“Sprechgesang” is having another moment. The German term for “talk singing” seems to describe more than its fair share of Pitchfork’s latest darlings. Dry Cleaning, Wet Leg and Black Country, New Road all employ the trick of the trade. Not that long ago, Courtney Barnett’s droll talkiness sounded like an affect — a gimmick. But, today, “Avant Gardener” sounds more prescient than novel. And while some might surely dismiss sprechgesang as an Indie Rock fad, that’s just the recency bias talking. Talk-singing has been a feature of music since — well, I’m no expert — but let’s just say “a very long time.”

“Subterranean Homesick Blues” and about half of Dylan’s oeuvre probably qualify as sprechgesang. A similar claim could be made about The Velvet Underground, and the percentage would spike if we were discussing Lou Reed’s solo career. Mark E. Smith of The Fall mumbles, stutters, rants and raves more than he ever sings. John Lydon’s work in PIL is practically a masterclass in the form. Leonard Cohen probably presents more like a poet than sprechgesang suggests, but Patti Smith certainly qualifies. So does David Byrne. And though his lyrics often read like Raymond Carver excerpts turned into tweets, Craig Finn is firmly a sprechgesang-er. 

This is to say nothing about “rapping” or the smooth talking bridges in R&B songs by The Chi-Lites or Barry White. Nor do these examples really have that much to do with the strict, dictionary definition of sprechgesang. Whereas the term was originally used to describe the effect in operas of shifting from melody to a dramatic pronouncement, sprechgesang today is frequently dryer and more monotonous. It’s the contrast between deadpan and fury — between flatness and melody — that distinguishes our modern takes on the technique. According to Wikipedia, what we call “sprechgesang” today is, in actuality, closer to “sprechstimme” (less singing, more talking).

Nitpicking aside, what I find most surprising about sprechgesang in Rock and Roll (and especially in post-punk Rock and Roll) is that, even when the words themselves are funny, the songs aren’t particularly “fun.” Decades after Dylan and Reed got their hands on it, sprechgesang carries an “isn’t that clever” charm as well as a “why so serious” air about it.  

As with all rules, however, there is (at least) one very famous, very funny and supremely fun exception: Fred Schneider. The sort of lead singer, barely percussionist and beloved cheerleader of The B-52s is both the epitome of sprechgesang and the exception to its modern rules. Whereas most every other practitioner plays it very straight, Fred can either not hold or not tolerate the deadpan. He can sometimes sing metronomically. He can sing monotonically. But he cannot be completely serious. He’s the musical equivalent of Jimmy Fallon in a Will Ferrell SNL sketch — the fun (and the funny) is too much to contain. Like Jimmy, Fred Schneider can only stay so serious for so long before he breaks. Case in point: the 4:42 mark of “Love Shack”:

Fred Schneider: “You’re whaaaat?!”

Cindy Wilson: “Tin roof, rusted.” 

Many hours of contemplation, theorizing and keyboard tapping has been spent decoding Cindy Wilson’s response. What does “tin roof, rusted” mean? Not only do I have zero idea, but I am also not that interested. I love the words and how they sound. But, moreover, I am obsessed with Fred’s question. In the middle of a fun, funky hit about inclusivity, Fred asks the most fun, most funky question imaginable — seemingly out of the middle of nowhere. In those two words, we get all of Fred — loud, near the tune, startling, unmistakable, oddly polite, slightly serious and hysterically fun.

Yes — fun. That thing that most bands never want to cop to or, alternately, never have access to. The B-52s were fun! Though they were born in and around Punk, their DIY, thrift store, kitchen sink, space age bachelor pad aesthetic had much more to do with John Waters and Roger Corman than it did with The Slits or The Au Pairs. For all of their eclectic influences, they managed to draw a through line from Esquivel and Nancy Sinatra through Sly Stone and Divine and Wayne County and The Slits and, ultimately to Riot Grrrl Punk. Without The B-52s, it's impossible to imagine Bikini Kill or Sleater Kinney.

The B-52s were a miracle. Sporting two massive wigs, a ten dollar wardrobe (for the whole band) and one extraordinary guitarist, the band was born from the premise that the very best Rock songs are also the best novelty Pop songs. The cheap keyboards and toy instruments betrayed the virtuosity of Ricky Wilson’s guitar in the same way that Cindy and Kate’s pristine harmonies were the foil to Fred’s carnival barking. For the first ten years of their career, they were far more beloved than they were actually popular. On the other hand, they were quite popular, so that’s saying something.

