Stats
Year: 1983
Country: U.S.
Genre: New Wave
Purchase
I love a novelty compilation, though very few were witty enough to warrant their existence. Attack Of The Killer B’s, however, I will give my creative praise to. It’s all B-sides, all the time. A little appreciation for the flipside makes me happy, especially since a lot of the cuts here weren’t album tracks and, therefore tricky to find. The mix of artists is random, crossing genres in bounds, but there are enough good songs here to anchor the concept. Warner Bros. Records publicity director Bob Moore Merlis was the producer behind this comp, a collaboration between the WB, Sire, and Geffen. I know I’m more likely to cover an indie label than these supergiants, but with the funding and personnel that big money provides you get a lot of assistance. You don’t need seven people, including a “research consultant extraordinaire” and a “people’s revisionist” to make a good comp, but it sure doesn’t hurt.
I got this record as a gift from my dad, who found it at Tunes in Hoboken. I tend to stop by whenever I make it back across the rivers to my state of origin. The cover of muscular bees flexing and ripping vinyl is a lot of fun, the art on the back is even better, with individual illustrations corresponding with each track and its liner notes. I loved the spot illustration for Laurie Anderson’s “Walk The Dog” so much that I disastrously taught myself screen printing in an attempt to put it on a shirt. I only wish there was some cool label art instead of that big ol’ WB logo reminding me I’m listening to something put together by the suits.
Content
Opening the compilation is an artist I always felt was living in the wrong era, Marshall Crenshaw, here with his Handsome, Ruthless And Stupid Band. For a guy who played Buddy Holly and wrote songs for Dewey Cox, “You're My Favorite Waste Of Time” fills the same level of nostalgia as his hit A-side “Someday Someway.” There’s more of a languid, bedroom ceiling-gazing quality to this track, not appearing on the LP or any other major release.
“Love Goes To A Building On Fire,” sans its typical → stylization in this format, is a great Talking Heads track, but an A-side. You broke the rules WB! They justify the track with the fact that it never appeared on a proper release (FINE) but the real b-side here would be “New Feeling.” I know the song intimately from the CD comp Sand In The Vaseline that I listened to a lot in my first car, as this cut is meant for a T-Heads purist. The “tweet tweet tweet like little birds” is one of my favorite Byrne-isms.
Another technical A-side comes from Peter Gabriel, who got so big in his time I sometimes forget he was a class-A weirdo. The fact that he re-recorded his third and fourth albums entirely in German is a good reminder. “Shock Den Affen,” the Deutsche version of “Shock The Monkey” was the a-side to “Soft Dog (Instrumental),” just like its American release, but heard way less.
Gang Of Four’s “Producer” is a great cut, the b-side to the 12” version of “I Love a Man in Uniform” that slithers around the heavy basslines the band is best known for. I also enjoyed “Grace” from Morris Day and The Time, a comedy skit where he boasts a braggadocious attitude towards an interview played by Denise Matthews of Vanity 6. Funny as it is, the song still has a great groove, bringing two notable Prince collaborators to the same project.
Pretenders’ “In The Sticks” is an instrumental surf track led by drummer Martin Chambers, sounding very unlike the beloved punk act and more like the soundtrack to a tiki party. The Ramones appear without their trademark bite as well, cutting down the pace to make out with a girl on “Babysitter.” This track originally debuted as the flipside to a cover of Bobby Freeman’s “Do You Wanna Dance,” making it thematically work with the teen life of yesteryear, but it sounds so insincere coming from the Ramones, who I doubt ever saw a girl steady amidst their drug-addled rampages.
Not everything in this collection is to my taste, but that’s okay, this comp wasn’t aimed at me. The blue-eyed soul of John Hiatt doesn’t work for me, nor the honky tonk stomp of the Blasters and T-Bone Burnett, nor the new age flow of Roxy Music’s “Always Unknowing” from their “Avalon” era. I’m very picky.
The record closes on a high point with Laurie Anderson’s aforementioned “Walk The Dog,” a tough follow-up to her groundbreaking single “O, Superman” but brilliant in its own right. Also based on spoken word and vocal manipulation, but even more atonal by focusing on the combination of acoustic and synthesized samples. She speaks-sings about listening to Dolly Parton, going to a party, and being engulfed in flames.
Other Versions
The second edition of this comp came out in 1985, titled Revenge Of The Killer B's with the same team and a whole new fleet of b-sides. Fleetwood Mac and Madonna have joined the group, feeling a little too popular for a mostly alternative crowd, and I wish there weren’t repeat artists, Marshall Crenshaw, Pretenders, and Talking Heads each making a second appearance. It’s still a good comp, Kid Creole And The Coconuts appear with “You Had No Intention” and Aztec Camera with “Set The Killing Free.” There are also cuts from Tom Verlaine's solo work, The B-52's, Echo and The Bunnymen, and Depeche Mode, all heavy hitters in their own right.
Score
Variety: 4/5
Quality: 3/5
Cohesion: 2/5
Creativity: 4/5
Final Score: 13/20