Episode 58: TLC's "CrazySexyCool"

Episode Transcript
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Cliff (00:00):
Today we're talking about TLC's CrazySexyCool.

Kyle (00:03):
ATL, ho!
ATL, ho!

Cliff (00:06):
Honestly, I shouldn't be allowed to pronounce that album
title at all, and neither shouldanyone else who looks like us.
But I did my best, and I said itwith a serious demeanor, so hopefully
that will communicate the idea.

Kyle (00:18):
It is a bit of where do I put the accent?
Which word do you italicize?
Crazy, sexy, cool, crazy,sexy, cool, crazy, sexy, cool.
How

Cliff (00:26):
do I pronounce the camel cases?
Crazy, sexy, cool.
Oh, this is so much easier when Ican like, hide all of my insecurities
bodily below my shoulders and youcan't see them while we're recording.
And now we're back in the sameroom and you can see all of myself.
Just like the old days where wecould just look at each other and
go, is that what you really just did?

Kyle (00:46):
It's only fitting that for an episode about.
And Atlanta artists, we would be back ineach other's physical presence in Atlanta.
we were joking about the outcastepisode that started us off right
before we started recording.
We've come a long way since then.
Better set up.
I think we're marginally better attalking about music than we were.

(01:06):
Was that four years ago?
Have we been doing this that long already?

Cliff (01:10):
More than that, bud.

Kyle (01:11):
Six years?

Cliff (01:12):
Something like that.

Kyle (01:12):
Six years.

Cliff (01:13):
Yeah, I think so.
Slow march of time in pod cast.
episodes.
Yeah, I am disappointed to discoverthat we are talking today about the
artist TLC and not spending two hoursdissecting turnstile love connection
because I didn't want to touch alevel up and I want a connection
and I felt that that was enough.

(01:34):
So we'll get a lot of TLC insteadfor me and us and everyone.

Kyle (01:37):
I think everybody in the band turnstile would love
to be in the with the group.
TLC.

Cliff (01:45):
Yep.
Brand new sentences, Reddit.
What's up?

Kyle (01:49):
I think, I think a TLC TLC tour would be the sickest shit imaginable,
especially considering the way Turnstileplays Whitney Houston before they go on.
Anyway, we're not, we're nothere to talk about the punks.

Cliff (02:08):
If you say so.

Kyle (02:08):
I'm to talk about two things today.
I think I'm here to celebrate.
A moment of immense cultural influenceby a singular group of artists
that is from where we are from.
and the degree of the influence, Idon't even really think I comprehended
until we started sitting down torevisit this and, you know, we had

(02:29):
30 choices for albums to talk aboutfrom this month on the calendar.
And for some reason, cosmically,this sort of became the one.
Um, and I think we'll getinto some of those patterns.
But anyway, there's a whole Atlantaconnection and stuff to unpack
that I think is really interesting.

(02:49):
And then there's just this good, plainold, like, well, duh, that actually
does bear pressing it on a little bit.
The idea that, Cliff, I don't know ifyou, I don't know if you know this, and
listener, I don't know if you know thiseither, but women contain multitudes.
People contain multitudes,but women especially.

Cliff (03:06):
They kept trying to tell me that, but I didn't listen.
Um,
This will definitelybe a very classic case.
Very, as we say now, very tunedday coded in the sense of there's a
million new specific unique thingsto talk about with the record.
And yet there is an unavoidable.
Oh, There are dumb shit men involvedin this, like there is on almost

(03:29):
every record, and then you couldjust draw a graph, just like, are
there women involved in the artistry?
Therefore, the stupidity of the menwho get to associate themselves with
them rises accordingly, and theyfind new heights of stupidity which
really come really come out here onthis record and to, to both of your

(03:50):
points, um, One of the fantastic thingsI did in preparation for this was
watch original TLC interviews from the90s, not the VH1 reenactment of them.
Where they can all talk togetherseamlessly, but the ones where
they're like actually fidgeting andmaking things up as they go along.
And one of the things left I said was,I think Jermaine Dupri is responsible

(04:13):
for a lot more than people think,and that is a very good sentence.
Like, uh huh, I think we'll find,um, some surprises buried in here.
But overall, it's a greatexercise once again in like,
What's unique about a record.
What does the uniqueness of arecord teach you about other things?

(04:36):
And then whatever about a record ora moment in time, or a story kind of
bothers you or doesn't hit you theright way, fine, there's a million
other sides that you can look at.