Though the costumes changed and their songs wandered from parties to sex to the environment to love and back to parties, The B-52s — the original quintet at least — was a surprisingly consistent band. The basic ingredients — Niles Rodgers-esque guitar, Farfisa organ, some cowbell, Kate on the soaring parts, Cindy doing the emotive parts and Fred — the X Factor — delivering the punchlines. On the surface, their music could sound basic — silly even. But their pleasure and amusement masked deeper ideas about gender, sexuality, politics and art. More than a singer (which he barely was) Fred Schneider was a thinker — a poet interested in Surrealism and Dadaism as much as he was in The Sex Pistols or Girogio Moroder.

But the difference between the B-52s and everyone else was that they were FUN. Jubilant, silly, smart, winking, gay old fun. Their fun was in the hairdos and the junk keyboards and the girl harmonies. But mostly, the fun was in the surrealist/dadaist ideas of their singer who was not always their lead singer and who was, in fact, not really a singer at all. 

Fred Schneider was a study in contrast. Onstage, with his (drawn on) pencil-thin mustache, tank tops and suspenders, he resembled John Waters, if the director was also a member of the cast of “West Side Story.” And though he seemed incapable of melody, Fred had uncanny tone and timing. When the band needed more bass, he’d go low. When they needed more treble, he’d be comically shrill.

But it’s his politeness that is most surprising. As loud as he is on record and stage, offstage Fred is mild mannered, to the point of being genteel. In interviews, he’s measured and thoughtful. His speaking voice, in contrast to his sprechgesang voice, is slow and steady, with the hint of a drawl. Though he grew up in New Jersey, he grew out in Athens, Georgia, in the scene that would spawn REM. When Fred Schneider speaks, you hear a lot of Athens and barely any Newark.

All of which makes “Fred Schneider, frontman,” harder to explain. The well behaved, former student of poetry and Dadaism, who could not sing very well, became a booming, boisterous master of ceremonies in The B-52s. And more than any other Pop star I can think of, Fred understood how to access the parts of Punk and avant-garde culture that were entertaining and provocative and — most of all — fun. By all accounts, Fred had no interest in making the next “Like a Rolling Stone.” He wanted to make the next “Monster Mash.” 

In 1984, he got close. During a brief B-52s hiatus, Fred decided to try out the single life — sort of. With considerable help from Bernie Worrell, and the occasional assistance of Kate Pierson, he released “Fred Schneider and The Shake Machine.” Nearly lost to history, the album trades The B-52’s thrift shop organs for Worrell’s richer, smoother variations. Similarly, Ricky and Keith’s guitars and bass are swapped for synthesized bass and drums. The band is aces. The styles familiar. And as the record opens, Fred takes his best shot. “Monster,” the album’s single, begins:

There's a monster in my pants

And it does a nasty dance

When it moves in and out

Everybody starts to shout 

As expected, “Monster” was only a very minor, very culty, novelty hit. In relatively short order, the album was out of print and Fred returned to his band. But then, a lot of shit went down.

In 1985 Ricky Wilson died from AIDS-related complications. In addition to devastating the band personally (Cindy Wilson was Ricky’s younger sister), it also gutted the band creatively. Having spent nearly a decade studying Ricky’s unqiue style, Keith Strickland switched to guitar, but that created voids elsewhere. Moreover, it left New Wave’s great party band in unfamiliar territory, unsure whether to celebrate their former musical director or to mourn him. 

Released in 1986, while still reeling from tragedy, “Bouncing Off the Satellites” was a (slight) step backwards for the band. In the wake of it all, they elected not to tour, instead taking a proper, extended hiatus. During their time away, most of the band migrated north, remaining close but relatively quiet. All of that would change, dramatically and unexpectedly, in 1989, when The B-52s returned with “Cosmic Thing.”

If “Ten” and “Nevermind” were ground zero for the mainstreaming of Grunge, “Cosmic Thing” was the same for Alt. Produced by Nile Rodgers and Don Was, The B-52s’ fifth studio album was a long awaited, well deserved party for a band that, more than ever, needed a good party. The album featured three top forty hits, including two (“Love Shack” and “Roam”) that reached number three on the charts. Right after The Pixies debut but right before the first Gulf War, The B-52s became the band that everyone could agree on. They filled many hours of many days on both MTV and VH1. Young or old. Gay or straight. Black or white. Everyone loved “Love Shack.”

