Rock Lobster – The B-52’s (1979)

Description

Additional information about this, The B-52’s vinyl art.

The B-52’s – The Artist/s

The B-52s are an American new wave band which was formed in Athens, Georgia, in 1976. The original line-up consisted of Fred Schneider (vocals, percussion), Kate Pierson (vocals, keyboards), Cindy Wilson (vocals, percussion), Ricky Wilson (guitar), and Keith Strickland (drums, guitar, keyboards). Ricky Wilson died from AIDS-related illness in 1985, and Strickland switched from drums to lead guitar. The band also added touring members for albums and live performances. The group evoked a “thrift shop aesthetic”, in the words of Bernard Gendron, by drawing from 1950s and 1960s pop sources, trash culture, and rock and roll. The band has had many hits, including “Rock Lobster”, “Planet Claire”, “Private Idaho”, “Whammy Kiss”, “Party Out of Bounds”, “Wig”, “Love Shack” and “Roam”.

Rock Lobster – The Song

‘Rock Lobster‘ is a song written by Fred Schneider and Ricky Wilson, two members of The B-52’s. It was produced in two versions, one by DB Records released in April 1978, and a longer version, which was part of the band’s 1979 self-titled debut album, released by Warner Bros.  Apparently the song was mostly inspired by a discotheque in Atlanta named 2001, where instead of having a light show, the club featured a slide show with pictures of puppies, babies, and lobsters on a grill. The song’s lyrics describe a beach party while mentioning both real and imagined marine animals (“There goes a dogfish, chased by a catfish, in flew a sea robin, watch out for that piranha, there goes a narwhal, here comes a bikini whale!”), with absurd noises accompanying each, provided by Kate Pierson on the higher-pitched sounds and Cindy Wilson the lower-pitched ones.The song became one of their signature tunes and it helped launch the band’s success.

The Lobster – The Shape

Modelled into the silhouette of a stereotypical lobster. Lobsters are a family of large marine crustaceans. Lobsters have long bodies with muscular tails, and live in crevices or burrows on the sea floor. Three of their five pairs of legs have claws, including the first pair, which are usually much larger than the others. Highly prized as seafood, lobsters are economically important, and are often one of the most profitable commodities in coastal areas they populate. Commercially important species include two species of Homarus (which looks more like the stereotypical lobster) from the northern Atlantic Ocean, and scampi (which looks more like a shrimp, or a “mini lobster”) 

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