Tom Tom Club

Tom Tom Club started in 1981 as a holiday from the day job: Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth, husband and wife and the rhythm section of Talking Heads, cooking up a side project that let their grooves off the leash. The self-titled debut that year was a sunny, rubbery, playful thing, all bouncing bass, skipping rhythms and sing-song vocals that sound like a block party heard from the next street over.

Two songs from it did the damage. "Wordy Rappinghood", a giddy, chattering rap, went top ten in the UK, and "Genius of Love", a loping, sweet-tempered funk jam, became a hit in America; the two are still the songs people know them by. A cover of the Drifters' "Under the Boardwalk" gave them another British hit.

The records came out through Sire and Island, and the club kept its doors open long after the first party, with a rotating cast that has included guitarist Adrian Belew, Tyrone Downie and Steve Scales alongside Frantz and Weymouth. Boom Boom Chi Boom Boom in 1988 brought "Suboceana" to the countdowns. It's dance music for people who were never supposed to dance, and it still sounds like fun.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.