Kyle (04:45):
And specifically on that, like, I don't want to center the men in this
episode in any way, that is not the story.
It is about the cosmicbrilliance of these women.
And.
The thing that astounded me that I wasn'treally aware of, especially because
of how young they were and certainlyhow young we were when this record
came out, it's like they had a visionthat they were enacting and they were

(05:09):
really vocal about it and they had greatclarity around it and they went after it.
And they chose collaborators who theythought could help them get there.
And those collaborators werefaulted in, in a multitude of ways.
like I really want to celebrate.
These are songs that if you areover a certain age, you have heard.

(05:30):
There's no way that you haven't,if you are below a certain age, you
have been touched in your life asa music fan by something that like,
not just was influenced by this, but.
I can say with a high degreeof confidence would not exist
without this group or this record.
And we'll talk about that later.
But this is a like a pause andmeditate moment on like, even if you're

(05:53):
aware of TLC generally in the ether.
This is cause for celebration.
it's recent enough in the culturalmemory that if it was like a, a record
or a group on the periphery for you, youmight not have stopped down to be like,
wow, this is a really important linkin the chain of American music history.

Cliff (06:15):
And I think it's easy to win.
You're not existing as at leasta teenager or adult at the
time where music comes out.
I mean, we talk about this a lot, butit's sort of easy to group breakout
acts like this in with everythingelse that was interesting at the time.
Like, In Vogue was a groupat the time who was huge.

(06:36):
It would be cool to talk about them inrelationship to TLC and a whole scene
of, you know, moving R& B forward,moving pop forward, all kinds of things.
And there are interesting conversationsto be had there, but like, specifically
though, TLC doesn't just belong in thegeneric category of R& B got better

(06:57):
and also women led R& B got better.
They, like, blew the doors offof women's R& B and all possible
categories of everything.
Made more money on a tour than anyonehad at that point in that collection.
Have sold more records asthat type of a collection.
Just unimaginably huge footprintculturally, like you're saying but

(07:21):
that's, I think it's real easy.
We've talked a lot about the 90s.
It's this.
It's this.
Year in toondig, but especiallyfor us because that was a time
where we were transitioning frombeing children into being adults.
Like it's, it's so easy to sort ofgloss over that and tell stories about.
Bill Clinton playing saxophoneand things being normal.

(07:42):
And Oh, remember whenthe economy was cool.
Whereas what we'll get to dohere and what's always the joy
of these episodes is like, nah,there's so much more to appreciate.
That's so much more specific.
And then especially with this one,and maybe it's just the way that
it hit me, but especially withthis record in a similar vein to.

(08:03):
Who's the artist that wecovered a few episodes ago?
The solo.
male artist.
Jeff Buckley.
Thank you.
similarly, I mean, I likea lot of these songs.
Some of them I don't care about.
But using this record as akaleidoscope to look at music Flawless

Kyle (08:20):
totally agree.

Cliff (08:21):
I can't remember the last time and we'll talk about this some for sure I
cannot remember the last time I had sucha fun active Researching session like i'm
listening to the music and i'm googlingeverything that I can possibly think of
that this makes me think of and we'll talkabout some specifics later, but I mean,

(08:42):
I just wanted to come right out with,like, we can talk about how great this is,
disambiguate it from cultural stories wemight tell, but also, once again, if this
particular genre, artist, album, whatever,doesn't connect with you, we're going to
talk about countless ways that you can useart and appreciate it to go find something
that connects with you a little bit more.

Kyle (09:03):
Before we, like, really get into the record itself, I do want to
double down on a couple of points thatyou just made that were excellent.
You and I have talked about the rippleeffect with like, there's a one to one
correlation between, the number of otherbands that a band shows you and like how,
how much your favorite they wind up being.
I've always used Queens of theStone Age as an example there.

(09:24):
But to your point with TLC, the samecorrelation is true of what a window
into a cultural moment or like abit of pop culture anthropology,
a group or an album moment can be.
And you're absolutelyright that this is that.
the other thing you made a pointabout is, I wouldn't gloss over

(09:46):
necessarily what a moment in R&B and women led R& B this was.
Because in 94, 95, it was actuallya much stronger time than I
remember it being for all that.
So if you look at Billboard's year end top100 from 95, two of the top three songs
are Waterfalls and Creep and, Gangsta'sParadise by Coolio from the Dangerous

(10:10):
Minds soundtrack was number one there.
Digging in on a little bit of the restof the top 25 or so kiss from a rose by
seal from batman forever On bended kneeby boys to men and there's a couple of
other songs from two on this list fantasyby mariah carey take a bow by madonna
This is how we do it by montel jordanall the way down at number 10 I can love

(10:33):
you like that by all for one Boombasticby shaggy you gotta be by desiree
You are not alone by Michael Jackson.
Here comes the hot stepper.
candy rain by soul for real.
red light special all the way down atnumber 28 runaway by Janet Jackson,
someone to love by John B and baby face,

Cliff (10:52):
a bunch

Kyle (10:53):
of Hootie and the Blowfish songs.
Fucking, I got five on it.
Baby by Brandy.
As I lay me down by Sophie BHawkins, I'll be there for you.
And you're all I need to getby, by method and Mary J.
Blige a couple of black street songs.
Like it goes on and on rhythmof the night by Corona.

