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).
In 1975 (the song is one year older) I did have the right age and I do have an inexplicable fondness for Hot Chocolate (not that I own one single record, mind you). So I had to listen to the Tom Tom Club's cover. Damn, is it creepy. While I'm at least middle-aged (according to my son I'm already an old geezer) there is no chance that it will spruce up my sex life, thank you very much. Then again, neither will Barry White (ugh).
ReplyDeleteFun fact about Hot Chocolate: their 1971 single You Could Have Been a Lady was covered by proto pop-metal band April Wine .... Those were interesting times indeed.