Unlucky And Unmemorable: The End Of TLC Comes In

The Good: "Damaged" is well-written and well-performed
The Bad: WAY overproduced, Not a lot of decent lyrics, Vocals are disappointing
The Basics: With only two tracks that are truly decent, 3D ends the legacy of TLC on a downbeat.


Wow, is there a modern group that has had a greater combination of success and bad luck than the R&B trio TLC? The lead singer of the group T-Boz, suffered from sickle-cell disease, Left-Eye - chief lyricist at the beginning - became an arsonist and died in a car crash, and Chili's personal life conflicted with the producer of their third album. Following Left-Eye's death, Chili and T-Boz exhibited extraordinary character and resolve, essentially ending TLC rather than replacing Left-Eye and continuing without her. They released two albums following Lopes's death; 3D and a best-of album. 3D utilizes lyrics and raps already produced by Left-Eye and melded with new vocals by T-Boz and Chili.

With thirteen tracks, 3D is a very standard r&b/hip-hop album with the exception that almost none of the songs truly pop. Having listened to the album several times now, it's my feeling that this album was a mistake. The two best tracks on the album, "Turntable" and "Damaged" are TLC tracks in name only; Left-Eye is not credited with any lyrics or vocal part of either song. While certainly less exploitative than the numerous posthumous Notorious B.I.G. or Tupac albums that have been released, 3D strikes the listener as the last chance for a payday on the TLC name and reputation, so long as T-Boz and Chili insist on having integrity (which I see as a good thing!).

The album is largely comprised of generic r&b tracks that say very little and do it poorly. So, for example, the somewhat hypnotic "In Your Arms Tonight" declares, "If you feel my body / (And try to imagine how I feel) / La la la la la la la la [I kid you not! THESE are the lyrics!] / (When we're together) / It will free your mind yeah . . ." This is mush. Lyrically the album is largely devoid of meaning or quality.

In fact, the only two songs that have decent lyrics are "Damaged" ("My heart's had enough, it's too much to manage / I think you should know that I've been damaged") and "Turntable." "Turntable" tells a story of growing into self-reliance and hope. It's a song about having faith and at the very least, it SAYS something. It's one of the few tracks that is well written.

Strangely, 3D features a number of songs, like "Dirty Dirty" and "Good Love" that none of the members of TLC wrote or produced. Several of the tracks have writing credits for T-Boz and/or Chili buried after six other writers! The result is that qualitatively, this does not feel like an album of the same caliber as CrazySexyCool and it's hard to say that it even has the appearance of being a creative endeavor of TLC.

Above all, 3D suffers from a lack of emphasis on the vocal talents of the members of TLC. Obviously, Left-Eye could not contribute much beyond the raps that she had already recorded (her voice is credited on only one track and her writing on four tracks), but the talents of T-Boz and Chili seem to be sacrificed for production and sampling. The album SOUNDS assembled. The drum programming sounds mechanized and artificial.

There's no zest on 3D. There's no spark. The closest to anything alive and real comes in on "Damaged." It SAYS something and says it well. And it sounds like TLC.

But it's not enough to recommend this album.

There are much better r&b or hip-hop albums. There are much better TLC albums. This one is not worth your time or attention. It's tragic that TLC's artistic endeavors were cut short by such tragedies in the lives of the bandmembers, but if anything 3D is an argument to let the band rest in peace rather than capitalizing on their prior success with music that is theirs in name only.

The best tracks are "Damaged" and "Turntable," the rest of the album ought to be dumped in a deep, deep hole and forgotten.

For other, similar, artists, please be sure to visit my reviews of:
“I Don’t Want To” (single) – Toni Braxton
Break Every Rule - Tina Turner
“Hollaback Girl” (remixes) – Gwen Stefani

2.5/10

For other music reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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I Liked "Waterfalls" The First Time I Heard It, Not The 1,000th.

The Good: Generally good song with a decent social message.
The Bad: Insipid remixes populate this c.d. single!
The Basics: An initially intriguing socially-smart anthem, the TLC song "Waterfalls" is recut multiple times in ways that gut its smartness on the "Waterfalls" single.


Those who know my music reviews know that I am not a fan of the c.d. single as a medium. Poor repetition is the death knell of any medium, be it movies, music or the great american novel. C.D. singles are inherently underwhelming for their use of the medium, never living up to the full potential of the eighty minutes a compact disc allows. Still, some c.d. singles contain gems in the form of rare b-sides and sometimes the inspired remix. Or, the single is just a lousy collection of lame remixes of a song which may not have been great to begin with. In the case of the "Waterfalls" seven-track c.d., the generally decent pop-rap song "Waterfalls" by TLC is presented in only marginally different ways which replay exceptionally poorly, making for a lousy overall value.

