Album: CrazySexyCool
Artist: TLC
Born: Atlanta, Georgia
Released: November 1994
Genre: R&B
I used to take an interest in R&B in the mid-90s mainly to establish a common musical interest with girls and so that I could dance ironically and over-dramatically to Boyz II Men at school discos. It was a moderately successful but shameful strategy. Given how much I despise manufactured pop, it pains me to include this album on the list, but listening to it again recently there remains something irresistible about it. Formed under the guidance of record producer, Ian Burke, TLC was an acronym of the original group members' first names (Tionne Watkins, Lisa Lopes and Crystal Jones). Jones would be replaced by Rozonda Thomas before the group's first LP was released and was given the nickname "Chilli" (she was smoking hot) to keep the TLC acronym intact. Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes was the maverick member, infamous for burning down the house of her boyfriend, American football star Andre Previn "Bad Moon" Rison, for wearing a condom as an eye patch and being in and out of rehab. As the rapper of the group, her hip hop style blended with the more soulful voices of Watkins and Thomas. There was also a strong funk element to TLC's sound, with Prince's influence looming large over CrazySexyCool. Diggin' On You has Prince vocal stylings, while the cover of Prince's If I Was Your Girlfriend is one of the standout moments on the record. What was most original about TLC though was the empowered approach of their songs, making hapless men the target of their ire, notably on platinum-selling US No.1 Creep.
Creep's seductive groove is so infectious that it's easy to forget this is a song about a cheating partner, and the samples and little touches like the lonely-sounding trumpet connect the song with soul music's past. The recording was overseen by a variety of producers, including a young Sean "Puffy" Combs, but it was Dallas Austin that produced Creep, adding some smooth-sounding hip hop scratching. Special guests also appear on the record, such as Busta Rhymes on one of the interludes (Can I Get A Witness) and OutKast's André 3000 on brilliant final track, Sumthin' Wicked This Way Comes. There are some pretty risible moments on the record, notably Kick Your Game, which employs a wide variety of cheesy American Football metaphors for sex. An all-girl group writing overtly sexual songs still had some shock value in the mid-90s, with Let's Do It Again and Red Light Special particularly raunchy, while Switch was full of female empowerment ("erase, replace"). My favourite moment on the record is Waterfalls, an international Top 5 single written by Lopes but heavily indebted to Paul McCartney, which catalogues the various ills plaguing America's youth (gang violence, drugs, AIDS). The sad footnote is that TLC were horribly mismanaged and that Lopes died in a car accident aged just 31, not long after she scored a UK No.1 with Mel C of the Spice Girls. With Mary J. Blige, Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey, R&B would go on to become stratospheric but this remains the genre's most essential record.
I used to take an interest in R&B in the mid-90s mainly to establish a common musical interest with girls and so that I could dance ironically and over-dramatically to Boyz II Men at school discos. It was a moderately successful but shameful strategy. Given how much I despise manufactured pop, it pains me to include this album on the list, but listening to it again recently there remains something irresistible about it. Formed under the guidance of record producer, Ian Burke, TLC was an acronym of the original group members' first names (Tionne Watkins, Lisa Lopes and Crystal Jones). Jones would be replaced by Rozonda Thomas before the group's first LP was released and was given the nickname "Chilli" (she was smoking hot) to keep the TLC acronym intact. Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes was the maverick member, infamous for burning down the house of her boyfriend, American football star Andre Previn "Bad Moon" Rison, for wearing a condom as an eye patch and being in and out of rehab. As the rapper of the group, her hip hop style blended with the more soulful voices of Watkins and Thomas. There was also a strong funk element to TLC's sound, with Prince's influence looming large over CrazySexyCool. Diggin' On You has Prince vocal stylings, while the cover of Prince's If I Was Your Girlfriend is one of the standout moments on the record. What was most original about TLC though was the empowered approach of their songs, making hapless men the target of their ire, notably on platinum-selling US No.1 Creep.
Creep's seductive groove is so infectious that it's easy to forget this is a song about a cheating partner, and the samples and little touches like the lonely-sounding trumpet connect the song with soul music's past. The recording was overseen by a variety of producers, including a young Sean "Puffy" Combs, but it was Dallas Austin that produced Creep, adding some smooth-sounding hip hop scratching. Special guests also appear on the record, such as Busta Rhymes on one of the interludes (Can I Get A Witness) and OutKast's André 3000 on brilliant final track, Sumthin' Wicked This Way Comes. There are some pretty risible moments on the record, notably Kick Your Game, which employs a wide variety of cheesy American Football metaphors for sex. An all-girl group writing overtly sexual songs still had some shock value in the mid-90s, with Let's Do It Again and Red Light Special particularly raunchy, while Switch was full of female empowerment ("erase, replace"). My favourite moment on the record is Waterfalls, an international Top 5 single written by Lopes but heavily indebted to Paul McCartney, which catalogues the various ills plaguing America's youth (gang violence, drugs, AIDS). The sad footnote is that TLC were horribly mismanaged and that Lopes died in a car accident aged just 31, not long after she scored a UK No.1 with Mel C of the Spice Girls. With Mary J. Blige, Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey, R&B would go on to become stratospheric but this remains the genre's most essential record.
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