release date: Aug. 27, 1980
format: cd
[album rate: 4 / 5] [3,86]
producer: Rhett Davies, B-52's; Chris Blackwell (exec. pro.)
label: Island Records - nationality: USA
Track highlights: 1. "Party Out of Bounds" - 2. "Dirty Back Road" - 3. "Runnin' Around" (live) - 4. "Give Me Back My Man" (4,5 / 5) - 5. "Private Idaho" - 6. "Devil in My Car" (live) - 9. "53 Miles West of Venus"
2nd studio album by The B-52's follows closely on the same path laid out on the debut from '79 with an uptempo new wave with strong bonds to the 1960s surf rock - especially thanks to the guitar-sound as played by Ricky Wilson. The strong musical and stylistic resemblance with the debut may be explained by the fact that the band already had "too many" songs in its repertoire when they began recording songs for the debut album, and instead of releasing an unlikely double album for its debut, the band just shelved these songs for a later release. This is a documented fact as The B-52's played most of these songs at concerts as early as 1978.
The album cover nearly duplicates the debut cover as it's held in the same style depicting the band members in what seems an early 1960s time bubble.
Wild Planet is a strong album without any fillers, and it's really an astonishing thought if they had actually pulled it off and released all songs on a double album in '79. They really could have, and it only makes it so much more reasonable to listen to these two albums at the same time.
Highly recommended.
[ allmusic.com 4,5 / 5, Rolling Stone 5 / 5 stars ]
