June 1989: The B-52's Release LOVE SHACK

You can call it a comeback. Three years had passed since the B-52's had released an album--1986 LP Bouncing Off Satellites--and four years since the death of the band's founding guitarist, Ricky Wilson, who died from AIDS-related complications in 1985.

It was June 20, 1989, when the B-52's released "Love Shack," the third single from the fifth studio album, Cosmic Thing, which was released a week later on June 27, 1989. While "Love Shack" might now be considered the group's signature song, singer Fred Schneider is quick to share that it was no easy feat for the tune to get there.

"Well, 'Love Shack' was really well received on college radio, Schneider recalled to Flood magazine in 2019. "We were told it was too weird for commercial radio. So while the band did soundchecks, I went with our A&R person to different radio stations around the country and got them to play it. It really resonated once they started playing it. The song never made it to number one because of Milli Vanilli and Paula Abdul, who were both accused of not singing those songs. That had a lot to do with it. I had to hit the bricks, go to radio stations and beg them to play it. That’s how 'Love Shack' became a hit. I thought it was the most commercial thing we’d ever done."

The track had been inspired by an actual place, a club outside of Athens, Georgia called the Hawaiian Ha-Le. "It was an African-American club that had a lot of good shows," Schneider told Rolling Stone in 2023. "It looked like a shack, you wouldn't expect it to be what it was, and when you opened the door, it was a wild band playing."

True to the singer's claims of a slow burn up the charts, "Love Shack" smoldered up the Hot 100 before becoming the band's first song to crack the top 40 en route to a peak position of #3 for the week of November 18, 1989. It still stands as the B-52's highest-charting song on the Hot 100 alongside fourth Cosmic Thing single, "Roam," which also peaked at #3. "Love Shack" was the band's first million-selling single.

"Another funny thing is we were recording the song at Bearsville Studios in Woodstock, and there was a big electrical storm outside, and all the electricity went out," remembered band member Keith Strickland to Rolling Stone. "We were like, 'No, no, no.' When we listened back, we had an awesome take, but it was only halfway done but it got cut off in the breakdown, kind of over a dropout. So we just picked it up right there and took the rest from a second tape. That song is all live except for one splice. We didn’t know if it was a hit when we finished it, but we felt there was something special about it."