TLC’s classic debut album ‘Ooooooohhh… on the TLC tip‘ is being officially re-released on vinyl this year!
The album will be released on October 20 and can be pre-ordered right now via Amazon.
Perfect for music collectors and lovers of the nostalgic vinyl format!
Montell Jordan (“This is How We Do It”) and Naughty By Nature (“O.P.P.) are examples of those with limited success on the retro jaunt, which stops Friday at the BB&T Pavilion.
Vanilla Ice, Coolio and Tone Loc are one-hit wonders who are “I Love the ‘90s” alums.
TLC seems to be way overqualified to headline the current “I Love the ‘90s” tour. But the Atlanta-based act, which is the most successful girl group of all time, will close out the “I Love the ‘90s” concert in Camden.
The surviving members of TLC — Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas and Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins — could headline their own tour.
“We’re aware of that,” Thomas said while calling from her Atlanta home. “But we’re more than happy to be part of this tour. It’s going to be a good time performing but also interacting with who is part of the bill. We’re thrilled to still be making music and going on the road together.”
It hasn’t been easy for Thomas, 46, and Watkins, 47, since the third member of the group, Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes, died in a car accident 15 years ago in Honduras. Thomas and Watkins were understandably devastated.
“We couldn’t believe it when we heard the news,” Thomas said. “We were just absolutely crushed by it. Lisa was like our sister. We didn’t know if we could ever perform or record again as TLC.”
But Thomas and Watkins did muster the strength to complete “3D,” their final album with Lopes. The disc, which sold nearly 2 million copies, was released seven months after her death.
Since Lopes’ passing, Thomas and Watkins have hosted the reality show “R U the Girl,” released a biographical film, a greatest hits album and embarked on a comeback tour.
“We love working with each other,” Thomas said. “There was no reason to stop that.”
Thomas and Watkins aren’t expecting sales to approximate what the act accomplished during the ‘90s.
“People don’t buy albums like they once did,” Thomas said. “We remember what it was like when people bought albums.”
TLC sold more than 65 million albums during the ‘90s. According to Billboard magazine, the group was the seventh most successful act during the decade.
TLC, which scored nine Top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, including four No. 1 singles — “Creep,” Waterfalls,” No Scrubs” and “Unpretty” — was huge. The act’s second album, “CrazySexyCool,” is the second best-selling album by a girl group. However, some forget how massive TLC was during that era.
“We’re incredibly proud that we were so successful,” Thomas said. “We’re proud of our albums.”
The tandem were asked over the years whether they would ever replace Lopes and/or release another TLC album. “We could never hire someone to fill Lisa’s shoes,” Thomas said.
But they did decide to create a self-titled album, released in June. The project, which was the fastest, most funded pop project in Kickstarter history, received contributions from some famous peers. Katy Perry, New Kids on the Block and Bette Midler each sent checks to support the album. More than $400,000 was raised.
“We were blown away by the response,” Thomas said.
The latest TLC album comprises smooth and celebratory R&B. Thomas believes that this will be TLC’s final album.
“I think this will be it,” she said. “We’ve released a number of albums and so I think we’re good. We definitely have enough songs to play when we’re doing our shows.”
Picture it: Grammy night, 2018. Ed Sheeran walks out to perform his smash single Shape of You, nominated for several awards. Midway through, the song morphs into the two-decade-old hit that sort of inspired it, so much so that Sheeran decided to share Shape of You‘s authorship with its songwriters.
Out walk the women who sang the song, Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins and Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas, as Shape of You melts into TLC’s No Scrubs.
Cool idea, right? Wouldn’t that be a great Grammy moment?
For her part, Chilli’s on board. There’s just one problem she has with the Shape of You/No Scrubs connection.
“I didn’t think it sounded anything like No Scrubs,” she said with a laugh, by phone from her home in Atlanta. “I listened to it over and over again, and I sing it all the time, and I’m just like, I don’t hear it! I think Ed should have reached out to me first and been like, ‘Yo, what do you guys think?’ before he wrote that check! That was nice of him to do, but I promise you, for the life of me, I can’t hear it.”
Sheeran may simply have been covering his freckly keister by sharing songwriting credit for his biggest hit to date, but that takes nothing away from whatever influence the chart-topping pop trio may have had on his music. Twenty-five years after TLC’s debut album Ooooooohhh … On the TLC Tip, T-Boz and Chilli are as busy as they’ve been since the 2002 death of bandmate Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes, releasing their final studio album in June and embarking on a series of ’90s nostalgia tours, including one that hits Al Lang Stadium in St. Petersburg on Sept. 10.
“We’re always nervous right before a show, always, and still, once we’re on that stage, that energy from the crowd really gets us pumped,” Chilli said. “We’re very blessed to be in the position to still have longevity, that people still want to hear your songs and are even interested in new music, and want new music from you, which is what we’ve given them,”
Thanks to a string of Top 10 singles between 1992 and 1999 — Creep, Red Light Special, Waterfalls, No Scrubs, Unpretty — TLC was one of the biggest pop and R&B bands on the planet, their popularity helping usher in the tween-pop and girl- and boy-band boom of the late ’90s. Openers on their 1999-2000 FanMail Tour included Destiny’s Child and Christina Aguilera.
But all of it came with enough baggage to fill several documentaries and biopics — which were, in fact, eventually filmed. There were intraband feuds, a bout with Chapter 11 bankruptcy, serious illnesses and loads of relationship drama. It all came to a head in 2002 when Left Eye, the group’s rapper and most combustible personality, was killed in a car accident in Honduras.