Cliff (11:09):
Jesus take me back, man.

Kyle (11:11):
I wish my ski low, like, dude, that's nuts.
Tootsie roll by 69 boys,uh, way down at number 63.
Amazing.
so.
Yes, don't lump it in with the pop R&B of the moment, but also take a moment
to appreciate what a massive thing thishad to be to stand out in that crowd

(11:31):
of songs that were immediately popular,but many of which have stood the test
of time and some of which have likereally gained an appreciation thanks
to the internet years and years later.
But thinking about the nineties and youbringing up Jeff Buckley, that contrast
hits me in a really interesting way.
You shouldn't, you're right, situateit against this is how we do it.

(11:54):
You should situate it against nevermindbecause it's like on that level and
it's been that culturally pervasiveand influential and spun off that
many other larger and larger acts.
it's a great artifact of the worldthat it was trying to play in.
And it was a hugely importantone of one decade defining.

(12:18):
So you'd like, you kind of got to lookat it on multiple levels immediately.
and like we said with grace forJeff Buckley, anything that kind
of hits on those levels, it's anartist, artist record, and it has
some culturally pervasive shit in it.
Even if you're going to hate it, evenif you don't like a single song on it,
which I I would defy a single personto ever come up to me on the street.

(12:41):
I'll have one complaint

Cliff (12:42):
later in the episode.
It will be only one.
I

Kyle (12:45):
bet, I bet I know exactly what it is without even looking.
It's not a

Cliff (12:49):
song.
Yeah.

Kyle (12:50):
Yeah.
I knew.
Know me well.
I knew.

Cliff (12:53):
You know which one it is.

Kyle (12:56):
Well, I don't know.
I know it's a skit.
I don't know which one it is.
It could be any number of them,but I know I was like, Oh, Cliff's
gonna, Cliff's gonna hate these.
anyway it's a transcendent thing.
And if you're listening to a musicpodcast, Pursuing the discipline
like us of learning to love music innewer and deeper ways all the time.
Even if you don't ever listen to thisrecord again, I like, I'm not a believer

(13:18):
in the thousand and one records thatevery human being alive should listen
to everybody's journey is their journey.
But like, I would put this in thecategory with grace that like, if you
want to have a conversation about musicat all, this is like required reading.

Cliff (13:31):
I second that, and I certainly had no complaints having to listen
to this one million times over.
Which is always a fun test of arecord, specifically for this podcast.
Alright, I'm going to have to listento this 20 times a day for a few
weeks leading up, so that my brain cansort out a few interesting things to

(13:51):
make other people interested in it.
And the fact that, uh, Somany great records don't feel
like work when you do that.

Kyle (13:57):
Yeah.
I'm already thinking of a couple for2025 that it's going to be fun to
picture you snowboarding, gettingin the zone with some of them.

Cliff (14:07):
This is one of the ones that's easy.
It's so easy.
Vibe wise, flexible, that it can justkind of like bend and form around
wherever it is you want to put it.
You want to be active?
Cool.
You want to be sexy?
Cool.
You want to do active listening?
Fine.
Passive listening?
All good.
Other than the weird flush insideof the skit, uh, everything
else is pretty, like, alright.

(14:29):
We're down.
We can put it on this whole record.
Everybody loves it.
Uh, and, uh, if they don't knowwhat it is by the time Waterfalls
comes on, they feel embarrassed toremember it and get excited about it.
So,

Kyle (14:38):
Well, that's because it's multifaceted by design.
They had the name before they hada single sound for the record.
You know, there's that great quote youput in They, meaning the producers,
writers, whatever, would do a crazysong for me, a sexy song for Chili and a
cool song for T Boz, Left Eye Told Vibe.
We had to explain that the title doesn'tjust describe us individually, it

(15:00):
describes all the parts of every woman.
They were truly using I'mEvery Woman as an inspiration.
So the multifacetedness is builtright into the chassis of the thing.

