493. Tom Tom Club - Tom Tom Club (1981)
















Track Listing

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

Review

Well before the two quite bad albums that are coming up next we are getting what is probably the most original album of 1981 and one of the best of that year. Tom Tom Club is just completely different for 1981. This is the side project of Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz of Talking Heads and they actually manage to make an album which is better than most Talking Heads albums.

This starts off with Wordy Rappinghood a song which basically is the template for the whole career of CSS and then immediately followed by the instantly recognisable Genius Of Love, a track that has been sampled endlessly over the years and it is still better than anything that ever sampled it. It is hard to follow those two songs successfully but the album manages with strong track after strong track.

This is a mix of hip-hop, funk and experimentation that is just a delight from beginning to end and frankly an essential album that I didn't know before and that I am very thankful to the list for showing me. Thanks List. Thist.

Track Highlights

1. Wordy Rappinghood
2. Genius Of Love
3. Booming And Zooming
4. On On On On

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

"Genius of Love" has been sampled or reinterpreted by many artists, including rapper Redman, Funkdoobiest, and Mariah Carey in her hit single "Fantasy". "It's Nasty" (1982) by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five was one of the early rap versions of the song - however, the sample was re-recorded by a live band, as was common practice at the time. Another version, "Genius Rap" (1981), by Dr. Jeckyll & Mr. Hyde was the first version.

Early pressings of their first album featured short versions of "Genius of Love" and "Wordy Rappinghood" but to capitalise on the club success of these songs, Island reissued the album with the full 12" versions in 1982. A new single "Under the Boardwalk", which was the group's second and final UK hit, replaced another song "Booming and Zooming".

Genius Of Love, great piece of 80's animation: