Today is my last Tom Tom Club Retro Spin, and I'm a bit relieved about that. It's not that their music has necessarily been bad. Rather, it's too hit or miss. Songs are either decent, but never really great, but most of the time, they're just hollow, and annoying. This is mainly driven by the co-vocals of the Weymouth sisters, which sound like you're stuck in a car with a group of girls who won't stop singing. If that's your thing, more power to you, but it's not for me.
If you thought the twelve "man" lineup from 1983's Close To The Bone was impressive, 1988's Boom Chi Boom Boom boasts a whopping sixteen, and among them was a guest appearance from Talking Heads bandmate, David Byrne. Tina Weymouth, and Chris Frantz once again lead the charge, but are joined by Mark Roule, Gary Pozner, Laura Weymouth, Wally Badarou, Steve Scales, Jerry Harrison, Eddie Martinez, Jay Berliner, Glenn Rosenstein, Heidi Berg, and Tiny Valentine, with guest appearances by Lou Reed, and as noted, David Byrne.
The album would come on the tail end of the 80's, 1988 or 1989, depending on your country of origin. Your location would also dictate the tracks included, with the USA and Canada versions, released in 1989, being severely edited from the original European and UK releases (1988). Further, those songs which did make the cut were altered from their original order.
Songs, Born for Love, Broken Promises, and Mighty Teardrop, which were originally on the 1988 released albums were removed, with Call of the Wild, Kiss Me When I Get Back, Wa Wa Dance, and I Confess being added in the USA and Canada. In turn, those four were not included on the European and UK releases. Lastly, the Bob Dylan penned, She Belongs To Me, which was on the 1988 release was only included on the CD versions in 1989. That's a lot, and hopefully I wrote it coherently.
Am I looking forward to this one? No, I am not, but as Lando said before diving into the belly of the Death Star II, "Here goes nothing."
Tom Tom Club seems to pull out all the stops on this one. The goofiness is back, the gibberish lyrics, but mixing it all together is a vast variety of sound. Rock, rap, dance, pop, it's all here, and somehow, for the most part, it strangely seems to work.
It does feature some good stuff worth adding to the shuffle list, with Kiss Me When I Get Back being my favorite. However, this was more so for the instrumentation than the vocals. Additionally, I enjoyed Wa Wa Dance, I Confess, Suboceana, Shock The World, and Little Eva. It's worth noting that Subcoceana appears to be the title track for the album, featuring the words, boom boom chi boom boom throughout it.
Beyond that, there's not much more to say. It was decent, and I wouldn't call myself a fan of Tom Tom Club when it's all said and done.
When Talking Heads broke up in 1991, Weymouth and Frantz returned to Tom Tom to record 1992's Dark Sneak Love Action. However, after doing so, they shifted their attention to building a private recording studio, and forming a new band, The Heads. They released No Talking, Just Head in 1996, and were promptly met with a lawsuit by David Byrne. The case would be settled out of court, but this would effectively cut short any future plans for the group.
Four years later, Tom Tom Club released The Good, The Bad, And The Funky (2000), but then shifted to releasing live albums, EP's, and singles, until 2012's Downtown Rockers. Though they remain active, they don't seem focused on releasing any new albums.
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