The original concept for CrazySexyCool was simple: Women contain multitudes. The title, an amalgamation of their personalities, was a way to subvert the public’s perception of each member: Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins as the “cool” one, Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas as the “sexy” seducer, and Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes herself supposedly “crazy.” She figured, rightfully, that each of them was all of those things at once. Straightforward enough—and yet some of the album’s male producers initially missed the point about the self as a many-layered construct. “They’d do a crazy song for me, a sexy song for Chilli, and a cool song for Tionne,” Left Eye told Vibe in 1994. “We had to explain that CrazySexyCool doesn’t just describe us individually. It describes all the parts of every woman.”
Each member of the Atlanta R&B trio had a distinct role, but the point was how they all came together. T-Boz was raspy and matter-of-fact, her jazz-like vocal style centering tone and swagger over power and clarity. Chilli was the closest to traditional R&B, imbuing their songs with quiet-storm sultriness. Left Eye was the rebellious poet who rapped, sang, and came up with many of their musical and visual concepts.
It was Left Eye who suggested the group pin condoms to their clothing and tape them over her own eyeglasses to promote safe sex, a laudable fashion statement that came to define their anything-goes credo as artists. As with their predecessors Salt-N-Pepa, none of TLC’s messaging in their songs, visuals, or outfits seemed scripted or telegraphed. Unlike in the typical girl group, no one member was ever elevated over another. Their individual styles merged seamlessly because they played off each other’s strengths, making the whole greater than the sum of its parts.
Their 1992 debut album, Ooooooohhh… on the TLC Tip, presented the trio as sexual and independent twentysomething women who allowed themselves to be goofy, improper, and a little bit messy on their own terms. The critical success and triple-platinum sales of that album positioned TLC as role models for younger listeners and pop industry anarchists who pushed the fundamental truth that women have basic physical needs. In the video for “Ain’t 2 Proud 2 Beg,” they fired water guns and sang about sexual autonomy while sporting bright, baggy jumpsuits and kooky Digital Underground-style puffy hats, making the case for sexual expression without suppression.
CrazySexyCool was slicker and more scandalous, smoothing out TLC’s approach without losing the tongue-in-cheek wit of the debut. Its songs emphasize not just sex but pleasure in all its many forms. It’s a liberating, multifaceted view that suggests sexy doesn’t have to be raunchy or explicit alone: It can manifest itself in the movement of a serpentine sax, or the way T-Boz whispers, simply, “Yes, it’s me again” at the beginning of “Creep” like it’s foreplay.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
