Two new albums, Go Away White and Funplex, remind us why we loved the ’80s.
Matt Diehl
February 29, 2008
Two ’80s cult bands return with long-awaited albums that prove more than just retro. The B-52s update their party-hardy New Wave sound with contemporary club/electronica grooves à la LCD Soundsystem and the Rapture. There’s no “Love Shack” here, but the super-energized Funplex, their first album in a decade, will keep dancefloors moving regardless. On their first (and alas, final) album in 25 years, Goth icons Bauhaus take a different tack. Here, they explore what made their primal influences—Bowie, Iggy, Eno—so great: transgression mediated by introspection, experimentalism kick-started by garage glam. This haunting new work stays brilliantly true to Bauhaus’s original iconoclasm.
