The Tom Tom Club

I was in Princeton Record Exchange, looking at their vast wall of discount CDs, when I found one that was a blast from my past. It was The Tom Tom Club's debut, self-titled disc, which I have on vinyl. For some reason it was in the folk music section, and at $1.99 sticker price I snatched it up.

The Tom Tom Club was a splinter group off of Talking Heads, featuring their rhythm section, the married couple Tina Weymouth (bass guitar) and Chris Frantz (drums). Adding a few other musicians, most notably guitarist Adrian Belew, they released this album in 1981. Fresh off of the Talking Heads release Remain in Light, which heavily explored Afro-Caribbean sounds, this album was a funky concoction of reggae, hip-hop, and just a little bit of punk, and it is as delightful now as it was back then.

I don't normally care how "danceable" music is. I would have been bad on the Rate-a-Record segment on the old American Bandstand, when teens inevitably said something like, "it's great to dance to." I don't dance, and look for other things when I listen to music. But I have to admit, there are songs on The Tom Tom Club that get me moving.

The album starts with two small masterpieces. The first cut is "Wordy Rappinghood," a tribute to language that is full of marvelous flourishes, including a refrain that ends with "Ti-yi-yay-yippie-aye-yi-yay," and has smart/dumb lyrics like, "Words to tell you what to do, words are working hard for you. Eat your words but don't go hungry, words have always nearly hung me."

This song transitions immediately into the big hit from that record, "Genius of Love," a gorgeous and hip-moving song that starts with the call and response, "Whatcha gonna do when you get out of jail?" "I'm going to have some fun," and then ends with Frantz shouting "James Brown!" as if trying to summon the spirit of the King of Soul. This song was included in the excellent concert film Stop Making Sense.

There a few other strong cuts on the record, including "Lorelai," and "L'Elephant," which is entirely in French.

The Tom Tom Club made a few more records, none of which made as big a splash as this one. I own the second, Close to the Bone, also on vinyl, and therefore useless to me with my current audio set-up. Perhaps one day I'll find that compact disc in a discount bin somewhere.