The Night Sky: Planet Claire

The B-52s: Planet Claire

[purchase]

From 1967, we now jump ahead 11 years to 1978. But, in a sense, we also jump back to the 1950s, at the drive-in. Planet Claire opens the B-52s debut album, and the sound is all fifties science fiction movie organ, played on top of the Peter Gunn Theme. Half way through the song, Fred Schneider enters with a profoundly silly lyric about a visitor from another planet. And somehow, this was all cool. The B-52s wanted you to know that you should not take their songs very seriously, and that reminded the listener to lighten up. Maybe there were other things they were taking too seriously as well. So much of the more portentous music from the 80s sounds dated today, but Planet Claire sounds as good to me now as it did then.