Tom Tom Club: Downtown Rockers

TOM TOM CLUB: DOWNTOWN ROCKERS (2012)

1) Downtown Rockers; 2) Wonʼt Give You Up; 3) You Make Me Rock And Roll; 4) Kissinʼ Antonio; 5) Sweets To The Sweet; 6) Love Tape*.

General verdict: One last and (appropriately) brief nostalgic wave to a long-gone clubbing culture.

Well, it happens to us all sooner or later, but even Tom Tom Club eventually grows old, and at this point, it makes no sense to complain that Tom Tom Club, of all people, should have quite specifically burned out than faded away — these days, we have numerous examples of the most childish acts, the most juvenile rockʼnʼrollers freezing or even forcefully rewinding their minds to adolescent states at the ripe ages of 60-70, and it is not always a bad thing even for those who listen to the music, let alone those who create it.

In the case of Tina and Chris, «aging» refers to the following three details about this record: (a) it is actually a mini-album, formally an EP, with just five properly new songs, meaning they had not the energy or the desire to put out a full-blown artistic statement; (b) it sounds, for the first time ever, almost or completely devoid of specifically modern production techniques and arrangement strategies; (c) some of the songs have a distinctly nostalgic flair — particularly the title track, which, once again, uses their trademark gimmick of invoking the spirits of their idols ("JAMES BROWN!"), but this time, all of the «idols» are proto-punk, punk, and New Wave acts from their youth, from the Velvet Underground and Patti Smith right down to Talking Heads themselves at the very end.

Nevertheless, the five songs in question are actually decent, fun songs. Nothing startlingly original, just good-natured funky grooves with a pinch of darkness. The title track is the only one that adheres to a more strictly rocking format, true to its title, with a straightforward beat and a simple, thick, distorted riff that makes it easily the heaviest track Tom Tom Club have ever recorded — which is still not too heavy at all — and while the obligatory band name countdown on the verses is obligatorily annoying, the kiddie chorus of "na na na na, downtown rockers, I remember you" is both catchy and somewhat sympathetic.

The other four tunes are all completely in line with Tom Tom Clubʼs traditional artistry — sweet and naïve love / lust declarations under the intoxicating influence of a clubbing environment — and although they hardly deserve any detailed analysis, it is hard not to toe-tap along their rhythmic curves or feel just a bit of sexy giddiness at Tinaʼs catchy choruses. It also helps that the tunes are quite musically distinct: ʽWonʼt Give You Upʼ has more of a reggae feel, ʽYou Make Me Rock And Rollʼ swings to a ska-like pattern, ʽKissinʼ Antonioʼ is ʽEvil Waysʼ-style Santana, and only ʽSweets To The Sweetʼ is pure pop. The arrangements are also all over the place, with synths, organs, electric pianos, saxes, wah-wah guitars, and just about everything to bring back that Seventiesʼ atmosphere.

It might actually be a good thing, though, that there is nothing else: another five songs like these and even despite all the musical diversity the proceedings would begin to feel repetitive and boring. An attempt was made to pass the whole thing for a full-length album by putting out several full-length CD editions that doubled the running length by including instrumental remixes (or simply instrumental versions) of all or most of the tracks — because, of course, no Tom Tom Club fan would ever achieve happiness without being given a chance to sing karaoke to his or her favorite bandʼs latest creations — but this is really an action that would deserve the epithet of «pathetic», were anybody in the world to actually give a damn.

The only extra new track, found on the Japanese edition, is a cover of ʽLove Tapeʼ, by the Spanish alt-pop band The Pinker Tones: strange enough, the original here sounded more like the Tom Tom Club of Downtown Rockers, being a pop-rocker very much in the style of classic-rock era R&B — whereas the Tom Tom Club rearrangement awards it a straightahead techno beat, as if in a last ditch attempt to show that the band is not that much out of step with the times... but, for some reason, to show it only to their Japanese fans? Whatever.

