Tom Tom Club’s debut has been certified platinum, fueled by the enduing success of the single “Genius Of Love.” Husband-and-wife team Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth started the band as a side project from Talking Heads.
The duo recorded Tom Tom Club in the Bahamas at Compass Point Studios with friends and family. A hit in Europe and the U.S., the album reached #23
on Billboard, where two songs – “Wordy Rappinghood” and “Genius Of Love” – reached #1 on the Dance Club Chart.
Released as a single in September 1981, “Genius Of Love” was embraced quickly in clubs and on the burgeoning hip-hop scene. Since then, the song’s distinctive rhythm track has been sampled nearly 200 times and featured in hits from every decade since its release. To celebrate the song’s enduring popularity, it’s available today to stream on Dolby ATMOS.
In addition, the iconic music video for “Genius Of Love” has been upgraded
to 4K/HD.
A pop-culture touchstone for multiple generations, “Genius Of Love” has been featured in films, television, and advertising and has been sampled numerous times by other artists. It’s been featured in songs by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Busta Rhymes, 2Pac, and Ice Cube. Most recently, Latto incorporated it into “Big Energy,” a platinum-certified hit that topped charts around the world. However, the best-known sample of “Genius Of Love” appeared in 1995 on Mariah Carey’s global smash, “Fantasy.” In the U.S., the single was a cross-over sensation that topped multiple Billboard charts and was certified quintuple-platinum.
Tom Tom Club will also explore the song’s impact through sampling by partnering with WhoSampled, a comprehensive database that identifies where song samples originate. The band now has an official profile on the site, along with comments from band co-founder Chris Frantz. WhoSampled also curated a playlist that details the song’s sampling history.
An excerpt from Franz’ WhoSampled commentary: “It’s so wild that ‘Genius of Love’ has been sampled so many times. When we were making the song, we had no idea – samplers didn’t really exist yet! We were away from home touring a lot at the time, but when we were back in New York we would listen to WBLS and KTU (later Hot97) in our little Honda Prelude. At night time, WBLS would play the early hip hop, the Real Roxanne and all that.”
