(New Wave / Pop Rock) Kate Pierson (The B-52's) - Radios & Rainbows - 2024, MP3, 320 kbps

Kate Pierson has been a guiding vocal light in The B-52's since the band was founded in Athens, Georgia back in 1976. Now, at age 76, Pierson is releasing solo work that shows she's nowhere near ready to hang up her party heels, even as The B-52's have retired from touring and are limiting performances to select shows and residencies.
Pierson came out as bisexual and released her solo debut Guitars and Microphones in 2015. That album swells with songs that largely could be B-52's bops, with Fred Schneider's non-sequiturs lurking somewhere just around the corner. But nine years later, the tunes on her sophomore album, Radios and Rainbows, carve out her own sonic space and reveal more of a personal perspective than she has in any of her past work. Two highlights are ballads about her wife: "The Beauty of It All" and "Higher Place."
Radios and Rainbows showcases an artist with fresh energy, ready to reveal more of who she is without the confines of a group—though one song, "Take Me Back to the Party," deliberately embraces a B-52's-esque vibe. She sounds at ease on slow jams and uptempo tracks, and has preserved her vocal quality. Pierson traded her signature long red hair for a more blunt black cut, and songs like "Give Your Heart to Science" and "Evil Love" reinforce a more romantic and nearly-goth image, though her tongue is always firmly in cheek. Notably, Sia appears as a guest star and co-writer on "Every Day is Halloween" and that duet makes clear the Australian songwriter's apt reverence of Pierson and her honeyed, Southern-soul voice. Radios and Rainbows is a testimony that Pierson is still in love with music.