The B-52s' Cosmic Thing
(Paperback)
Publishing Details
The B-52s' Cosmic Thing
By (Author) Pete Crighton
Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Bloomsbury Publishing USA
2nd October 2025
United States
Classifications
General
Non Fiction
Musicians, singers, bands and groups
Physical Properties
Paperback
128
Width 121mm, Height 165mm
Description
The B-52s were always queer, though not overtly, and this book dissects the coded queer messaging in the B-52s music, using Cosmic Thing as a launching point. Alongside the authors own queer awakening, this book looks at what was obvious all along the B-52s arent just pop culture icons, they are queer history.
The B-52s fifth record Cosmic Thing took the world by storm in 1989 in the wake of the bands single greatest tragedy: losing guitarist Ricky Wilson to complications from AIDS in 1985. Cosmic Thing is a celebration of queer joy in the face of that seismic setback. Not only did the B-52s have to fight through their pain and grief to make Cosmic Thing, they were up against a conservative government under Reagan (then Bush), a misunderstood virus still ravaging the queer community and the expectations of what serious artists were supposed to look like.
Author Bio
Pete Crighton is a Toronto based freelance writer and record collector. His first book The Vinyl Diaries: My Soundtrack To Queer Joy will be released in 2025.