Cliff (15:12):
And as a bit of a Almost like a mental foil as you hear some of
the stories and background todaylike I also think it's helpful to
take that quote and just remindourselves of What was happening?
culturally in music on a larger scalein the 90s where groups of individuals,

(15:34):
were for the most part, money, capital,was trying to turn those collections of
people into like, no, no, I need you tobe very specific versions of things, so
that we can talk about you in specificways, wrap that up in cellophane, and
then sell that back out to the public.
A la Spice Girls or something like that.

(15:55):
It's a terrible example here, but the mostkind of stark example of like, no, no, no.
We need each person to beone and only one thing.

Kyle (16:03):
New kids on the block.

Cliff (16:05):
Even better.
Yeah.
Singular dimensions that we're gonnaadd together and go, look at all
these dimensions of individual people.
But they can only respondin very specific ways.
this is the sexy NSYNC member,not the funny one, okay?
And to see them not only on this recordhave to live out that quote that you

(16:25):
just gave in terms of not just, we didn'tjust have to Tell our producers that
that is what the title is, but they madeit pretty clear that was, Oh, we had to
remind them on a pretty regular basis.
They did not say the

Kyle (16:39):
kids say, understand the assignment.
No,

Cliff (16:42):
no.
They kept wanting todo something different.
And the reason that's worthbringing up is not just to shit on.
90s artist rep men who exploitedpeople for money, although we can,
that's just not an interestingthing to talk about in general.
Hi Atlanta friends,

Kyle (16:58):
please send this episode directly to L.
A.
Reid for me if you don't mind.

Cliff (17:02):
But once again, speaks to the strength of everything
we're about to talk about.
Every accolade that putsthem above anyone else.
Took 10 times as much effort.
Yeah, because of the forces thatwere against them in that way And so
I think that was a really helpful.
Stop me if you've

Kyle (17:20):
heard this refrain about black women before

Cliff (17:26):
Oh so contextually And kind of literally in the moment, a few things
that I think will set the stage andfill in details and interesting color
as we talk about other stories anddetails about the music is just the
kind of literal facts of the record.

(17:46):
Sometimes these are irrelevant in episodesthat we do because the actual album timing
or recording might not matter like that.
I don't know, Ravi Shankaror something like that.
A lot less important how exactlyall this came to be from a recording
perspective, but here Crazy Sexy Coolwas released November 15th, 1994.

Kyle (18:05):
If you're listening on release day, it is the 30th anniversary
of the drop of this record.

Cliff (18:10):
Yes.
Oh, it's almost like Kyle has thoughtabout many of these things before.
My own little personal Easter eggs.
put out by LaFace and AristaRecords, which, okay, so
let's talk about a few things.
If I leave out anything you think thatI shouldn't, you let me know, but I
think a few things really fill it in.
And I'm going to try to avoidimmediately snapping to the outcast

(18:33):
trivia because that is important,but not what this episode is about.
So, this is the second studio album,the first one, which I've looked forward
to for weeks now, saying out loud, was1992's, ooooh, On the TLC Tip, which was
a really fun and stupid thing to name analbum, uh, and the more that I learned

(18:54):
about how that album was named, the moreI laughed about it, because they basically
just slammed two impossible, uh, Tounderstand things together and then called
it the album title, which was really funbut uh as an aside, I may not come back to
you too much Unfortunately or fortunatelylistening to crazy sexy cool Um, actually
made me like the debut record a whole lotmore all over again, an immaculate vibe to

Kyle (19:19):
this day.
And then when you go back to the debutrecord, it makes you like crazy, sexy,
cool, even more because you appreciatethe leap and some of the choices that
they made to hone in a sound and a vibe.

Cliff (19:32):
It is it is one of our favorite things, me and you Kyle together, when
you can like See the intentionality fromrecord to record, and you can see it here.

Kyle (19:41):
You could never go backward or forward with TLC and just have
this document and that's plenty.
But if you start in on Crazy SexyCool and you like it, I think you
owe it to yourself to go backwardand then to go forward to fan mail.
Yeah.
And see where this situates in their art,but especially going backward, like it,
it's like going and you know, there'sa tribe connection we'll get to, but

(20:04):
yeah, it's very much like going from,people's instinct to travels to low
end and then being like, Oh, holy shit,

Cliff (20:11):
and even just tracing culturally.
1992, you look at TLC and you've, Imean, you got parachute pants, you got
boomba, And then by the time you getto fan mail, it's about a OL email.
It's

Kyle (20:25):
a different word.
Yeah.
They got a robot on this shit.
Whoa.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, but even 92, which is likeculturally, that record coming
out in 92 is really like 90.
Yeah.
It's the transition from eightieship hop to nineties hip hop.
Yep.
And then 92 to 94.
in the art form is like an entirelydifferent planet, you know, not
93 was Midnight Marauders and 36Chambers and then 94 was Illmatic

(20:53):
and Southern Playlistic and whatever.
So like this is part of a huge culturalascent moment in hip hop and R& B
so between those two records is like20 years worth of culture to unpack

Cliff (21:06):
so much great music.
So the actual record though that we'retalking about, this will be a fun refrain.
12 times platinum 15 millioncopies sold worldwide

Kyle (21:16):
on the way to An eventual 23 million total unit r.
i.
a certified unit sold and an estimated65 million albums sold worldwide.
So this was huge, but it wasn'tthe only big thing that they did.

