Genius of Love

Wikipedia's infobox gives September 6, 1981 for the US release and October 2, 1981 for the UK, and the article also says November; the single is 3:36, the album track 5:34 and the long version 7:26, with "Lorelei" on the B-side. Biographer David Bowman says Frantz borrowed a beat from Zapp's "More Bounce to the Ounce"; Belew wrote the rhythm guitar, Stanley the keyboard melody and Weymouth the words, and Songfacts adds that the keyboard riff was a Prophet-5, that Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare supplied the handclaps and that Lani Weymouth improvised the gibberish-like vocal passage. Frantz estimated about two 16-hour days to record, and said everybody in the room knew it. Weymouth wrote the bass part but could not play it because of a cramp, and an assistant engineer, Kendal Stubbs or Benji Armbrister, played it. The lyrics pay tribute to George Clinton, Bootsy Collins, Smokey Robinson, Bob Marley, Sly and Robbie, Kurtis Blow, Hamilton Bohannon and James Brown.

It reached 31 on the Billboard Hot 100, its only entry there, 65 in the UK, and number one on the US dance chart, with the hand-drawn crayon video made with Cucumber Studios. More than 100,000 import copies sold before Sire signed a North American deal. Sampling began with Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde's "Genius Rap" (1981) and Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five's "It's Nasty" (1982); Mariah Carey's "Fantasy" (1995) spent eight weeks at number one, and Latto's "Big Energy" (2021) followed, with Carey joining Latto at the 2022 BET Awards. Slant ranked it 70th among the best dance songs and Rolling Stone 26th among the 200 greatest dance songs. Setlist.fm lists it as their most-played song, 74 of 232 setlists.