In any case, if you care about Tom Tom Club at all, there is no reason to ignore this record just because it is so short or because it feels so absurd to think of Tom Tom Club as a concept capable of making it past the 60-year age barrier. It is short, and the thought is absurd, but neither of the two should bar you from twenty more minutes of sexy fun that are not altogether devoid of creativity, humor, and old-school class. The future may not hold anything else in store for the project — but Downtown Rockers is as good a laconic swan song for it as could ever be warranted by its flimsy, superficial, and ironically humble nature in the first place. 

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. 

Tom Tom Club: Dark Sneak Love Action

TOM TOM CLUB: DARK SNEAK LOVE ACTION (1992)

1) Love Wave; 2) Sunshine And Ecstasy; 3) You Sexy Thing; 4) Who Wants An Ugly Girl; 5) Say I Am; 6) Irresistible Party Dip; 7) Dark Sneak Love Action; 8) Innocent Sex Kiss; 9) Dogs In The Trash; 10) My Mama Told Me; 11) As The Disco Ball Turns; 12) Daddy Come Home.

General verdict: The one Tom Tom Club album with a definite edge to it, even if the label reads «creepy dance-pop for the age of Basic Instinct».

Pretty much the only thing you can very easily dig up about this album from Internet sources is that it includes a cover of Hot Chocolateʼs ʽYou Sexy Thingʼ — which, in all fairness, only makes sense to those who were of the right age when ʽYou Sexy Thingʼ was a thing in 1976. Apparently, after the lackluster performance of Boom Boom Chi Boom Boom most people in the world came to think the most sensible thing — that Tom Tom Club was a limited-time joke act, that its time had expired, and that following the musical future of Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz in the next decade would be the epitome of the Losing Game.

These most people, though, they couldnʼt be more wrong. Dark Sneak Love Action, an album totally and completely buried in time, is actually... Tom Tom Clubʼs best album. Mind you, the stress here is on album. It does not contain any immediate gems like ʽWordy Rappinghoodʼ, it cannot boast a single track with the hit potential of ʽGenius Of Loveʼ, and I do not even think there are that many hooks here on the level of ʽSuboceanaʼ. But it sets itself a perfectly clear and interesting goal — write a cycle of sexy, seductive, sublimely naughty dance tracks — and carries out the prescribed task in twelve moves with nary a single obvious miss. And if ever there was an album title in this groupʼs history to perfectly match its musical content... well, guess what, it certainly wasnʼt Boom Boom Chi Boom Boom.

Compared to their previous records, this one was recorded in very small company: Tina and Chris are accompanied by guitarist Mark Roule and keyboardist Bruce Martin, plus a couple backing vocalists — no Byrne, no Jerry, no Belew, just a very barebones edition of Tom Tom Club left completely to their own devices. Maybe because of this, precisely, they really stick to just one device: get a good dance beat, set up a dark, suspenseful, mischievous funk vibe, and use all the limited instrumental and vocal means at their disposal to build up an atmosphere that suggests dark corners, dirty winks, casual encounters, illicit substances, adultery, and all sorts of kinks a-plenty. If the album had just a wee bit more recognition in its time, I am pretty sure somebody would have come up with the idea to license it for the soundtrack of a «Middle Aged Couple Seduces Innocent Teens» porn movie or something.

One might play the puritan and find such a purpose disgusting, or one might play the highbrow intellectual and find it ridiculous and cheap, but the record does have a unique flavor — it isnʼt overtly sexy, with its reliance on heavy bass grooves, whispered vocals and innuendos, itʼs more like an album for some really really shy people with some really really gross hidden desires. Actually, you will not notice anything particularly indecent going on if you just browse through the lyrics, even the ones for songs with really suggestive titles such as ʽInnocent Sex Kissʼ; itʼs all in the little details of singing, arrangements, and production. But in the end, youʼll still walk away feeling dirty and ever so slightly shocked — I mean, we all had our suspicions, but we never thought thereʼd be that much of this kinky stuff in Tinaʼs and Chrisʼ basement.

