Tom Tom Club

Tom Tom Club
Tina Weymouth with Tom Tom Club (1986)
General information
origin	New York City , United States
Genre (s)	New wave , synth pop , post-disco
founding	1981
Website	tomtomclub.com
Founding members
Vocals , bass	Tina Weymouth
Drums	Chris Frantz
percussion	Steve Scales (1981-2010)
guitar	Alex Weir (1981-1983)
Keyboard	Tyrone Downie (1981-1983)
singing	Lani Weymouth (1981-1983, 1992)
singing	Laura Weymouth (1981-1988)
singing	Loric Weymouth (1981)

Tom Tom Club is an American New Wave band and the side project of former Talking Heads members Tina Weymouth (vocals, bass) and Chris Frantz (drums, vocals). The couple has been the only constant in the band's changing line-up since 1981.

Band history

When the Talking Heads took a break after their album Remain in Light in 1980, Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz founded the Tom Tom Club project . They were named after a club in the Bahamas . They had retired there to record their debut album of the same name with a mixture of new wave with dance rhythms and the singing and chanting of Weymouth in Barbados with the support of Tina's sisters Laura and Lani and other musicians. Before that, they had a top 10 hit in England in July 1981 with the release of Wordy Rappinghood . In Belgium the song even came to number 1 , in the Netherlands to number 2. The album and also the second single Genius of Love missed the UK Top 40 in the autumn of the same year, but the song came to the USA via imports and was sold there over 100,000 copies even before the official release. When it was released, Genius of Love became a number one dance hit in the United States and numbered 2 on the country's R&B charts. The video also contributed to its success, a cartoon video in the same style as the album cover, both designed by Pop art artist James Rizzi . In the early days of the newly founded music broadcaster MTV , it was very popular as the first animated video clip and was also awarded an MTV award.

Grandmaster Flash used the song's distinctive funky rhythm track a year later in his piece It's Nasty (Genius of Love) , which also hit the R&B charts. The track is one of the most sampled melodies in hip-hop and has been used in several dozen songs so far. It was also featured prominently in Mariah Carey's number one hit Fantasy from 1995.

Another hit from the debut album was a reggae cover version of the Drifters classic Under the Boardwalk , which reached top 10 placements in various countries, including 6th place in Austria. The album itself did not achieve top placements, but was still sold over half a million times in the USA and was awarded gold .

Even before the Talking Heads got back together, the Tom Tom Club produced a follow-up album entitled Close to the Bone in the same style as the debut. It was quite successful in the USA and some other countries, but it did not contain hits similar to the first album. After all, The Man with the 4-Way Hips was a minor chart success and came in at number 4 in the US dance charts.

Then began the great success of the Talking Heads and the project was on hold for several years. Only after the - as it turned out - last joint album Naked Weymouth and Frantz found time for their side project. In 1989 the third album, Boom Boom Chi Boom Boom , was released, which brought a few smaller successes at least in England and the USA. The album and the single Don't Say No landed on the lower chart positions. The song Suboceanea reached number 4 again in the US dance charts and also placed in the top 10 of the rock charts. After the Talking Heads finally ended in 1991, the Tom Tom Club became the main project of Frantz and Weymouth, and a year later the fourth album Dark Sneak Love Action was released , which, except for the song Sunshine and Ecstacy , received little attention.

Frantz and Weymouth then turned to other projects; they went their separate ways musically, but were also back together at a Talking Heads reunion. They then recorded another album together in 2000, entitled The Good, the Bad, and the Funky , and released a live double album two years later. After that, the project was again on hold for a long time before another EP with five new tracks was released in 2012 under the title Downtown Rockers .

Discography

Albums

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)			Remarks
		AT	UK	US
1981	Tom Tom Club	-	UK78 (1 week) UK	US23 gold (33 weeks)US
1983	Close to the bone	-	-	US73 (13 weeks) US
1988	Boom Boom Chi Boom Boom	-	-	US114 (11 weeks) US
1992	Dark sneak love action	-	-	-
2000	Dark The Good, the Bad, and the Funky	-	-	-
2012	Downtown Rockers	-	-	-

Live albums

• 2002: Live @ the Clubhouse
• 2010: Genius of Live

Singles

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)			Remarks
		AT	UK	US
1981	Wordy rappinghood	-	UK7 (9 weeks) UK	-
	Genius of Love	-	UK65 (2 weeks) UK	US31 (17 weeks) US
1982	Under the boardwalk	AT6 (6 weeks) AT	UK22 (9 weeks) UK	-
1983	The Man with the 4-Way Hips	-	UK82 (3 weeks) UK	-
1988	Don't say no	-	UK79 (2 weeks) UK	-

More singles

• 1982: Rappa Rappa Rhythm
• 1983: The Man with the 4 Way Hips
• 1983: Pleasure of Love
• 1988: Don't Say No
• 1989: Suboceana (Boom Boom Chi Boom Boom)
• 1989: Call of the Wild
• 1992: You Sexy Thing (Original: Hot Chocolate )
• 1992: Sunshine and Ecstasy
• 2000: Love to Love You Baby (Original: Donna Summer )
• 2000: Happiness Can't Buy Money
• 2007: Mistletunes
• 2012: Downtown Rockers

swell

1. ↑ The Story Behind "Genius of Love" by Tom Tom Club ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Jef Blocker, Cult of Jef, August 5, 2011 
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Chart sources: AT UK US BE NL (Singles Top 40)
3. ↑ The 80s: Tom Tom Club's “Genius of Love,” Montrose Cunningham, Soul Train, September 5, 2013
4. ↑ 1981 - Genius of Love , James Rizzi homepage, accessed August 18, 2015
5. ↑ 'Genius of Love' Celebrates 30 Years as a Hip-Hop Staple , Carter Maness, The Boombox, January 10, 2011
6. ↑ Fantasy by Mariah Carey , Songfacts, accessed August 18, 2015
7. ↑ Tom Tom Club in the gold / platinum database of the RIAA (USA)
8. ↑ ^{a b} Chart positions in the US Billboard charts
9. ^ The Billboard Albums by Joel Whitburn , 6th Edition, Record Research 2006, ISBN 0-89820-166-7 .

Web links

• Official website
• List of samples from Genius of Love (Who Sampled)
• Tom Tom Club at Allmusic (English)
• Tom Tom Club at Discogs (English)