Considering its release date of September 1981, Tom Tom Club's "Genius of Love" came to my attention at about the same time that I had really gotten into music in general. Its New Wave nature with some slow funk and those hushed vocals have left an impression that has stayed with me all these decades, as well as its music video that will remain one of the trippiest that I've ever seen, especially with that hyper pup. If I'm not mistaken, I first caught it on an episode of CITY-TV's "The New Music", the local music show that often presented some of the more cutting-edge videos of the day.
I would later find out that Tom Tom Club was a side project of Talking Heads with guitarist and singer Tina Weymouth and her husband, fellow Talking Head Chris Frantz, at the front. "Genius of Love" was the second single from their debut album "Tom Tom Club". Although I did catch some of the names dropped in the song such as James Brown, I also later realized that the song was a love letter of sorts to other Black artists including Smokey Robinson and Hamilton Bohannon. I don't think I ever heard "Genius of Love" on the radio but much later on, part of the song was used for Mariah Carey's hit "Fantasy". On US Billboard's Top 100, the original single peaked at No. 31.
What was being released in Japan in September 1981?
Tsukasa Ito -- Shojo Ningyo（少女人形）
Toshihiko Tahara -- Kanashimi 2 (TOO) Young （悲しみ２「ＴＯＯ」ヤング）
Kenji Sawada -- Stripper （ス・ト・リ・ッ・パ・ー）
Such a classic song and "Fantasy" is so well-known that whenever I hear the opening notes, I think of Mariah's song first before the original. Probably the same thing happens in Japan since Mariah is so big there.
ReplyDeleteAlso, side note: Ayumi Hamasaki came back with a new song called "mimosa" and it kinda has an enka feel in certain parts, especially with her voice. Would love to hear your thoughts on it.
Yeah, I probably would think that Tom Tom Club is an unknown group in Japan but hopefully "Fantasy" can provide an "in" of sorts for Japanese fans to "Genius of Love". I've known about "Fantasy", but personally speaking, I prefer the original song.
DeleteLet me check out "Mimosa".
Fireminer here. Man, this song kicked the door down for reggae & electronic crossover. It also got sampled a bunch of times too, the most recent one being that one Latto song "Big Energy" a few years ago.
ReplyDeleteHi, Fireminer. Yeah, I've just read that "Genius of Love" has been sampled by a whole lot of other singers and bands. I gather that Weymouth and Frantz should be called geniuses of songwriting.
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