The B-52's - Time Capsule: Songs for a Future Generation [2LP]

Time Capsule: Songs for a Future Generation packs two decades of The B-52's onto a double LP, from thrift-store new wave to the beach-party pop that made them stars.

First released in 1998, the collection runs in order from the band's early days in Athens, Georgia through to the late nineties. The early singles still sound like nothing else: surf guitar, cheap organ, and the vocal tag team of Fred Schneider, Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson trading lines like a party that has gone wonderfully off the rails.

Rock Lobster is here, of course, all strange noises and frantic dance moves, alongside the nervy, wiry Private Idaho. The second half catches the glorious late-eighties revival, when Love Shack and Roam carried the band onto radio everywhere and onto every party playlist since.

The set closes with two songs recorded especially for it, a neat way of keeping the time capsule open instead of sealing it shut. In between, deeper cuts show how much invention sat behind the bouffants and the bright colors.

Spread across four sides, it is the quickest route into a band that made weirdness feel like an invitation, and proof that a great party record never really goes out of date.