Speaking of individual songs, like I said, there are no clear highlights, but almost each title has something going for it. ʽLove Waveʼ is a slow, cocky, funky rap embellished with a few surf guitar lines (is «surf-funk» actually a thing?) to metaphorically remind you of all the oceanic connections of sexual attraction. ʽSunshine And Ecstasyʼ, the first single from the album, is arguably one of the weakest numbers, being closer than most other songs to generic early 1990s dance pop, but even that song is quirked up by stealing the guitar riff of ʽYou Really Got Meʼ and inserting a fun jazzy piano break in the middle. ʽYou Sexy Thingʼ actually sounds nothing like the original, being given a synth-pop edge and a whiff of stalkerish atmosphere by means of Tinaʼs ghostly-mechanical falsetto vocals. ʽWho Wants An Ugly Girlʼ chooses a reggae beat to tell a simplistic, endearing narrative that would most likely be tabooed in 2020, but possibly lets us in on some of Tinaʼs personal complexes — with a catchy chorus to boot.

Skipping ahead to a couple of songs that are particularly juicy, the title track is arguably the culmination of this style — all hush-hush, herky-jerky percussion, quiet bubbly synth riffs in the background, menacing blues-rock lead guitar lines roaming on the edges, and backing vocals with purring curves. The songʼs message is basically the same as Madonnaʼs ʽBurning Upʼ ("strip me down and burn me to the core"), with the important distinction that Madonna is offering herself to you right in front of everybody in the middle of Times Square, whereas Tina is doing that in the darkest, most secluded corner of the club, away from the lights and crowds — itʼs up to you to decide which of the two approaches is hotter, even if in the long run both are probably fatal. At the other end of the spectrum is ʽDogs In The Trashʼ, a hilariously corny «nightmarish» account of a jilted lover stalking a socialite (or something like that), with the howling dog trope exploited both vocally and instrumentally (if that ainʼt a Termenvox providing the main counter-riff, it sounds damn close to one).

It is possible that the consistent dark-sneak atmosphere might wear you out by the end of the album, but somehow they never ever run out of little ideas to help get you going — right down to the very las song, ʽDaddy Come Homeʼ, which is graced with... bagpipes, marrying together the old Celtic folk vibe with contemporary dancefloor rhythms. Seriously, more care and inspiration went into the making of this record than into most of David Byrneʼs solo albums from that same period — Dark Sneak Love Action is a light-art pop piece with a purpose, and it should be holding up rather proudly next to hundreds of completely generic dance-pop products of the time. Too bad they pretty much gave up on it: ʽYou Sexy Thingʼ was the only number, I think, that they regularly performed live for a while, and it isnʼt even the most representative track from the record. Then again, if it is largely a «dark corner» record, maybe Tina and Chris just gather in secret to perform these tunes for each other every once in a while. (There definitely is quite a bit of potential here to spruce up a middle-aged coupleʼs sex life, thatʼs for sure). 

Tom Tom Club: Boom Boom Chi Boom Boom

TOM TOM CLUB: BOOM BOOM CHI BOOM BOOM (1988)

1) Suboceana; 2) Shock The World; 3) Donʼt Say No; 4) Challenge Of The Love Warri­ors; 5) Femme Fatale; 6) Born For Love; 7) Broken Promises; 8) She Belongs To Me; 9) Little Eva; 10) Mighty Teardrop.

General verdict: One good song and a lot of bizarrely failing experiments — this is the "unfunny" antipode of the old Tom Tom Club, and how would it be possible to find a market for that?

Run a quirky idea into the ground — boom boom chi boom boom! — and what you get is this album, one that sounds almost like a parody on early Tom Tom Clun and next to which Naked begins to feel like an underrated masterpiece. You could sort of smell the trouble a-cominʼ when you saw one of the production credits go to Arthur Baker, the man who had made a career in the musical world largely by churning out dance remixes for Springsteen, Cyndi Lauper, and Hall & Oates, as well as mixing the tracks on Bob Dylanʼs Empire Burlesque. But even so you could never guess what kind of nasty surprises were waiting just around the corner.