As I sit listening to the umpteenth spinning of "Waterfalls," I find myself unsurprised that I've only reviewed one other TLC album, 3D as the multiple versions of "Waterfalls" make me think more and more that the original song just got lucky. After all, in the MTV Generation, music does not necessarily have to sound good, the people selling it just have to be photogenic and if TLC had one commodity, it was definitely that the women of TLC were exceptionally good looking. As the familiar up-down, singsong melody of "Waterfalls" begins again for me, it is hard for me not to acknowledge that the song is not the great anthem I thought it was in my youth.

With seven songs occupying over half an hour of capacity on the disc, the c.d. "single" of "Waterfalls" does not initially seem like that bad of a value. This is until one realizes that all of the tracks are essentially the same song. "Waterfalls" contains a rap written by Lisa ("Left Eye") Lopez, but the main anthem was written by Marqueze Etheridge and the original single's producer, Organized Noize. The women of TLC provide the vocals for the song, but they do not provide any of the instrumental accompaniment, nor are they involved in the production. Considering that the music which accompanies the group is all produced and manufactured at a mixing board (as opposed to created by having a band play with TLC), the fact that they are not involved in production is not actually a surprise. What is somewhat surprising is the fact that with so many remixes on this c.d. single, none of the members of TLC were involved with any of them.

The result is a mostly stagnant c.d. single. The album includes the single edit, which is pretty much what fans heard on the radio on hip-hop or rap stations, the album cut which was only slightly longer as it contains an intro, and two instrumental remixes. There are three other remixes which make the pop-hip-hop anthem into a more overt dance track by turning up the bass, repeating the insipid "Don't go chasing waterfalls" out of context with reverb and adjusting the tempo and percussion. In the remixes, the storytelling nature of the lyrics is de-emphasized by pushing up the keyboard and synth sounds which accompany the vocal performance.

As for the vocal performances, they are identical track to track because the basic concept behind this "single" is that the vocal track is used (altered occasionally with production elements like reverb) and set to different production/musical accompaniment. As a result, the vocals of T-Boz, Left Eye and Chili are as good as they ever were with the three women harmonizing on refrains and T-Boz creating a musical narrator persona that is both smooth and edgy. None of the remixes dare to go in a truly different direction for the song, which in this case would mean doing an acoustic version which highlights the natural voices of the ladies of TLC. When their voices may be clearly heard, as on the "single" and "album" cuts, they have wonderful feminine vocals which are distinctive. In fact, the first few spinnings of this disc, I found myself wishing TLC was still together (the death of Left Eye brought the group to an end) and performing socially-conscious music.

The lyrics are the other thing that keeps this album from the pits of "avoid it." "Waterfalls" is a socially smart song by the lyrics, singing musical storysongs about social problems like drug dealing/killing, HIV and casual sex along with an overarching theme of the destruction of the family unit in the ghettos. One of the first hip-hop/rap songs to address problems like unsafe sex with lyrics like "Little precious has a natural obsession / For temptation but he just cant see / She gives him loving that his body cant handle / But all he can say is 'baby is good to me' / One day he goes and takes a glimpse / In the mirror / But he doesn't recognize his own face / His health is fading and he doesn't know why / 3 letters took him to his final resting place," "Waterfalls" avoided the "head in the sand" approach to HIV that was common in the black community when the song was initially released. One wonders where the hip-hop writers with such a realist view were during the Bush Administration.

The lyrics are good, but some of the mixes emphasize Left-Eye's more banal rap which has a singsong rhyme scheme to it. Mixes like the DARP Remix remove some of the complexity that makes "Waterfalls" an interesting and groundbreaking song.

And, truth be told, none of these remixes are so audacious that fans cannot live without them. Instead, the album is a fairly transparent attempt by TLC (or the record company) to make a few extra bucks off their popular song. This is an unfortunate example of minimal effort being put into a c.d. single and those looking for truly different versions of the TLC song "Waterfalls" will find this to be a disappointment.

For other c.d. singles, please visit my reviews of:
"I Drove All Night" - Celine Dion
"Nowhere To Go" - Melissa Etheridge
"Little Bird" - Annie Lennox

3/10

For more music reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here for an organized listing!

© 2011, 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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