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Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth splintered from Talking Heads to create the side project Tom Tom Club, a loose grouping of musicians and singers also including Weymouth’s sisters and guitarist Adrian Belew.  Over the course of six albums originally released between 1981 and 2012, Tom Tom Club kept fans glued to the dancefloor with original songs and diverse covers including Donna Summer’s “Love to Love You Baby,” Lou Reed’s “Femme Fatale,” and Hot Chocolate’s “You Sexy Thing.”  On August 7, Rhino will assemble the group’s discography (or most of it, anyway) on a new 6CD or 7LP box set.  Let There Be Love contains Tom Tom Club (1981), Close to the Bone (1983), Boom Boom Chi Boom Boom (1988), Dark Sneak Love Action (1991), The Good, the Bad, and the Funky (2000), and Downtown Rockers (2012).

Why the “most of it, anyway”?  Tom Tom Club’s albums frequently had differing configurations based on format and territory.  It appears that Let There Be Love is configuring each album to fit the time requirements of vinyl only, dropping previously released tracks that could have been CD-exclusive.  (Note that no non-LP singles or 12-inch mixes have been included, either.)

The band’s 1981 self-titled debut (which introduced the oft-sampled hit “Genius of Love”) added a cover of “Under the Boardwalk” to the cassette in place of the LP’s “Booming and Zooming” and also remixed “Lorelei.”  The CD offered both versions of “Lorelei” while adding extended versions of two more songs.  Here, the original eight-song vinyl sequence is the one being utilized.  Both Tom Tom Club and its follow-up, Close to the Bone, were expanded for past reissues; none of those extra tracks have been carried over, either.

Boom Boom Chi Boom Boom (boasting a rendition of “Femme Fatale” with Lou Reed, David Byrne, and Jerry Harrison all on hand) got an even greater overhaul between the U.K. edition and the subsequent U.S./Canada version.  The sequence was shifted, and three tracks (“Born for Love,” “Mighty Teardrop,” and “Broken Promises”) were replaced with four new cuts: “Call of the Wild,” “Kiss Me When I Get Back,” “Wa Wa Dance,” and “I Confess.”  A cover of Bob Dylan’s Bringing It All Back Home classic “She Belongs to Me” was cut from the vinyl LP but remained on the CD and cassette.  Now, the Dylan song is gone but the U.S./Canada track listing otherwise prevails.

While Dark Sneak Love Action emerges unscathed – and is presented on 2 LPs in the vinyl box – 2000’s The Good, The Bad, and the Funky (which welcomed Toots Hibbert and Bernie Worrell into its genre-bending musical vision) is three tracks short of its original Rykodisc CD (“Let There Be Love,” “Time to Bounce (Dubbed Version),” and “Dangerous Dub.”  The most recent album in the box, 2012’s Downtown Rockers, likewise mirrors just its vinyl EP version with five tracks.  The original CD had nine versions (adding four remixes) while the digital version went all the way to 12 tracks.

Despite what’s missing, there’s a lot of great music on Let There Be Love…but fans should hold onto their old CDs, cassettes, and the rest.  The box is due on CD and vinyl from Rhino on August 7.  You’ll find pre-order links and the track listing below. (As an Amazon affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases.)

Tom Tom Club, Let There Be Love (Warner/Rhino, 2026) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

CD 1: Tom Tom Club (released as Sire SRK 3628, 1981)

1. Wordy Rappinghood
2. Genius of Love
3. Tom Tom Theme
4. L’éléphant
5. As Above, So Below
6. Lorelei
7. On, On, On, On…
8. Booming and Zooming

CD 2: Close to the Bone (released as Sire 23916, 1983)

1. Pleasure of Love
2. On the Line Again
3. This is a Foxy World
4. Bamboo Town
5. The Man with the 4-Way Hips
6. Measure Up
7. Never Took a Penny
8. Atsababy! (Life Is Great)

CD 3: Boom Boom Chi Boom Boom (released as Sire/Reprise/Red Eye 25888 (U.S.), 1989)

1. Call of the Wild
2. Kiss Me When I Get Back
3. Wa Wa Dance
4. I Confess
5. Challenge of the Love Warriors
6. Suboceana
7. Don’t Say No
8. Shock the World
9. Little Eva
10. Femme Fatale

CD 4: Dark Sneak Love Action (released as Sire/Reprise 26951, 1992)

1. Love Wave
2. Sunshine and Ecstasy
3. You Sexy Thing
4. Who Wants an Ugly Girl?
5. Say I Am
6. Irresistible Party Dip
7. Dark Sneak Love Action
8. Innocent Sex Kiss
9. Dogs in the Trash
10. My Mama Told Me
11. As the Disco Ball Turns
12. Daddy Come Home

CD 5: The Good The Bad and The Funky (released as Rykodisc RCD 10603, 2000)

1. Time to Bounce
2. Who Feelin’ It?
3. Happiness Can’t Buy Money
4. Holy Water
5. Soul Fire
6. She’s Dangerous
7. She’s a Freak
8. (C’mon) Surrender
9. Love to Love You Baby
10. Superdreaming
11. Lesbians by the Lake

CD 6: Downtown Rockers (released as Nacional NCL20084, 2012)

1. Downtown Rockers
2. Won’t Give You Up
3. You Make Me Rock and Roll
4. Kissin’ Antonio
5. Sweets to the Sweet