There is one good track on this album, and that is ʽSuboceanaʼ — at the very least, Tina and Chris still retain their capacity for drawing us in with a catchy, enticing opener. Although its plastic percussion and plastic-funk guitars sound quite dated now, the song itself is an inoffensive and subtly mystical piece of funk-pop with a classic «mystery girl» delivery from Tina (which works even better in the company of the musical video, where she was appropriately dressed as a huge anthropomorphous jellyfish). If the entire album followed that suspenseful, sexy vibe, it could at least be seen as a legitimate, slightly inferior successor to the early Eighties vibe.

Unfortunately, even though not everything is completely hopeless, for most of its duration Boom Boom Chi Boom Boom is busy hopping from one bad idea to another. They are so grotesquely bad that they are actually worth listening to at least once. ʽChallenge Of The Love Warriorsʼ, for instance, sounds precisely like its title suggests: a lot of sexy puffing and panting accompanied by nothing but tribal African percussion — because, of course, what exactly is tribal African per­cussion supposed to arouse other than oneʼs primal instincts? ʽMighty Teardropʼ opens with a distorted guitar riff that largely apes Claptonʼs ʽCocaineʼ, except it is done in a much cheesier pop-metal fashion; and the entire song seems to be Tom Tom Clubʼs attempt at getting good with the «heavy pop» scene, which sort of goes against their entire agenda. Songs like ʽBorn For Loveʼ and ʽBroken Promisesʼ attempt to ape the older sound of Blondie and The Police, just with louder drums — going absolutely nowhere, because once Tom Tom Club loses touch with the kiddie, absurd, cartoonish style that had always been its greeting card, they lose any reason to exist. Who needs these songs if you had an entire decade of better artists making them?

But the worst is yet to come, and that is the decision to cover a couple of classics: Bob Dylanʼs ʽShe Belongs To Meʼ and The Velvet Undergroundʼs ʽFemme Fataleʼ. The former I can only explain through the Empire Burlesque connection, and the song does sound precisely the way it might have ended up had Bob written it in 1985 rather than 1965, except that the vocals are much more awful (Iʼm guessing that is Chris Frantz himself reciting the lyrics in full-on «bad actor» mode?). The latter is even more sorrowful, because not only does it feature Jerry Harrison and David Byrne on guitars, keyboards, and backing vocals — thus making it a legitimate Talking Heads recording in all but name — but even Lou Reed himself walks by to provide an extra guitar part, and itʼs a disaster: awful production, sloppy guitarwork, and a vocal performance by Tina that, once again, sounds more like one of the millions of unfortunate experiments on The Voice than a thoughtful take on a classic. If there is anything that the drawn out, goofy "heeeere she comes!..." at the beginning reminded me of, it was probably Laura Palmerʼs double-reversed voice track in The Black Lodge. Yes, «hilariously bad» is the ticket.

The problem is, there never was the slightest reason in the first place why a joke band like Tom Tom Club should even have considered covering these songs — or trying to take this whole business so much more seriously. Perhaps they were sensing that the days of Talking Heads were numbered, and that it was high time they started putting the Tom Tom Club twist on deeper and denser issues. Perhaps, having gone five years without a proper new album, they forgot what Tom Tom Club used to be all about, and decided to start anew. Whatever the reason, the result is misguided and pathetic. And I havenʼt even mentioned that there is not a single song that could be called outstanding for its rhythm section — a pretty harsh blow for a band consisting of a drum-bashing husband and a bass-pounding wife. Plenty of chi to go around — definitely not enough boom boom to make a difference.

Tom Tom Club: Close To The Bone

TOM TOM CLUB: CLOSE TO THE BONE (1983)

1) Pleasure Of Love; 2) On The Line Again; 3) This Is A Foxy World; 4) Bamboo Town; 5) The Man With The 4-Way Hips; 6) Measure Up; 7) Never Took A Penny; 8) Atsa­baby!.

General verdict: No less charismatic than the first Tom Tom Club album, but the lack of originality and too much humble bubblegummy politeness are sort of killing its chances.