“When it happens, you’re just discombobulated,” Chilli said. “You can’t think. All you’re doing is hurting. And it’s just pain. Pain, pain, pain and nothing else for a while. Then you try to get your thoughts together when the pain subsides a little and you can think. But until that happens, you can’t think clearly.”
Left Eye’s death ground TLC to a halt. Chilli and T-Boz made joint appearances and even a few performances, but also did their own thing. Both took acting and reality show gigs, with Chilli’s resume including VH1’s celebreality series What Chilli Wants.
“We were just broken in ways that you can’t even imagine,” Chilli said. “Those times were the hardest times. Through the years, as time has gone on, time does heal, but you’re never over something like that 100 percent. It’s impossible.”
Compared to the rest of their career, TLC’s last couple of years have seemed like a breeze. In 2015 they announced they would crowdfund their final studio album on Kickstarter, and they embarked on a tour with New Kids on the Block and Nelly. T-Boz and Chilli both kept acting, with Chilli appearing as Zora Neale Hurston in next month’s Thurgood Marshall biopic Marshall. It’s a small role, but one she describes as “comedic” and “like a firecracker.”
“Zora Neale Hurston is one of my mom’s favorite writers,” she said. “She has her books and everything. She helped me understand who she was as a writer, and then her connection with Langston Hughes, which I didn’t know, so it was some history learning right there for me.”
TLC’s new tour “feels more like a celebration for us, just that we’re able to continue this legacy, and (Left Eye’s) legacy lives on through us forever, as long as we’re performing and alive,” she said. (Asked if TLC would ever cede Left Eye’s vocals to another rapper, she bristled: “You’re going to hear Lisa’s voice. It’s her, doing her own stuff. We wouldn’t have anybody else do that.”)
To Chilli, it matters not only that artists like Ed Sheeran are paying homage to TLC’s work by crediting No Scrubs‘ songwriters (if not TLC themselves) on Shape of You. It’s meaningful that she’s seeing young fans, kids who weren’t even born when CrazySexyCool or FanMail came out, coming to shows with all TLC’s classic dance moves memorized.
“This last show we had, it was three kids under the age of 9, and they were paying homage to Left Eye with their hairstyles and everything. I promise you, they knew every word to all of our songs,” she said. “It almost brought tears to my eyes. It was like, What? This is crazy! It’s just such a blessing that our music can resonate like that with anybody. As an artist, that’s the stuff you pray for.”
Contact Jay Cridlin at cridlin@tampabay.com or (727) 893-8336. Follow @JayCridlin.
BY ROB LEVY for THE UNION LEADER
Time hasn’t stood still for this top-charting pop act of the ‘90s.
“What people love about our group is the lyrical content,” said Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas of TLC, the Atlanta-bred group behind the hit songs “Creep,” “Waterfalls,” “No Scrubs” and “Unpretty.”
“We are always talking about something, whether it is a political thing (or) what is going on in the world,” Thomas said. “We still talk about girl-power stuff and female empowerment. We are always going to do that.”
TLC is out on tour as part of the I Love the 90’s – The Party Continues tour. Thomas and Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins will co-headline the show with Naughty by Nature at the Bank of New Hampshire Pavilion in Gilford. The bill also will include Color Me Badd, Rob Base, Coolio and C&C Music Factory.
TLC has released its first album in 15 years. It’s also the first since band mate Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes died in 2002.
“Everything else can be new – the sound and music wise – and it is with this album. But we made sure the lyrical content is intact,” said Thomas of continuing the group’s outspoken voice.
The new song “Perfect Girl,” she said, is very different from the ensemble’s No. 1 90’s hit “Unpretty” in terms of its sound. Still, it touches on a comparable theme, about notions of unrealistic perfection.
“You take Instagram. These girls just post pictures of themselves all day,” said Thomas. “It is almost like a profession. By the time they post a picture, it doesn’t look anything like them because they have doctored it up.”
It’s all part of an unattainable quest, Thomas said.
“We are all flawed,” she said. “We bring light to that in that song.”
In another new song, “Haters,” TLC touches on cyber bullying.
“We always talk about things that are happening, but it’s in a fun way. We are not preachy,” she said. “You can sing along and it is fun, but at the same time you are singing along with something that is talking about something that is relevant.”
TLC was never afraid to speak out; for the anthem “Ain’t to Proud to Beg,” the group pinned condoms to their clothes as a fashion statement, and Lopes famously covered her left eye with one. It was all with an edgy nod to empowerment and safe sex.
In reflecting on their career, which took off with the 1992 debut album, “Ooooooohhh …, On the TLC Tip,” Thomas said they have learned many lessons along the way.
“This is a business,” she said. “Even though you can seem to be friends with execs and radio people, you are really not. It is all business. I’m sure there’s a level of respect there…
“At the end of the day, unless you are making a lot of money for the record company or there is a hot juice story about you, they are going to do their job. You can’t take it personal,” Thomas said.
She wishes she knew that “hard lesson” years ago, before conflicts arose in the group and beyond.
When asked how she would hope TLC is remembered by fans and general society alike, she said, “as an outside-the-box kind of group.
“We were a group that really stood for being yourself and being true to yourself,” she said. “We are real serious about that kind of stuff in everything that we do and say, both inside and outside the group. It’s who we are.”
Leon@TLCArmy
TLC-Army.com 