Bouncing Off the Satellites

Recording sessions for Bouncing off the Satellites began in July 1985. The album was seen as darker and more melancholy than the band's previous work, having more ballads.[2]

A backwards message was deliberately inserted into the album by the B-52's. The message occurs in the song "Detour Thru Your Mind", in the last 30 seconds of the track: Fred Schneider says (slowly and distinctly), "I buried my parakeet in the backyard. Oh no, you're playing the record backwards. Watch out, you might ruin your needle."[3][4][5]

During the recording, guitarist Ricky Wilson had been suffering from AIDS.[6] None of the other band members other than Strickland were aware of his illness. Strickland later stated that Wilson "was very protective of Cindy and his family." [7][8] In an interview, Kate Pierson stated that Wilson had kept his illness secret from his bandmates because he "did not want anyone to worry about him or fuss about him."[8] Because of this and the lack of new material for the album, Wilson and Strickland allowed Pierson and Fred Schneider to contribute solo material they had been working on at the time; they contributed one track each for the album, "Housework" and "Juicy Jungle", respectively. On October 12, 1985, Wilson finally succumbed to the illness, at the age of 32, and though Strickland and a few session musicians worked on overdubs for the recorded tracks, the rest of the band were not involved.[6][9] Devastated at Wilson's death, the band went into seclusion and did not tour to promote the album.[10] Nevertheless, Bouncing Off the Satellites eventually reached 85 on the Billboard 200.[11] Cindy went into a deep depression after her brother's death, while Strickland retreated to Woodstock, New York, and Pierson and Schneider stayed in New York City. The band initially felt that it would be impossible to continue without Ricky until they reformed in 1988 for the recording of their next album Cosmic Thing.

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[12]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide	[13]
Spin Alternative Record Guide	7/10[14]
The Village Voice	B+[15]

The album debuted on the Billboard Top Pop Albums chart at #97 on October 4, 1986 and peaked at #85 the following week. By the third week it had fallen out of the Top 100 and was off the chart by the second week of 1987.

It was, by most accounts, a critical and commercial failure, though three tracks from the album - "Summer of Love", "Wig", and "Girl from Ipanema Goes to Greenland" - have been performed semi-regularly by the band on tour since the 1990s.

All tracks are written by The B-52's, except where noted.