I think that deep down in their hearts, no matter how much sincere sympathy was generated, everybody believed that the first Tom Tom Club album would remain a one-time joke — and especially now that Talking Heads were officially back as a band and burning down the house. This might explain why the second album, which really tries as hard as possible to stick to the same formula, got only a small share of respect awarded to the first one — and why, after all these years, ʽGenius Of Loveʼ remains the only thing anybody remembers about Tom Tom Club.

In all honesty, Close To The Bone is just a little bit worse than its predecessor: a bit shorter, a bit less inspired, somewhat less original, and with Alex Weir replacing Adrian Belew on guitar — not the greatest exchange in the world (and it did not work out that well for the Heads, either). But I would not describe it in terms of «sophomore slump», either: the mix of dance grooves, catchy hooks, and lyrical sarcasm remains satisfactory on the whole. Maybe the band moves even closer to B-52ʼs territory — which it would not be able to conquer because of too much shyness and caution (Tina and Chris could never match the stage and studio wildness of the B-52ʼs) — but the more grotesque elements they introduce into their music, the more it rises above the average dance-pop of the era.

They certainly are not being subtle about trying to follow the success of ʽGenius Of Loveʼ up with ʽPleasure Of Loveʼ. Unlike ʽGeniusʼ, ʽPleasureʼ has no instantly captivating melodic riff; it is all about the funky groove and the surprisingly retro atmosphere of the vocals floating above the groove — Tina and the rest of the Weymouth sisters deliver the lines if not with the power, then certainly with the exhilarating spirit of old school girl bands like The Shirelles. I actually like the song more than ʽGenius Of Loveʼ precisely because it is less flashy and more subtly funny, but it is also clear why it never gained the same attention. The other single was ʽThe Man With The 4-Way Hipsʼ, a more sharply defined synth-pop creation with a one-line chorus that runs the risk of quickly becoming annoying, but is still saved by one of Tinaʼs trademark bad(b)ass riffs, giving this somewhat generic tale of a master dancer the necessary sexiness.

Somewhat alarmingly, this is also an album on which Tina and Chris delve into social issues: ʽThis Is A Foxy Worldʼ is just another simple dance-pop anthem if you do not listen closely, but if you do, it is also a surprisingly modern-sounding feminist declaration ("hey boy whatʼs it gonna be / freedom for the sexes full equality / hey boy what do you say / equal work gets equal pay"). But the lyrics seem sillier on paper than they actually sound within the song — precisely because it is all so hush-hush, with Tinaʼs quiet husky falsetto driving it home surreptitiously rather than aggressively, so that the whole thing can be taken seriously or ironically depending on the situation. And when the very next song is ʽBamboo Townʼ, a moody dance ballad about a boy-loves-girl, girl-loves-boy, "bum diddly bum" situation, we are comprehensively back in vapor-head territory anyway, to such an extent where, if you did not properly understand the context, you might have really mistaken the artists for vapor-headed people.

If anything, the second album gives an even stronger impression that they are trying to invent IBM (Intelligent Bubblegum Music) that would be the equivalent of, say, the Ramones in the dance-pop sphere: a post-New Wave style of danceable music that is nevertheless dependent on playing dexterity, yet also deconstructs the romantic lyricism and emotional atmosphere of the music to a bare minimum — like some much needed antidote to Byrneʼs insufferably paranoid and cryptic style. This is, however, precisely the problem: all of this Tom Tom Club stuff works much better if you take it in the context of contemporary Talking Heads albums than if you took it completely on its own. (Although, given my original break-the-spell reaction to ʽGenius Of Loveʼ in the context of Stop Making Sense, I am almost surprised at myself for writing this). At the very least, it helps to know that the creator of this superficially bubblegummy schlock is the same person that is responsible for the bass line of ʽPsycho Killerʼ.

Even so, the public was not impressed: neither the album nor its accompanying singles managed to sell well, and even the success of ʽBurning Down The Houseʼ never really brushed off on the fate of Close To The Bone — which probably explains why there would be no follow-up until late 1988, by which time Naked was out and the future existence of Talking Heads as the same old four-piece unit was put in serious doubt. But this lack of acceptance, I believe, has more to do with the humbleness and general lack of flash than with the actual songwriting: after all, the record was released in the same month as Madonnaʼs debut — feel the difference between that one and Tom Tom Clubʼs old-fashioned way of courting. 

