My Top 2000 Songs #1148: Legal Tender

Those first couple B-52's albums were a monumental part of my early teen years, oddball tracks like "Rock Lobster" and "Private Idaho" managing to infiltrate even our staid midwestern radio just as I entered my teen years. I didn't necessarily love the music so much as relish its significance, wholly new sounds breaking through the classic rock bubble where I had been spending most my time before high school.

Strangely, though, the B-52's songs that still feel most personal to me are from 1983's Whammy!, a record which didn't seem to get much love at the time. Both "Legal Tender" and "Song For A Future Generation" felt omnipresent for a brief moment, popping up on the radio or MTV or high school parties, and those two retain far more nostalgic value for me--maybe because they just felt like songs that were part of our life and our social circle at the time, rather than broader cultural statements like those earlier tracks.

Frankly, I tend to blend those two Whammy! songs together, so I could've gone with either here, though I think "Legal Tender" is a little more durable (and I tend to prefer the B-52's songs that focus on Kate & Cindy and minimize Fred's vocals).

Live 1985:

And in 2013:

School of Rock performance, keeping it alive!