 Twenty years and twenty million albums into a career that began as a low-rent lark in Athens, Georgia, the B-52's remain the most unlikely pop superstars ever. The first band to glorify pop culture with an almost Warholian sense of purpose, the B-52's purveyed their absurd B-movie style and off-kilter sound celebrating the weirdness lurking just beneath the surface of Americana - not exactly a recipe for chart success but way ahead of its time, nonetheless. One listen through the new greatest hits disc Time Capsule: Songs For A Future Generation, however, and any mystery concerning their longevity and ongoing appeal is solved. From "Rock Lobster," "Planet Claire" and "Private Idaho" to "Channel Z," "Good Stuff" and the two new songs, "Hallucinating Pluto" and the single, "Debbie," the B-52's unforgettable dance-rock tunes start a party every time the music begins. An unexpected commercial and critical success, the band inadvertently formed the core of the burgeoning early '80's New Wave 'movement' and, along with such contemporaries as Blondie and Talking Heads, continued the pop music revolution that punk began. With the release of their second studio effort, Wild Planet (1980), the B-52's, co-producing with Rhett Davies, proved that their success was no fluke, scoring hits with "Private Idaho," "Party Out Of Bounds" and "Strobelight." In just two albums, the B-52's had created a lexicon of songs, styles, phrases and images which would set the standard for the development of the 'alternative music scene' for the next decade. It has been said that the B-52's are as quintessentially American as the Beach Boys. In subtitling this collection 'Songs For A Future Generation,' the B-52's are finally taking much-deserved credit for a body of work that is as unique, beloved and timeless in its own way. Once visionary strip miners of American pop culture, they are now very much a reference point in our cultural consciousness for future generations. The B-52's influence cuts a wide path through much of so-called 'modern rock' - from the low-fi efforts of nouveau garage bands to the retro-hip of ultra-lounge to the very ascendancy of dance music itself. "Maybe people are at last beginning to pick up on what we're doing and what we've been doing all along," muses Strickland. "The underlying message of the B-52's is, `it's okay to be different.'"
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