Tom Tom Club: Tom Tom Club

TOM TOM CLUB: TOM TOM CLUB (1981)

1) Wordy Rappinghood; 2) Genius Of Love; 3) Tom Tom Theme; 4) L'Elephant; 5) As Above, So Below; 6) Lorelei; 7) On, On, On, On...; 8) Booming And Zooming; 9*) Under The Boardwalk.

General verdict: Funky synth-pop for Eighties kiddos with open minds and senses of humor — the KISS equivalent of Talking Heads, and yes, that's a compliment.

I bet it is a fairly common thing for all those who watch Stop Making Sense for the first time and keep forgetting to unglue themselves from the screen and then ʽGenius Of Loveʼ comes along and we are, like, "EH????" I mean, depending on your general feel for such music, you may be delighted with Chris' and Tina's performance, or you might feel totally embarrassed by it, but one thing is most probably certain: the appearance of Tom Tom Club in the middle of the regular Talking Heads setlist is like The Osmonds interrupting a Rolling Stones show, or, more accurate­ly, the appearance of a juvenile J-pop act in, say, a Peter Gabriel performance, while he is busy changing costumes or digging in the dirt.

Personally, I fall in the category of people who found it embarrassing (and I am still trying to unsee the image of Tina doing the squat dance); in fact, I used to suspect that it was a wicked plot on Byrne's part, to have the band do a Tom Tom Club number while he was busy diving in the Big Suit, just so that the people would clearly understand: without Byrne, Talking Heads are instantly reduced to a bunch of nonsense. And despite the immense reputation of ʽGenius Of Loveʼ as one of the most heavily sampled tunes in history, it is obvious that I was not in a hurry to check out the remainder of the catalog.

But in the end, it is all about the context. Essentially, Tom Tom Club was just a lightweight (and totally unpretentious) diversion, a way for the happily united couple of Frantz and Weymouth to have some fun while on vacation from their main business — after all, the very name of the band comes from a dancehall in the Bahamas, so how more carefree can you get? And the first album released by the group is a charming, if typically early-Eighties, exercise in what could only be called «twee-funk»: a mixture of involving (and not always simplistic) dance rhythms with mock-infantile lyrics and nursery vocal melodies, sung in everything from English to French to Japa­nese (or pseudo-Japanese). In fact, I would dare say that the aesthetics of Tom Tom Club, although it borrows plenty from Blondie, comes much closer to Japanese kawaisa than to any­thing associated with Talking Heads — the saving grace being a sense of humor and irony that shows that the band is quite serious about not taking themselves seriously.

It is interesting that, although the very idea for the band was inextricably tied to the Caribbean and there are at least two major reggae musicians invested in the recording and production of the album (keyboardist Tyrone Downie and engineer Steven Stanley), Tom Tom Club vehement­ly oppose reggae mechanics and aesthetics — guitar duties are largely handled by Adrian Belew, who was never much of a reggae fan himself, and, from the opening bars of ʽWordy Rapping­hoodʼ, prefers to do his trademark chicken-scratch funk. Most likely, this has to do with the fact that Tom Tom Club's job is to make defiant, in-yer-face pop music, celebrating the simple joys of life with a whimsical spirit that may indeed be found in the Caribbean environment, despite all the troubles that the region is notorious for (twenty five years later, by the way, both the pain and the whimsy would be perfectly encapsulated in Arcade Fire's ʽHaitiʼ). And as long as this thing is done right, who really cares where it is done?

