Struck by how irrepressible new single "Eyes Wide Open" was for a group of fiftysomething survivors a couple of weeks ago, I've been revisiting The B-52's catalogue. The only one I don't own is the death-tinged Bounding Off The Satellites (though "Ain't It A Shame" and "Summer of Love" are wonderful). The eponymous debut still sounds unearthly – the work of misfits who've learned to assemble their identities from rubbish and grade Z sci-fi films (with Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson's harmonies and Ricky Wilson's guitar as the paint and plaster, respectively) in as painstaking a fashion as the Pet Shop Boys would later do from Italo disco, Derek Jarman, and Armani. To the same end too: the Athens combo's psychosexual urges needed a Day-Glo carapace to render them less threatening. When "Dance This Mess Around" and the Party Mix version of "Give Me Back My Man" parted the curtains for a bit, the results were a little freaky; to these ears the 1981 remix of "Give Me Back My Man" reaches Joy Division levels of hysteria, without the release.

But Cosmic Thing deserves a mention. I've listened to it most in the last week, despite an Amazon screwup that resulted in my receiving a cassette instead of a CD copy. Even today it seems underrated, which is easier to fathom after you've turned the radio dial upon hearing "Love Shack" and "Roam" for the fourth time in two hours. Why had it taken radio and MTV so long to embrace them? Their sensibilities fit the format to a degree that even Simon and his Le Bon Bons on a yacht couldn't match. I remember a lot of warmth when the album became a double platinum Top Ten hit (Duran Duran's 1993 comeback inspired similar aw's, only without much rockcrit love) Cosmic Thing shows a band reconstituting itself for one of those back-to-basics moves which rarely do anyone except promoters of summer tours any credit, except that in The B-52's case their devotion to frivolity had only deepened, protecting them from charges of "self-parody" – compare this album to Steel Wheels, the Rolling Stones' own back-to-basics self-parodic move. The effort of creating a South that doesn't exist (the trilogy of "Dry Country," "Junebug," and "Bushfire") inspires the girls and guys to color a Technicolor fantasia as bold and bright as Gone With The Wind on ". The girls have never harmonized to such thrilling effect as they do on "Deadbeat Club," in which they surpass the Roches in their dedication to sheer vocal awesomeness. To his credit, Keith Strickland doesn't mimic Wilson's tunings; his rhythm riffage on "Roam" and "Channel Z" is elastic enough to give Nile Rodgers lumbago (how delicious that Rodgers produced half the album). The band even pull off a terrific instrumental closer. Anthony is right!

If anyone's heard Funscale, let me know.