The 1981 Listening Post - Tom Tom Club - Tom Tom Club

 Tom Tom Club - Tom Tom Club

#503

By Tom Mott

October 1981

Tom Tom Club

Tom Tom Club

GENRE post-disco new wave

Allen’s Rating: 3 out of 5

Tom’s Rating: 4.6 out of 5

Highlights:

Wordy Rappinghood

Genius of Love

L'éléphant

I love this album. I've had it for years--exept that initially, I had it on cassette, so it included Under the Boardwalk instead of Booming and Zooming.

The sounds of GENIUS OF LOVE blasting out of giant boom boxes in 1981-82 was astonishing. Those sounds! Those weird Fat Albert cartoon voices! (Double Dutch Bus had the same effect on me.) These are the sounds that I followed into the 90s. Drums, syncopation, percussion, grooves. I'll take this over *later* Talking Heads (Little Creatures, True Stories) any day. When grunge hit big, I went in the opposite direction into funk, disco, hip-hop, dance music, French pop, and oldies.

This is half of the Talking Heads, along with some members of their touring band (Adrian Belew!), and Tina Weymouth's sisters, heading to the Bahamas for a breath of fresh air and the chance to have fun making music together. And that's exactly what it sounds like. It was recorded at the same Compass Point Studios in the Bahamas that Grace Jones's 80 & 81 albums were recorded, and it has a similar vibe -- that funky, sexy, slinky, spacey mashup of funk, new wave, reggae, and polyrhythms. The main difference is that Grace Jones's albums are more mannered and have more space. This one just sounds like they're relaxing and enjoying making music together. Steven Stanley--the co-producer, engineer & mixer--gets a co-writing credit on half the songs, which feels like a very generous, deserved move. (Not something David Byrne would've done.)

Under the Boardwalk vs Booming and Zooming: Under the Boardwalk sounds like Grace Jones hooked up with Bananarama. It's infectious and sweet. Booming and Zooming is far weirder: radio transmissions from a space cowboy over a new wave beat. It sounds like they heard "Spaced Cowboy" by Sly Stone and had a kooky idea that almost works. 

I didn't know what "Bohannon Bohannon Bohannon Bohannon" meant, and then 10 years later, I was in Tower Records on Sunset and came across Bohannon's Greatest Hits and it clicked. What a thrill! (And yeah--I hit the jackpot. That's a killer album.) Thank you, Tom Tom Club!

Also, I didn't list Lorelei as a highlight, but check it out if you don't know it. If the Jetson's maid Rosie had a band, it would've sounded like this. Those sounds! ❤

https://open.spotify.com/album/5WKUL88usO5Y8cfbh2EQdu?si=vjs2TjgGRVK21yGv-jbS8w

The 1983 Listening Post - Tom Tom Club - Close to the Bone

Tom Tom Club - Close to the Bone

Oh god, make this stop.

#123

July 1983

Tom Tom Club
Close to the Bone
0.5 out of 5

Ugh. All of the worst inclinations that I was afraid of for Tom Tom Club have taken center stage.
The opener wants to be as cheeky as “Genius of Love” but it isn’t, it’s derivative and bored.
Even though “Never Took a penny” isn’t awful, the rest of the album is so terrible it gets no points for it.

This is music for people who want other people to think they are getting high but they are just smoking clove cigarettes.

Listening Post: Talking Heads - Tom Tom Club - Tom Tom Club

Tom Tom Club - Tom Tom Club - 1981

Ah, piffle.
It's pretty well known that Tina Weymouth was becoming more and more frustrated with the control over Talking Heads that David Byrne was wielding. As though he was the genius and they were lucky to be there.
So, on the side, while he was making My Life and Catherine Wheel, Tina and her husband, Chris Frantz enlisted some other players as well as her sisters and tossed off a bit of Rhythmic dance fluff.
And it's probably been more sustaining for them than anything they've ever done. I mean, come on, "Genius of Love"? How ubiquitous is THAT song???
What they were successful at, more than anything else, was creating a pop version of the tribal musings of Talking Heads. Like TH lite.
Let's be honest here: "Genius of Love" is one of the catchiest tracks of the 80s. Hands down. Just plain fun. And no one, NO ONE ever said that about Talking Heads before.
While there are some dull parts ("L'Elephant" goes on too long and "As Above, So Below" treads dangerously close to experimentation instead of dancey fun) the entire affair is too cute and short to linger too long.

I think of this album as the anti-Remain in Light. Or the anti-My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. It's sort of a triumph that it's paid such dividends for Frantz/Weymouth. While Byrne and Eno were taking themselves SOOOOO seriously, the "lesser" members of the band outdid them with something that everybody liked, everybody bought and everybody danced to. Byrne is what you SHOULD eat. Tom Tom Club is candy.
And sometimes you gotta have a piece of candy.

Grade: B
ASide: Genius of Love, Wordy Rappinghood
BlindSide: On On On On, Booming and Zooming
DownSide: Lorelei