As far as the album's hit singles are concerned, I actually find the first one, ʽWordy Rappinghoodʼ, more interesting than ʽGenius Of Loveʼ — and think that a live performance of it might have fit  better within the general context of Stop Making Sense. It is deliciously funky (a solid and very Talking Head-ish weaving two-guitar pattern runs its way throughout), it has Tina doing a funny «nursery rap», it glues together Moroccan, American, and Japanese nonsense for the silly catchy chorus, and it actually carries a message — the continuous refrain of "what are words worth?" can be understood as either satire or a way of self-positioning (since words are not worth much in any context, should we actually care what we sing about?). Next to this, ʽGenius Of Loveʼ's reve­latory "who needs to think when your feet just go?" feels a bit embarrassing in comparison, and the song's constant suck-up references to funk, soul, and reggae heroes reek of misguided product placement. Which is not to say that the song's message of "what do you consider fun? — fun, natural fun!" comes across convincingly; but the atmosphere of light-headed jubilation that the tune conveys is way too thin and see-through for the song to make a lasting impression.

Anyway, I may never get over my personal bias against ʽGenius Of Loveʼ, but I like almost everything else on here — precisely because almost every other track has at least a tiny strip of weirdness, not allowing the record to be qualified as pure vapid entertainment. ʽL'Elephantʼ, behind its kiddy French-pop vocal melody, actually tells a serious story with a moral, and keeps up a good balance between the ska-like boppy rhythm and Belew's «keep-the-motor-running» guitar solos (I am also thinking that the concept behind the song is Belew's, given his well-known love for African fauna that he would carry over to his King Crimson career as well). ʽAs Above, So Belowʼ gives you a bit of darkness in the form of Tina's broken-up, merciless bassline and ice-cold declamation of the title in the chorus — the lyrics may largely be mystical crap and the whole thing may be completely in jest, but dark-tinged jests are always more exciting than bland light jests anyway. ʽLoreleiʼ introduces a slightly psychedelic twist with its thin webbing of keyboard and guitar overdubs; ʽOn, On, On, Onʼ shows the band trying its hand at an invigora­ting twee-rock anthem ("on and on we will come, there are scores of us!"); finally, ʽBooming And Zoomingʼ ends the album on a decidedly non-joyful note — this is another seriously Belew-ish track detailing a plane crash with a chilly radio voiceover while the keyboards and guitars are busy impersonating the erratic behaviour of a flying machine in its last minutes.

If anything, this is an impressively diverse collection of songs — more diverse, in fact, than any early Talking Heads album, reflecting the band members' wildly eclectic circle of musical and literary influences. Add to this that Tina turns out to be a surprisingly sexy singer, that her two sisters contribute conveniently sexy backing vocals, and that Belew and Stanley try to keep that up by using smooth tones and keeping the dissonance to a minimum, and Tom Tom Club becomes one big «adorkable» musical purr where specific virtues or flaws of individual songs do not matter all that much behind the general aesthetics — so I can easily allow myself, for instance, to go on shunning ʽGenius Of Loveʼ but digging the album in general. That said, it must be stressed, over and over, that if there is any lasting charm to Tom Tom Club, it all has to do with that wispy, barely detectable thread of weirdness, irony, and occasionally over-the-top absurdism wriggling its way from beginning to end. Shallow entertainment hardly ever gets better than this, when its main ingredients are siren singing, African percussion, post-punk guitar, and Jamaican synth-pop. The only thing that befuddles me, no matter how hard I try to wave it off, is that this stuff is made by the exact same Tina Weymouth who first entered pop music lore with the decimating look given to David Byrne during a live performance of ʽPsycho Killerʼ, popping out bullet-bass notes with the intensity of a Stalingrad defender. Tom Tom Club was, I think, the first time that the people at large got to see her softer side — even though there is still enough of the old icy bitch in this newborn sex kitten.

Too much of the old icy bitch, perhaps, as this is the only reasonable explanation for why, on some editions of the album, the ominous lead-out track ʽBooming And Zoomingʼ was replaced by their thoroughly purry cover of ʽUnder The Boardwalkʼ — another charting single, to be sure, but not much of a lasting achievement, other than demonstrating how old-school poppy R&B could be adapted to modern playing and production standards. (Spoiler: it could, but in 2018 those standards might seem more dated than the ones of 1964). Which, in a way, predicts the eventual downfall of Tom Tom Club — the success of this little game is still directly dependent on how much personality, rather than technology, you imbue in the material. Fortunately, the self-titled debut at least proudly stands that test.