Cliff (21:34):
And they became the first female group effectively in history.
There are a million ways toCategorized this exact accolade,
but effectively first female groupin history to achieve diamonds.
It reminds

Kyle (21:45):
me of the sports stats where it's like, First left handed
Aries to throw a perfect gamewhen the temperature's below 73.
That kind of shit.

Cliff (21:54):
He always hits a triple when his leg itches.
Like, uh, okay.

Kyle (21:58):
If you say the name of his childhood dog three times,
the homer's to left field.

Cliff (22:03):
That foul ball was caught by a fan from Huntsville, Alabama.

Kyle (22:07):
only the third time this decade!

Cliff (22:10):
But we'll also, as best I can, try to eliminate the term Girl
group that love to be populated, whentrying to describe groups of women
who are in musical groups together.
I understand that that was a parlanceof the time and may not have necessarily
been offensive for everyone then.

(22:32):
Now it feels really stupid and we'rejust gonna try to avoid it where we can.
So if you hear me saying things likefemale group or female R& B group,
that's what I'm trying to get at.
Is that category great?
But even like I think onething that you called out and I
think brings an extra level of

(22:52):
artistic curiosity to this record becausewe like to, well, We like to talk shit
about Pitchfork in general, first of all,but, when they are also in agreement with
like global success and you come back tolike this record and they're like, nah, 9.
3 out of 10 for this one.
And it's like, okay, so weare all on the same page.

(23:14):
This is very good with a capital V and acapital G when things like that happen.
It feels so good to just giveyourself over to the whole thing
like, Oh, there's something in herethen I don't have to worry about it.
I'll find it.

Kyle (23:26):
I'm a little hesitant to give the W over to Pitchfork on that.
Just one because it's Pitchfork.
but two, because the review is writtenby Clover Hope, who is, phenomenal.
I'm Music writer and like, one of theblessings of this season has been,
finding multiple black women with theseamazing and really unique music writing

(23:51):
perspectives We found daphne brooks withgrace and other jeff buckley connection.
I have I've recommended that bookin a non musical context to multiple
people since we covered that episode.
Clover Hope wrote a bookcalled The Motherload about 100
plus women who made hip hop.
So it's like, maybe just a really goodauthority snuck it in under the wire

(24:12):
as one of her freelance assignments,rather than this being the editorial
board institutional call to give it a 9.
3.

Cliff (24:20):
I will give Means

Kyle (24:21):
to an end, right?
Broken clock's righttwice a day, whatever.
I will give

Cliff (24:24):
All right, in this case, we'll give a half W, so we'll give a
capital V, because it can be a half W.
Pitchfork for

Kyle (24:31):
the then.

Cliff (24:33):
It can be a small W if you bring someone in who's smarter
than you about a thing and say,you go ahead and tell us instead.
Okay, that's better thandoing it another way.
Well done.

Kyle (24:44):
That's classic institutional bullshit.
Find somebody who's objectivelyreally good to make you look
good and then take credit.

Cliff (24:52):
For sure.
So then to this end, Ithink we should start.
At least down this, uh, treacherouspath but important one of mentioning
producers and collaborators.

Kyle (25:04):
Let's talk about and speed walk past the gem.

Cliff (25:07):
Well, yes because there are important things to say
here that aren't hyper serious.
There are important things to saythat are serious, and then there
are unimportant things to say.
So, gotta walk throughall of them, I guess.
But main thing being theproduction and collaboration.
On this record and with TLC is how do Iwant to say steeped in Atlanta deeply?

Kyle (25:31):
Yeah,

Cliff (25:32):
very deeply.
It doesn't mean everyone only

Kyle (25:35):
tip of the spear you know, pre Olympics before Atlanta was a place
that anybody knew or cared about.
This was like a formativeLaFace is a formative cultural
institution of modern Atlanta.
None of anything that anyone knows aboutAtlanta now would have been possible
without this nascent little, ragtag bunchof people who Wanted to make a difference.

