TLC

Essential Albums

  • FanMail
    FanMail
    FanMail

    It’s hard to fathom from this side of history, but the most groundbreaking girl group of the ’90s was this close to giving up in the span between 1994’s iconic CrazySexyCool and its long-awaited 1999 follow-up. The five years in between had been filled with label drama, Chapter 11 bankruptcy and all sorts of internal turmoil (including Left Eye famously burning down her boyfriend Andre Rison’s house and checking in to rehab). In typically fearless fashion, the trio persevered; the result was Fanmail, an album that delivered some of R&B’s most timeless empowerment anthems and channelled the future with remarkable prescience. With its binary-code cover and narration from a wise android named Vic-E, there isn't a better snapshot of where things were headed around the turn of the millennium—the era of dial-up internet, The Matrix and Y2K-bug paranoia. Back then, the internet offered unprecedented human connectivity, a brand-new way to be alone together. But TLC knew nothing was that easy, even as they revelled in the wild, wild west of the World Wide Web: “Just like you, I get lonely too,” T-Boz assured listeners on the title track, catching feelings over an unexpected email. (Yes, “big moods” existed back in ’99.) But for all its retrofuturism, parts of Fanmail are still just as resonant today: Is there a more enduring archetype than the guy in “No Scrubs” hanging out the passenger side of his best friend’s ride? And on the gently brutal “Unpretty”, the trio grapple with the impossibility of living up to societal beauty standards, a topic as depressingly relevant as ever in the Instagram age. That vulnerability remains one of TLC’s most endearing qualities: They were all about independence and confidence, but they never lied to you. For all of TLC’s foresight, though, no one could have known back then that Fanmail would be the last album that T-Boz, Left Eye and Chilli would record together. Three years later, a tragic car crash in Honduras would take 30-year-old Left Eye’s life. But her spirit shines through in the music, and Fanmail’s message—our need to connect in an isolating world—rings true as ever.

  • CrazySexyCool
    CrazySexyCool
    CrazySexyCool

    Packed with hits—and plenty of personality—TLC’s 1992 debut Ooooooohhh... On the TLC Tip had helped reshape the sound of modern pop. By expertly mixing together R&B and hip-hop, TLC members Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins, Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes and Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas had proved they could blur genre lines with ease. Still, the new jack swing aesthetics of Ooooooohhh...—and the youthful image projected by the trio—could easily have fated TLC to subsequent obscurity, subject to the whims of a fickle marketplace (and an even crueler industry). The group’s 1994 follow-up, CrazySexyCool, put all of that noise to bed. With its decidedly more mature themes and undeniably strong execution, the album proved a multi-platinum powerhouse, one that proved once and for all that TLC weren’t a fad. All three members were in their mid-twenties when CrazySexyCool was released, and the album finds them digging deep into the dynamics of modern relationships—albeit with a sex-positive perspective. “Creep”, the smash lead-off single, leans heavily into the old adage “turnabout Is fair play”, with T-Boz quietly yet confidently admitting to down-low trysts (all done as retaliation against her philandering partner). The funk-fueled “Kick Your Game”, meanwhile, finds the group members poignantly goading their would-be suitors, while the trio’s take on Prince’s gender-fluid “If I Was Your Girlfriend” adds new dimensions to the already iconic track. Throughout CrazySexyCool, the three distinct personalities, voices and attitudes that make up TLC come through clearer than ever, making for a remarkably cohesive and assured effort. The group is helped, of course, by some top-tier production. Dallas Austin, the studio architect behind much of Ooooooohhh... On the TLC Tip, returns here with a handful of notable cuts—including “Creep”—as does hip-hop hitmaker Jermaine Dupri. And Babyface helms some of CrazySexyCool’s most memorable R&B moments, including the intimate “Diggin’ On You” and “Red Light Special”. Yet it’s the Organized Noize production team that bolsters the album’s remarkable second half, featuring the still-ubiquitous motivational hit “Waterfalls”, and the forward-thinking closing track “Sumthin’ Wicked This Way Comes”. And the guest list for this provocative party includes such vanguard rappers as Busta Rhymes, A Tribe Called Quest’s Phife Dawg and a Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik-period André 3000. Their presence on CrazySexyCool was a clear nod to the trio’s hard-earned hip-hop dominance—and further proof that no 1990s act could mix sounds and styles as effectively, and as joyously, as TLC.

  • Ooooooohhh... On the TLC Tip
    Ooooooohhh... On the TLC Tip
    Ooooooohhh... On the TLC Tip

    TLC’s 1992 debut opens with an unidentified male grousing that the girl group’s baggy clothes aren’t ladylike. The trio retorts with “Hat 2 da Back", an urban-soul single that positions their style not as a denial of femininity, but an assertion. Such liberation characterises this groundbreaking album, a new jack swing classic of R&B vocals and breakbeat samples that redefines womanhood with tracks like “Ain’t 2 Proud 2 Beg", a hip-hop shout-along that advances female sexual agency; “His Story", a listen-to-the-victim op-ed; and “What About Your Friends", a formative work of swaying-pop sisterhood.

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About TLC

Back in the early ‘90s, TLC were at the forefront of a revolution, carving out a previously undefined space that landed somewhere between rap and neo-R&B. Before they paved a lane for a new generation of stars that included Destiny's Child and Ashanti, the Atlanta-bred trio of Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins, Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes, and Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas nabbed a spot on L.A. Reid’s LaFace Records. Their sound on early hits like “What About Your Friends” updated new jack swing for the ‘90s rap generation, and their choreographed dance moves were bested only by their colourful matching outfits. TLC’s colossally replayable hits, like “Creep”, “Waterfalls” and “No Scrubs,” continue to crop up in movies and on the radio, while their second LP, CrazySexyCool, has been certified 12-times platinum. That album featured production from Sean “Puffy” Combs and Jermaine Dupri, giving the group head-nodding beats over which they could move from rapping to singing with ease. Although the band’s last release as a trio came in 2002, the year Lopes was tragically killed in a car crash, TLC remained one of the best-selling female-led groups through the 2010s. Ultimately, it would be another 15 years before T-Boz and Chilli released new music, with 2017's self-titled return, a nostalgic, rose-tinted audit of the styles that made them so successful the first time around. Live performances found the duo performing their parts accompanied by a recording of Left Eye’s voice, a way to give their fans just a little more TLC.

ORIGIN
Atlanta, GA, United States
FORMED
April 1991
GENRE
R&B/Soul

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