Tom Tom Club Delivers Definitive Box Set

The husband-and-wife rhythm section of bassist Tina Weymouth and drummer Chris Frantz is not only the most happily wedded couple in rock history (maybe next to Ira and Georgia of Yo La Tengo), but they are also among the funkiest in their craft.

And while their time in Talking Heads has been well-documented with Rhino’s acclaimed series of deluxe editions of the New York art pop group’s studio albums that currently brings us to 1979’s Fear of Music, the couple’s side project Tom Tom Club is now getting its own box set thanks to Rhino.

For the first time, all six TTC albums have been collected in one entity, entitled Let There Be Love, which is as fun and colorful as the group itself, especially on vinyl.

It’s been 45 years since Weymouth and Frantz sidestepped their role as the rhythm section of Talking Heads to form Tom Tom Club, named after the club in the Bahamas where the couple rehearsed during their time away from the legendary New York City new wave band. They were soon invited to return to Compass Point Studios in Nassau, where Talking Heads recorded 1978’s More Songs About Buildings And Food, at the invitation of producer Chris Blackwell. It was there they began collaborating with the Compass Point All-Stars, a loose collective of renowned reggae musicians including Sly Dunbar, Robbie Shakespeare, Uzziah “Sticky” Thompson, and Tyrone Downi, plus guitar wizard Adrian Belew and vocalists Lani, Laura and Loric Weymouth (Tina’s sisters!).

Tom Tom Club’s self-titled debut was released in October 1981, preceded by the album’s first single “Wordy Rappinghood,” which followed on the heels of Blondie’s “Rapture” as a pioneering fusion of new wave and hip-hop that would become the group’s signature sound. But it was the second single, “Genius of Love,” that really cemented Tom Tom Club’s place in the pop pantheon. Reaching No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot Dance Club Songs chart and No. 2 on the R&B/Hip-Hop chart that year, the song’s indelible interpolated groove would become one of the most sampled beats ever, with everyone from Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five to Mariah Carey to Latto utilizing its signature groove for their own material.

 

VIDEO: Tom Tom Club “Genius of Love”

The second album, 1983’s Close to the Bone, saw Tom Tom Club return with a revamped lineup comprised of Wally Badarou, Tyrone Downie, Chris Frantz, Roddy Frantz, Rupert Hine, Raymond Jones, Steve Scales, Steven Stanley, Alex Weir; and sisters Lani, Laura and Tina Weymouth. It’s essentially a continuation of the dance pop formula Tina and Chris were experimenting with on the first album, albeit possessing nothing as transcendent as “Genius of Love,” though the synth-soaked “The Man with the 4-Way Hips” and the infectious “Pleasure of Love” come pretty close.

The Toms would return in 1988 with Boom Boom Chi Boom Boom, which was produced by early hip-hop producer and remixer Arthur Baker alongside Weymouth and Frantz. Singles “Don’t Say No” and “Suboceana” received radio airplay in the U.K. and here in the States on stations like KROQ in Los Angeles and WLIR/WDRE on Long Island in New York. But this album is probably most remembered for the cover of The Velvet Underground’s “Femme Fatale” featuring guest appearances by Lou Reed as well as Chris and Tina’s Talking Heads bandmates Jerry Harrison and David Byrne.

 

AUDIO: Tom Tom Club “Femme Fatale” 

1992’s Dark Sneak Love Action was a smaller affair than the previous Tom Tom Club works, with Weymouth and Frantz largely crafting the album themselves with assistance from a small crew of musicians including Lani Weymouth and Victoria Clamp on backing vocals, guitarist Mark Roule and Bruce Martin on vocals, computer programming, percussion, keyboards and accordion. Free from the confines of Talking Heads, Chris and Tina get more experimental in their concoctions, utilizing bagpipes on “Daddy Come Home” and bringing a different kind of sultriness to their version of Hot Chocolate’s “You Sexy Thing.”

Tom Tom Club sat out most of the ’90s but returned in 2000 with The Good, The Bad and The Funky, which found the couple in collaboration with legendary Funkadelic keyboardist Bernie Worrell and focusing on a more cohesive sound rooted in reggae, hip-hop and dub without losing his dancey edge. The title track to this box set comes from this album as well.

The final Tom Tom Club album (so far), 2012’s Downtown Rockers, isn’t actually an album but rather an EP that’s since been expanded with remixes and instrumentals. Working once again with Bruce Martin on keys along with guitarist Pablo Martin, Chris and Tina offer the most six-string-rooted set of Tom Tom Club songs yet, leading with the punky title track, where Frantz delivers a roll call of artists that made up the New York City music scene. “You Make Me Rock and Roll” is one of Weymouth’s best vocal turns, while “Kissin’ Antonio” and “Sweets to the Sweet” combine synths and saxophone like very few artists have.

Let There Be Love is out now on Rhino, and well worth including in your vinyl collection — especially if you are a fan of that Downtown NYC funky block party vibe Tom Tom Club helped create in living color back in the day. 

 

LP Track Listing

Tom Tom Club (1981)

Side One

“Wordy Rappinghood”

“Genius Of Love”

“Tom Tom Theme”

“L’éléphant”

 

Side Two

“As Above, So Below”

“Lorelei”

“On, On, On, On…”

“Booming And Zooming”

 

Close To The Bone (1983)

Side One

“Pleasure Of Love”

“On The Line Again”

“This Is A Foxy World”

“Bamboo Town”

 

Side Two

“The Man With The 4-Way Hips”

“Measure Up”

“Never Took A Penny”

“Atsababy! (Life Is Great)”

 

Boom Boom Chi Boom Boom (1988)

Side One

“Call Of The Wild”

“Kiss Me When I Get Back”

“Wa Wa Dance”

“I Confess”

“Challenge Of The Love Warriors”

 

Side Two

“Suboceana”

“Don’t Say No”

“Shock The World”

“Little Eva”

“Femme Fatale”

 

Dark Sneak Love Action (1992)

Side One

“Love Wave”

“Sunshine And Ecstasy”

“You Sexy Thing”

 

Side Two

“Who Wants An Ugly Girl?”

“Say I Am”

“Irresistible Party Dip”

 

Side Three

“Dark Sneak Love Action”

“Innocent Sex Kiss”

“Dogs In The Trash”

 

Side Four

“My Mama Told Me”

“As The Disco Ball Turns”

“Daddy Come Home”

 

The Good the Bad and the Funky (2000)

Side One

“Time To Bounce”

“Who Feelin’ It”

“Happiness Can’t Buy Money”

“Holy Water”

“Soul Fire She’s Dangerous”

 

Side Two

“Love To Love You Baby”

“(C’mon) Surrender”

“Let There Be Love”

“Superdreaming”

“Lesbians By The Lake”

 

Downtown Rockers (2012)

Side One

“Downtown Rockers”

“Won’t Give You Up”

“You Make Me Rock And Roll”

 

Side Two

“Kissin’ Antonio”

“Sweets To The Sweet”

 

VIDEO: Tom Tom Club “Pleasure Of Love”