The Test Tube and the Scale

  In a music industry rife with under appreciation, one of the most sorely overlooked talents is B-52’s vocalist Cindy Wilson. She is the Southern Gothic voice of heartbreak at its most intense, sometimes going so far into a song’s emotional core that she soars. From their debut, eponymously titled record, Dance This Mess Around begins with a two minute introduction—about half of the song’s total running time—that seems to last only seconds; Wilson seductively engages with her backing band—specifically brother Rick’s lead guitar licks—for a sinuous dance of memory and breakup fury sung with such fiercely expressed emotion you find yourself at the center of what essentially becomes a girl group exorcism of personal anguish. The B-52’s genius was to have found inspiration in the over abundance of American kitsch without giving themselves over to it. The ubiquity of trash upon the surface of American life is what gives the B-52’s—particularly early in its career—the capacity to shock ...