To put it (very) lightly, the B-52's have never felt at home completely in the here-and-now, preferring to mix together modern and outmoded styles in a parallel universe of garish fashion. The band's stone-cold classic 1979 debut still sounds like nothing else before or after: A surf-rock soundtrack to an early 60s spy film about a gay underground dance culture from the future. The band's self-consciously retro appeal was never a gimmick, and still isn't: It's rooted at the foundation of the genre they created and own, to the extent that it's their brand.
Like their debut's late 70s debts to new wave and garage rock, there's a lot about Funplex, the band's first album since 1992's Good Stuff, that says 2008 loud and clear. The visual elements that make the B-52's undeniably themselves-- Pierson's and Wilson's dos and dresses, Schneider's gaze and pose-- are present on the cover, but on top of a stark white infinity backdrop and with the sterile clarity of digital photography. The band brought in producer Steve Osborne, who's got some experience giving old bands new sounds-- he helmed New Order's 2001 comeback Get Ready and Suede's electro-pop departure Head Music-- and he gives the band its most massive sound yet, as if they've returned to reclaim their dance-band throne through volume and size alone.
While Funplex's super-sized dance pop can't quite compare with the band's best moments, there's plenty of residual B-52's-ness to satiate longtime fans. The title alone, which hints at a self-contained universe of good times and weirdness, is appropriate for a band so prone to creating self-contained worlds like "Planet Claire", "Private Idaho", "53 Miles West of Venus", and of course, "that little old place where we can get together." Though the band members' average age is now in the mid-50s, they still navigate their surroundings with the naivete of tourists. When Fred Schneider paves the way toward the chorus with the lyric "Faster, pussycat/ Thrill, thrill!/ I'm at the mall/ On a diet pill!", I can't tell if he's being sarcastic or honestly reveling in his superficial surroundings, and that alone is evidence that the band hasn't lost much of what made it so great in the first place.
Funplex's songs are just as jubilant as they were on Cosmic Thing and Good Stuff, with bits of dark surf guitar, outer space, travel themes, and of course, kitsch culture bleeding through the high-gloss electro-pop. "Deviant Ingredient" brings some lounge and exotica along for the ride down "that Martini mile," and "Hot Corner" sneaks a dark guitar rumble under the verses with a with an ebullient Cindy Wilson/Kate Pierson chorus, as the band transforms a 3 a.m. bus stop into a dance party. Even a bit of the band's political bent comes across on closer "Keep this Party Going", but in a pleasingly non-didactic manner that would fit any era: "Take this party to the White House lawn/ Things are down and dirty in Washington!" Most importantly, though, all of it's delivered in three of the most recognizable timbres of the past 30 years, which sound as wonderful as ever. When they harmonize, Pierson and Wilson conjure a giddy, yet spooky femininity attributable only to the band, and as for Schneider, there's still no one else making music who can pull off the "Ultraviolet" lines "There's a rest stop/ Let's hit the G-Spot!", or "Tell your skirt to take a hike!"
This isn't to say that the band is above its more confessional bits: At one point, Schneider blurts out a line that might have come from Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer: "I am a fully eroticized being! No more neuroses!" This overriding theme of Funplex-- temporarily forgetting your troubles and giving over completely to the pleasures of getting down-- underscores the album's two best moments, "Juliet of the Spirits" and "Eyes Wide Open". "Juliet" is the album's ladies-only electro-jam, Pierson and Wilson's voices pushed into a deleriously high register, and asserting on the wide-eyed chorus "I'm not afraid anymore." "Eyes" moves from a dark, claustrophobic verse to an expansive disco-tinged refrain, triggered by Strickland's crisp, echoed guitar: "I don't wanna clash/ I don't wanna rehash the past/ I just wanna release!"
There will always be those boring purists who think that punk bands should forever play punk or die, or that people over 50 shouldn't have sex or, you know, fun, two silly myths more than debunked here (as well as with Bob Mould's latest reincarnation). Funplex is a place, but it's also a condition. No matter what the B-52's do, they can't help referencing what they're doing and how great of a time they're having while doing it, and wonder, Why aren't you doing it too? It's fitting that, along with R.E.M.'s Accelerate, both canonized groups to crawl from Athens at the dawn of the 80s have reappeared nearly 30 years after forming to release pretty damn good pop-rock records. Records that thankfully emphasize a way to age gracefully that takes the sonic shape of stuff traditionally associated with those much younger. The B-52's may have no desire to rehash the past, sure, but they know how to adapt.