Until they didn’t. Before “Cosmic Thing,” The B-52s had achieved the exact right amount of exposure. They were a hugely successful cult band on a major label. But “Love Shack” catapulted them into the realm of overexposure. They toured the world and sold many millions of records. Two years later, Kate Pierson appeared on REM’s ubiquitous “Out of Time” and Warner Brothers even re-released Fred’s solo debut. For a couple of years, it seemed as though The B-52s were everywhere.

Late in 1991, the band got back together to record “Good Stuff,” which was released to lukewarm reviews and middling sales. By then, Pearl Jam and Nirvana were the things. “Alt Culture” had gone mainstream. And The B-52s — the dayglo, egalitarian, gay, straight and bi group who’d partially inspired Alt — were completely exhausted.

It would be sixteen years before the band released another full length album. They toured regularly and never broke up. But, whereas Ricky’s death had flattened them, global fame depleted them. Despite their seemingly irrepressible energy, the band was mostly introverts. After fifteen years doing the opposite, The B-52s required some quiet time away, to introvert hard. 

During the early Nineties, and aside from their “good in theory, less in reality” appearance in “The Flinstones” feature film, the band kept a low profile. But, in 1996, Fred Schneider reemerged. By then, Alt was suffering from a “no fun” problem. Whereas Eighties Indie could be silly, Nineties Alt culture had become overly serious. The Beastie Boys were making instrumental albums and trying to save Tibet. Kurt was dead. And Eddie Vedder treated frivolity like it was something to be ashamed of. If Perry Farrell first imagined Lollapalooza as a party for weirdos, five years later it felt much more like a soapbox. 

It was in that moment and milieu that I first heard about “Just Fred,” the second studio album from Fred Schneider, produced by Steve Albini and featuring stalwart Indie veterans as the backing band(s). Though it sounded incongruous, I could almost fathom the idea of Fred making a “serious record.” After all, The B-52s captured only parts of him — and cartoonish ones at that. Surely, he was capable of seriousness and rage and high mindedness.

And yet, it sounded all wrong. I presumed that there’d be no keyboards. No Kate Pierson or Cindy Wilson. No party. Fred was the tart to Kate and Cindy’s sweet. Reading the early press, “Just Fred” sounded contrarian and willfully provocative, like hearing that sweet, adorable Alyssa Milano — Sam from “Who’s The Boss” — was making a turn into adult, erotic thrillers. But, in the same way that I definitely checked out “Poison Ivy 2,” I was not not curious about “Just Fred.” 

As with pretty much everything he does — poker, cooking, guitar, writing and, of course, recording — Steve Albini took his job as producer (or “engineer,” as he prefers) very seriously. He assembled not one, not two, but three different bands to work with Fred: Deadly Cupcake, who backs Fred on most of the album, was a semi-super trio, handpicked by Albini, and featuring members of The Blues Explosion, The Didjits and Tar. Providence’s Six Finger Satellite — the band that spawned DFA’s The Juan Maclean — play on two tracks. And Canada’s surf-y, garage-y Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet perform three songs. 

Although their styles noticeably differ — Deadly Cupcake play straighter, Six Finger Satellite a notch looser and The Shadowy Men a touch weirder — they are all playing versions of three chord Punk Rock. There are no keyboards, much less Farfisa. No cowbell. No Kate or Cindy. In fact, no backing singers at all. No sci-fi songs. Nothing that might inspire a dance craze. It really, truly is, “Just Fred,” some loud guitars, bass and drums.

Part of the greatness of The B-52s was always their egalitarian spirit. Though Ricky Wilson and Keith Strickland were responsible for most of the structure, the ideas, words and style were fully a group effort. As a result, B-52’s songs sound “communal” more than “personal.” In that it resisted biography or personal psychology, Fred’s solo debut was not all that different from The B-52s. But “Just Fred” pulled back the curtain, revealing a middle-aged man full of anger and desire and resentment and lyricism. But also, fun.

