Tom Tom Club: The Good, The Bad And The Funky

TOM TOM CLUB: THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE FUNKY (2000)

1) Time To Bounce; 2) Who Feelinʼ It; 3) Happiness Canʼt Buy Money; 4) Holy Water; 5) Soul Fire; 6) Sheʼs Dangerous; 7) Sheʼs A Freak; 8) (CʼMon) Surrender; 9) Love To Love You, Baby; 10) Superdreaming; 11) Lesbians By The Lake; 12) Let There Be Love; 13) Time To Bounce (dub); 14) Dangerous (dub).

General verdict: More accurately, NOT good, NOT bad, and NOT AS funky AS MAY HAVE BEEN INTENDED.

This record isnʼt bad, and it is nice to see Tom Tom Club still in solid action at the turn of the millennium, but, unfortunately, it fails to recreate or refresh the goofy-creepy atmosphere of Dark Sneak Love Action. This time around, so it seems, Tina and Chris decided to produce a relatively normal-sounding funk-pop record. To that end, they surrounded themselves with veterans such as Charles Pettigrew of Charles & Eddie fame and Toots Hibbert of Toots & The Maytals fame; added a bunch of covers by Lee Perry and Donna Summer to their repertoire; and placed a huge emphasis on pure grooves and club atmosphere. In the end, close to a half of the album does not even properly feel like Tom Tom Club — or, more accurately, it feels like a Tom Tom Club invaded and infected by certain things that make the very idea of Tom Tom Club seem pointless and superfluous.

As far as intrigue goes, The Good, The Bad And The Funky does not really go farther than its opening track — the only point of ʽTime To Bounceʼ is to tell you that it is time to bounce, which you should do on the very first beat and then never let go until the fadeout. Tinaʼs sexy-ghostly vocal immediately identifies the piece as Tom Tom Club, but beyond that most of the beats and backing vocals and rapped intermissions largely just regurgitate popular clichés, and there is nothing outstanding about the musical arrangement. It gets worse on the second track, ʽWho Feelinʼ Itʼ, whose main point seems to be to reacquaint us with Marvin Gaye, Beastie Boys, Fela Kuti, Afrika Bambaataa, Wu Tang, and, of course, James Brown once again, by way of a cutesy pop rap from Tina (note to all artists: as a rule, the more names of famous performers you include in your lyrics, the less likely you are to produce a great track yourselves). The idealistic shiny chorus of "who feels it, knows it..." is endearing, but this is not the second coming of ʽGenius Of Loveʼ, and even that one was not that great in the first place.

From there, we get one mid-tempo funky groove after another, nothing particularly offensive or unlistenable but nothing particularly inspired or inspirational, either — the whole thing just feels like a friendly tribute to the African-American popular tradition from funk to disco to electropop to hip-hop. Songs on which Toots or Charles take lead vocals, such as ʽHoly Waterʼ or ʽCʼmon Surrenderʼ, sound way too serious for Tom Tom Club, but lack memorable moments or truly impressive musicianship to deserve that seriousness. Songs with Tina on lead vocals do not succeed in generating an otherworldly presence, either — I mean, if you encounter a title such as ʽSuperdreamingʼ, you may be within right to expect something on the level of John Lennonʼs ʽDream #9ʼ, but this here is just another generic Nineties funk arrangement, repetitive and without a hint of internal development.

The only time when the formula takes a short backstage break is the eleventh track, with a title one surely cannot miss — ʽLesbians By The Lakeʼ, a psychedelic instrumental fantasy co-written with Senegal musician Abdou MʼBoup, who plays a raga-style melody on his kora to a hissing trip-hop beat. I am not entirely sure what this slightly clumsy, but intriguing musical painting has to do with lakes and lesbians, but at least it grabs my attention at a time when I am already quite sure that nothing is capable of grabbing it any more.

I am certain that the album will stand up to multiple repeated listens if you are really in the mood for putting it on endless replay, but in the end, it really just goes to prove how much of a one-trick band Tom Tom Club have always been — when they play that trick to perfection, like on some of the early stuff or on Dark Sneak Love Action, it works; when they try to expand and make themselves look more serious than they really are, it doesnʼt. That said, there is absolutely nothing wrong if you just decide itʼs time to bounce along with these grooves, because Tina and Chris are professional «bouncers», after all.