(25:59):
You had, L.A Reid and Babyface coming fromLA to make a market outside of a market.
so, like with Adult Swim or like with somany other things, this was a like against
all odds, under the radar type of thing.
not like a Nashville thing wherethere was a machine brewing.
this was the start of the machine.
Like that, that needs tobe absolutely changed.

(26:21):
Crystal clear.

Cliff (26:22):
I'm glad you just went ahead and said it up front like that is I
think that's a huge bit especiallywith pop adjacent records Especially
for those folks who might want to gainmore appreciation for a particular
record like this to separate out Popalbums that happened as a result of
artistry and people who wanted to bepop adjacent as opposed to The machine

(26:47):
that can be built to generate pop stuffand populate people to it and go you
go be this thing Here's the music.
Here's the vibe.
Here's the aesthetic everything you canthere There is no mistake when be made
when you listen to TLC In interviewsand talking about how they wanted to
approach how they wrote music and howthey express themselves even visually,

(27:10):
like it was very intentional, may notagree with all of it, but it was extremely
intentional and they spoke about theintentionality of it really often.
And it's.
In the same way that I love hearing aguitarist talk about why he chose a really
or she chose a really particular Guitarand amp combo to do this like one really

(27:31):
particular thing on a record and it's allReally really intentional and I needed it
to sound this way and that's how I got itI love to see that same thing here where
they as we'll talk more about too, liketheir presentation as individuals, as
women, as R&B artists all meant somethingto them and they took it seriously.

(27:52):
Whether we in retrospect feel like theytook it the right amount of serious or
whatever is sort of beside the point.

Kyle (27:59):
if you set aside all the ethos bit of it, and you are just blind listening
to the music, there's a lot of sonic.
Qualities to it could not have existedwould have been polished over or erased
or turned into something else if you'dhanded Some of these ideas over like
demos for these songs over to somebodyin new york or la or london and it's

(28:23):
really important to note that for anyonewho might want to aspire to make the
next crazy sexy cool In 2034 Maybeit goes without saying now because
authenticity and originality is like suchan essential currency in so many ways.
but it was hard one here andit was a deliberate choice

(28:44):
and they didn't sacrifice.
It was like, uh, there was actuallykind of a punk ethos underneath it all.
The more that I think about it.
You were saying about the dudes.

Cliff (28:53):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Nah, this, all of our conversations wantto create a million little digressions.
Like I said this just made me,this album made me interested
in everything it felt like.
Um, so everything you're bringing upmakes me want to chase that rabbit.
But yeah, so you mentioned Babyface,Jermaine Dupri, Dallas Austin,
all producers on this record,collaborators, now included Chucky

(29:15):
Thompson and then a couple of let's see.
We'll hit one important point thatwill keep coming up as as we go along,
uh, and then one Minor point thatjust kind of has to be said so one
collaborator was Organized noise.
So Sleepy Brown and Rico Wade, we'vealready mentioned the Atlanta connection,
but between organized noise, uh, andthen being label mates with OutKast, who

(29:39):
was becoming the OutKast that we wouldcome to know at that time, they are not
just at that moment, right, steeped inAtlanta, but in sort of like a mutually
beneficial rising out of the type of musicthat they're doing into this you know,
TLC is pushing into R and B, but labelmates are pushing into Southern hip hop.

(30:01):
And one of the things that's beautifulabout, well, beautiful to me, at least
as someone who loves this, having thosetwo things take off at once and then
using collaborators and producers whoare going across both of those worlds.
It means that in thisrecord, you can find Yeah.
Like you can find Southern hip hop in it,or you don't have to, if you don't want

(30:25):
to, cause there's other stuff in it too.
It's not just outcast withfemale vocals very clearly.
Right.
But it's also not just,uh, smooth R and B.
The three individual members of TLCwould describe themselves musically
as individually different that workedwell together as a cohesive, um, and

(30:46):
so being able to collaborate with thefolks who were effectively inventing the
transition from funkadelic into hip hopand being able to use that on this record
meant that to a point you made earlier.
There is detail and depth that wouldsimply would not have existed otherwise.

(31:08):
Um, and I hate conjecture the most,but let me give an, a possible example.
I don't think you end up with theguitar solo on red light district,
unless you've got some odd influencesabout what makes a great pop song.
The vibe of that with if you were crankingthat out of a pop factory, no need right?

(31:31):
You got the hook Everything's thereand so everything here has just
this little extra feel That onceyou see all of those producers
and collaborators You start to go.
Oh That's probably them.
Oh, that's probably them.
Oh, this other thing they were.
Oh, this sounds like that.
Oh, and like it really opens up aninteresting bit about the music.