There are many obvious reasons why a Punk band would choose to sing rather than talk their songs. Talking can get monotonous, for one thing. Also, you have to talk very loudly to be heard above the guitars and drums. Also, talking eventually veers towards deadpan, which, intentionally or not, presents as dry humor. Ultimately, and notwithstanding The Dead Kennedys and King Missile, we seem to have only have so much tolerance for jokes in our Punk Rock. Slint talked their way through Post-Hardcore — and they were beloved for it. But, then again, there are only two Slint albums and one EP. The fellas from Louisville apparently knew when to stop talking.

“Just Fred” is no “Spiderland,” but it’s not from lack of effort. Over the course of ten tracks, Fred tries out every form of sprechgesang — talking, mumbling, chanting, half-singing and a lot of shouting. In the process, we hear a man who is clearly related to, but also so much more than the campy, thrift-plunging, hip-shaking ringleader of The B-52s. 

Though I would have suspected otherwise, the most compelling moments from “Just Fred” are those wherein the singer gets as loud as possible, meeting and then exceeding the volume of the guitars. “Whip” succeeds in this way, opening the album as though it were shot out from a cannon. For less than four minutes, one singer and three guys hammer away at chords the way The Ramones or The Oblivions would. Fred keeps up, but just barely. On a song about the weight of desire — sadistic and masochistic desire — the band gives Fred no time to breathe, much less rest. And though the pairing is unexpected, once you stop thinking about The B-52s, “Whip” succeeds simply as Punk Rock.

“Bulldozer,” which may be about urban sprawl or gentrification or the environment or all of the above, plays things similarly straight, fast and loud. And because the song is so elemental — the tonal variation becomes the singer’s burden. Fred rather subtly modulates between yelling and (yes) singing. So, when he suddenly turns from one to the other — from on tune to “pitch be damned” — it's quite thrilling.

Whereas faster and louder work well for “Just Fred,” the album struggles with Punk’s other sub-genres. “Bad Dream” explores AC/DC territory but, unsurprisingly, bluesy, metallic Punk is not quite so effective when you trade Bon Scott or Brian Johnson for Fred Schneider. Similarly, on “Stroke of Genius,” the Shadowy Men do a compelling take on early Replacements, but the taught nature of Fred’s vocals undermine the ragged charm of the band.

There are three genuine experiments on the album. “Coconut” is a mostly unnecessary cover of the Harry Nilsson novelty hit. The song was originally recorded for a tribute album, with the proceeds benefiting an anti-gun violence charity. While I understand Fred’s attraction to the song (The B-52s could have made hay with it) and while I support the original cause, it’s something of a failed outlier. “Lick,” in which the singer affects an Ian Curtis-esque baritone and the band finds a Factory Records beat, is more, though not fully, successful. “Sugar In My Hog,” on the other hand, is almost certainly the best of the “weird ones.” While the band plays Psychobilly, Fred performs a spoken word piece, ranting about some asshole who put sugar — not honey or Sweet’N Low — in his motorcycle. It’s not the best three minutes on the record, but it’s perhaps the most fun.

“Just Fred” barely had a moment. It was a curiosity more so than an event. There were no hit singles. It did not sell well. And while one could easily draw a through line between it and Lifter Puller, The Hold Steady and, even, Fontaines D.C., I suspect those similarities are more circumstantial than intentional. By any objective measure, and in spite of its impressive cast, “Just Fred” was a very minor album. Frankly, I was kind of surprised to find it on Spotify. On the other hand, it is a lovable — and possibly important — document of an artist who, at times, could be reduced to one loud note, but who was, in fact, so much more.  

For his part, Fred moved on. He never made another album like “Just Fred” nor did he try to shoehorn his rage into the next B-52s album. Instead, he formed a comedic Synth-Pop band called The Superions and put out a song called “Totally Nude Island.” Then, with “Destination…Christmas,” he fulfilled his dream of making a novelty holiday record. The album’s first single was entitled “Fruitcake.” 

Whereas The Superions’ campy, synth Pop was an easy fit for Fred, in time The B-52s began to feel like hard work. After “Good Stuff,” they released exactly one studio album. They toured semi-regularly, but more as nostalgia or fan service than a working, going concern. Kate Pierson settled down in upstate New York where she designs and rents out luxury cabins full of thrift store finds. Cindy Wilson had a long delayed, highly deserved third act as a patron saint for Kill Rock Stars Records. And Fred, it seems, spends his days hanging out near the beaches of Long Island, emerging occasionally and only when it’s more fun than work.

by Matty Wishnow