Originally formed as an offshoot endeavor by Talking Heads duo Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth, the group embraced a breezy tropical dance approach that earned a gold-certified album titled Tom Tom Club in 1981 along with a Top 40 hit single called "Genius of Love." Between their production commitments for the Heads, they kept issuing records under the Tom Tom Club name, delivering Close to the Bone in 1983 and Boom Boom Chi Boom Boom in 1989. The pair even hit the road that summer of 1989 billed as Tom Tom Club. Following the Heads' dissolution in late 1991, the project shifted into Frantz and Weymouth's primary focus, prompting the 1992 release of Dark Sneak Love Action before they stepped back to pursue separate work. A partial Talking Heads reunion that excluded David Byrne drew the two back into collaboration, ending an eight-year hiatus with the arrival of The Good the Bad and the Funky. A live album the following year captured the playful, exotic energy of those reunion performances. Downtown Rockers surfaced in 2012 as an EP that stayed faithful to the band's earliest sound and included contributions from like-minded newcomers Wild Belle.
