 1990's "Home," peaked at #2. It's another 8.)

The 1984 solo album that Fred Schneider recorded with Parliament-Funkadelic great Bernie Worrell got a 1991 reissue, and Schneider's utterly ridiculous single "Monster" had a brief moment on the Hot 100. Also in 1991, the B-52's' fellow Athens, Georgia band R.E.M. released the full-on mainstream blockbuster Out Of Time, which will figure heavily into this column, and Kate Pierson was all over that album. Pierson sang on three of Out Of Time tracks, including the big single "Shiny Happy People," which sounds a bit like R.E.M.'s attempt at a Cosmic Thing-era B-52's song. ("Shiny Happy People remains divisive, but I think it's pretty good. On the Modern Rock chart, the song peaked at #3. It's a 7.)

Cosmic Thing will always be the ultimate document of the B-52's as unlikely pop stars. The group took a while to record a follow-up, and when they returned, the Modern Rock chart welcomed them back. I am delighted to report that we'll see the B-52's in this column again.

GRADE: 10/10

BONUS BEATS: Here's video of giddy Californian weirdo-metal greats Mr. Bungle playing a possibly-ironic "Love Shack" cover at a 1989 show:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=7SOthYkuVpU&ab_channel=natureexplorer.

(Mr. Bungle never made the Modern Rock charts, but Faith No More, Mike Patton's other band, will eventually appear in this column.)

BONUS BONUS BEATS: On a 1990 episode of Full House, Jodie Sweetin's Stephanie Tanner danced to an absolutely deranged "Love Shack" cover. At one point, she did a kind of proto-Macarena. There's apparently a callback to this moment on an episode of Fuller House, but Netflix likes to keep its scenes off YouTube. Here's the original:

BONUS BONUS BONUS BEATS: Here's "Bloodstream," the edu-taining and pretty-good "Love Shack" parody that aired on a 1994 episode of Bill Nye The Science Guy:

BONUS BONUS BONUS BONUS BEATS: On a great 1999 episode of The Simpsons, there's a storyline where Homer goes around challenging people to duels all willy-nilly. The B-52's guested on the episode, soundtracking a montage of glove slaps with a "Love Shack" parody called "Glove Slap." Here it is:

BONUS BONUS BONUS BONUS BONUS BEATS: Kelly Clarkson covered "Love Shack" on a 2020 quarantine-era episode of her talk show. She sang the hell out of it, but I'm sorry to report that she didn't attempt any of the Fred Schneider bits. Here's her version:

THE 10S: The Stone Roses' starry-eyed psych-rock sigh "She Bangs The Drums" peaked at #9 behind "Love Shack." There are no words to describe the way I feeeeel about this song, so I'll just say it's a 10.