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Cosmic Thing is the fifth studio album by American new wave band the B-52's, released in 1989 by Reprise Records. It contains the hit singles "Love Shack", "Roam" and "Deadbeat Club". The music video for "Love Shack" won the award for Best Group Video at the 1990 MTV Video Music Awards. Six of the album's songs were produced by Nile Rodgers in New York City, and the remaining four by Don Was in upstate New York.
Cosmic Thing was the ninth best-selling album of 1990 in the US, peaking at No. 4 on the Billboard 200, and was an international success as well, charting in the Top 10 in the UK, and reaching No. 1 in Australia and New Zealand. The album eventually achieved 4× Platinum status in the US and Platinum status in the UK. Its success served as a comeback for the band, following the death of guitarist, songwriter and founding member Ricky Wilson in 1985. The band also embarked on the worldwide Cosmic Tour to promote the album.
In 1988, prompted by drummer/guitarist Keith Strickland, the band began to convene and write new songs. Singer Kate Pierson described this as a healing process for herself and the band after Wilson's death three years prior. Much of the album was written in Woodstock and surrounding areas in upstate New York, a place to which Strickland and Pierson had both relocated during the group's hiatus, and all four members felt a proximity to nature in these places that was not found in their previous home of New York City. The band spent approximately a year writing the songs. Strickland stated, "We spent a lot of time just talking, and we needed that. We were our own support group after Ricky's passing, which was a very traumatic thing for all of us and, in particular, for
The band rented a rehearsal space in the Wall Street area of Manhattan, in which they worked four days a week. At this time, the band also left their longtime manager, Gary Kurfirst, and left longtime label Warner Bros. for Reprise Records.
Pierson stated that some songs on Cosmic Thing were more "pointed" about their concerns—such as environmentalism—than on previous albums, adding, "we definitely still have a light tone, but I think we've all evolved and grown and matured". Discussing "Channel Z", Schneider later recalled, "We were really pretty political as a band. Rather than clothes and wigs and stuff, I'd rather talk about politics, and I know the others do too, because it's more important, what's going on in the world."
The album's biggest hit, "Love Shack", was the last song recorded for the album and was developed from a 15-minute unfinished piece the band had created. Strickland had initially felt the song was not ready to be released, but Pierson and Schneider felt it would be successful. After the band finished their sessions with Was a day ahead of schedule, he asked if they had any more material and the song was brought in to refine and embellish upon.
Music journalist Michael Azerrad noted that Strickland devised the album's final track sequence as if it were a film, moving from rural themes to more abstract concepts, culminating with an instrumental coda akin to a closing credits sequence. Strickland later elaborated: "We sequenced it in a way that we felt told a story. I don't know if anybody's ever noticed it, but one song leads into the other in a nice way. It tells a story from beginning to end."
Following the release of promotional single "Cosmic Thing", June 1989 saw the release of the band's largest global hit, "Love Shack". Pierson recalled that radio programmers initially "weren't really enthusiastic" about the song and that Schneider was instrumental in promoting it to indie radio stations, which eventually led to its embrace by college radio. The track helped propel the success of the album globally, while reaching number 3 on the US Billboard Hot 100, and number one on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks chart. The song also reached number 2 in the UK, and spent 8 weeks at number one in Australia in 1990. Following this, the album reached the top 10 in the US and UK album charts, and number one in Australia and New Zealand. The song's music video won the award for Best Group Video at the 1990 MTV Video Music Awards.
Aided by the further success of singles such as the transatlantic top 20 hit "Roam" and the US top 30 hit "Deadbeat Club", the album continued to sell strongly, particularly in the US, where it spent 22 weeks inside the Billboard 200 top 10 in 1990, becoming the country's 9th best-selling album of the year.
By 2000, Cosmic Thing had achieved platinum status in the UK, and 4× platinum status in the US, denoting sales of over four million copies there. As of 2019, the album had sold over five million copies worldwide.
In retrospective reviews, Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic found the album to be "a first-class return to form" that "updated their sound with shiny new surfaces and deep, funky grooves", containing "their best set of songs since at least Wild Planet, possibly since their debut." J.D. Considine in The New Rolling Stone Album Guide observed that the songs "reprise the band's early sound without any edge or ambiguity", and saw the band "tumble into self-caricature." Rich Wilhelm of PopMatters noted that while Cosmic Thing "fully brought the band's sound to the mainstream", it also "proved to have depth" and was "a fun, beautiful, and life-affirming record that was also a big hit."
The band's first comeback performance was at a benefit for PETA and they arranged for various organizations, including PETA, Greenpeace and Amnesty International, to advertise at each concert's venue.
The B-52's
Additional musicians
Technical
| Australian ARIA Albums Chart | 1 |
| Belgian Albums | 152 |
| Canadian Albums | 8 |
| Dutch Album Chart | 70 |
| New Zealand Albums | 1 |
| Swedish Albums | 38 |
| UK Albums Chart | 8 |
| US Billboard 200 | 4 |
| West German Albums | 25 |
| Hungarian Albums Chart | 32 |
| Australian ARIA Albums Chart | 25 |
| US Billboard 200 | 9 |
| + !Region !Certification !Certified Units/Sales | ||
| Australia | 2× Platinum | 140,000* |
| Canada | Platinum | 80,000* |
| New Zealand | Platinum | 15,000* |
| United Kingdom | Platinum | 300,000* |
| United States | 4× Platinum | 4,000,000* |
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