Aural Goodness

On March 25, the first studio album by The B-52's in 16 years will be released. I'm pretty excited about it. The last new music produced by the B's were a couple of excellent tracks on their compilation disc, Time Capsule: Songs for a Future Generation, released in 1998. It's been a LONG drought.

The B's were touring last summer and fan videos featuring some of the eleven new songs have been available for a few months. I've avoided them because I want to hear the studio versions first, rather than poor quality audio recorded on some guy's cell phone.

Yesterday, the first single for the album, the title track "Funplex" was released on iTunes. I figured one dollar to have the song a couple of months ahead of time was a pretty good deal. So I downloaded it.

I think I got my money's worth.

I've listened to it at least 20 times so far. It has a nice driving beat, some beautiful harmonies, some of Fred's patented patter, a great guitar riff, quirky lyrics and the refrain is pure awesomeness. Musically, it's identifiably the B-52's but definitely has an up-to-date, modern sound. I understand why they released this as the first single. "Funplex" (the single) is a fantastic sampling of everything that makes the B-52's music so much fun.