(31:54):
The painful bit thatI keep alluding to it.
One of the Producers andcollaborators is we'll just refer
to him by his normal ass name.
Sean, John combs was involved in the shit.
He doesn't get any cool nicknames.
as the crow flies, we wererecording this in a moment where

Kyle (32:09):
defendant 204, 19 dash a,

Cliff (32:13):
Yeah we're in a moment where potentially a small fraction of the
justice that seems to be coming tothat individual may be on its way.
However, that's not whatthis episode is about.
Nor do we really need to talk aboutthat or give a huge shit about that
in this moment But what we're notgoing to do is be afraid to mention
it Like it's some sort of thing.

(32:34):
We're not allowed to talkabout like it happened.
It was part of this album He was a partof it That doesn't mean you have to hate
this record doesn't mean you have to hatetlc You can be as suspicious as you want
to be Just as you should be about what?
Entertainment and wealthy relatedfolks are doing at all times.
That's fine.

Kyle (32:55):
The diddy stuff is in a category of its own entirely So i'm not trying
to compare it to anything else thatwe've ever talked about, right?
i'm not standing him up againstany figures, but like we started
the season with marvin gay

Cliff (33:06):
Yep,

Kyle (33:07):
and part of the core of that episode was like he's a bit of a problematic
messenger for You A like perfect pieceof music and the more music or art or
human coexistence that you do you haveto hold that uneasy tension and your
heart and that's been a heartbreaking,but also sort of liberating experience.

(33:30):
Part of getting older and more seasonedand jaded Is like you got to navigate
your own policy around Whatever thatshit it like if you go around outright
canceling things Because your politicsare at odds with them or they represent
horrible trauma or an easy truth you'regoing to isolate yourself from pretty much

(33:53):
all the human condition at some point.
So it sucks, but it just is what it is.
and the only way out is through.
and in fact, thinking about this sort ofstuff through the context of music does
give you a bit of a coping mechanism for.
any of the horrors of the world andhow you cope with the trauma of just

(34:13):
waking up and existing on a burningplanet, you know, um, it, it is like a
small practice run comfort of learninghow to deal with some of those things.

Cliff (34:22):
one long running thread through this podcast.
Has been not being afraid to mentionand address The negative aspects of
things that may have happened duringthe album about the album as a result
of the album Whatever it is good

Kyle (34:38):
with the bad.

Cliff (34:38):
Yeah.
That is why I've come to love music somuch as a lens to look at things through
because If you're gonna be a boneheadyou could point at us Just like you can
point at a lot of things and go jesus doeseverything have to come back to racism
Well, yeah, it seems like it Like shit.
Well, I didn't do it, butyeah, it kind of does.
And it mostly has to dowith the fact that As long

Kyle (35:00):
as the same street is called two different things on either
side of an intersection in 2024.
Yeah.
Fuck yeah.
Everything

Cliff (35:06):
is.
Uh huh.

Kyle (35:08):
until my list gets longer than 20 examples in a single breath.
Yeah.
Sorry, bro.
It is what it is.

Cliff (35:15):
But that's why It's part of why we talk about listening to and appreciating
and exploring music as a practice.
Because if you look hard enoughat anything, you're gonna find
some bad shit that happened.

Kyle (35:29):
By the way, the same could be said of yourself, of like looking

Cliff (35:32):
inward too.
So, that's why, instead of, like yousaid, instead of ever saying, Nope,
we hate all of that and we can neverassociate with it, or then on the other
hand, none of that matters, that's notwhat it's about, we're gonna separate
art from the artist or whatever.
Neither of those two booleansactually work for people who give a
shit about anything or are curiousabout understanding something.

(35:54):
And so, again, in that vein Not onlycan you appreciate this deeply while
acknowledging some of the very fucked upstuff that is buried under the stories
here of this record and this group,things like that, but you can, even
if it is distasteful to you in a waythat's really hard for you to get over

(36:15):
on any piece of music or art, fine.
Use it as a lens to go find theother things that are related to it.
And go appreciate that so if you need todo it indirectly fine But it's always our
challenge that like like we are bringingyou albums that are all very different
one right after the other every episodeis I mean if there's a topic a common

(36:38):
topic to the Unprompted messages we getfrom people who listen to this podcast.
It is mostly holy shit.
Those are all very different Artists.
Uh huh.
They are they are and we do that notonly because we like it but also because
It is really it makes you better atloving the thing itself when you have

(37:00):
to confront things that don't fit yourgenre Specifications or don't feel
great in terms of the history of howthey happened or whatever There might
be a problematic person involved coolembrace it figure out how to work with it

Kyle (37:15):
and at some point the turtle all the way down is, a therapist
would tell you that you're trying toconvince yourself that you are good by
what you do or don't associate with.
try to find a little kindness in yourself.
And I'll also say bringing it backto this specific record, that, the
involvement, this name in the linernotes is like the fifth biggest trauma

(37:39):
related to TLC that they had to endure.
So, so I would rather talk about any ofthose as a point of evidence of their
incredible resilience than I wouldlike to mention what's his face again.

Cliff (37:53):
Yep.

Kyle (37:54):
And also point for me, I think on male collaborators, I would similarly
like to celebrate organized noise.
We lost Rico Wade earlier this year.
I would encourage you to go readhis New York times obituary to know
like What a Titan that dude was.
Thankfully, we still have Ray Murrayand especially Sleepy Brown, who's been

(38:14):
the quiet architect of so much of thesound of the past 25 years and like,
is nowhere near getting his flowersfor the importance of what he's done.
You know, you made the point aboutthe guitar solo and red light special.
And that song is not anorganized noise song.
It's waterfalls and somethingwicked this way comes where we
get the organized noise treatment.

(38:35):
A couple of connections therethat are interesting, Sleepy's dad
was in the funk group Brick thathad the minor hit Daz in the 70s.
So there's already a strain of real thick,specific, syrupy southern funk there.
Curtis Mayfield lived in the neighborhoodin Southwest Atlanta or had a house in

(39:00):
the neighborhood and was a mentor andinfluence on the organized noise guys.
So there's a huge funk and blackAmerican music lineage there as well.
That's not overt, but runs really deep.
And then to your point, there'sFunkadelic and there's a huge through
line because of TLC and because oftheir collaborators from Funkadelic to

(39:25):
Prince, and lightning bolt black music.
and I just want to, I want to giveeverybody their props for taking some
of the most electric strains of, stuffthat hadn't really gotten its due
in the lexicon of the past 30 yearsand stuff that was very much of the
moment and mashing them together inways that people were only beginning

(39:47):
to understand or think was possible.

Cliff (39:49):
Prince will come up again.
So if that excited you.
I,

Kyle (39:54):
you mentioned on a recent episode, there was somebody that we'd been name
checking a decent amount for rel maybe,but like, I feel like I talk about
prance on this podcast and then myreal life on at least a weekly basis.
I don't think I have been morecaptivated and influenced by a

(40:15):
single music artist more than Prince.
And as is made clear by theseconversations, that sentiment
is shared by many of the artistswhose music we discover and love.

Cliff (40:26):
It's fun.
Cause I think we probably cameto our Prince episode thinking,
I appreciate Prince already.
I was only beginning.

Kyle (40:34):
That's my literal favorite part of this podcast.
And I think I've said some flavorof it before is the episode that
we record about a thing is theprelude At best to our relationship
with that artist and that album.
Yeah, I don't start understandingwhat to appreciate or how to love
a thing until we've talked about itand I have sort of a basic framework.

(40:57):
That's true with Prince.
That's true with Thela.
That's true with Alice Coltrane.
That's true with Bjork.
That's true with so much atthe Allman Brothers that we've
listened to our whole lives.
That's true for Dolly Parton.
I like Shudder to revisit some of the oldconversations, but I would say, what are
we, this is episode 58 or something if youare a person inclined to keep a journal,

(41:21):
do an album a day, an album a month inyour own life, and then at the end of
the year, take all the main ideas andrevisit it all a year or five years later.

Cliff (41:32):
So actually that's kind of inspired me to go into these
parts that we like to do on theseepisodes now where we try to help.
Think through ways to listen to the recordon purpose experience it in new ways And
one of the things we always talk aboutthen is especially in this first block
here whether you've somehow not listenedto this record in recent memory Whether

(41:54):
you're trying to get a little further intoit, whether you're just reminding yourself
of it What are some things that you cando to take it in fresh in a fun way?
And specifically we like to point outlike so we do that exercise each time and
then try to call out a few things thatare like, Nope, that still surprised me.
I didn't expect it.
Like here's a thing that delightedme when I didn't expect to.

(42:16):
Any of those things pop out for you?

Kyle (42:18):
For sure.
So you're talking about a recordwith two of the three biggest songs
of 1995, two of the biggest songsof the 90s, four singles, five
singles that all cracked the top 10.
if you heard that today, And you'rethinking about like a Beyonce or a
Taylor Swift or a Sabrina Carpenter ora Chapel Rowne record, you're thinking

(42:41):
about an incredible level of polish.
The first thing that surprised me waslike, this is kind of rough around the
edges from a production Perspectiveand there are a few places where it
borders on goofy Like I don't mean tobe disrespectful when I say that but
sonically there are some choices thatI would not have made as a producer So

(43:03):
like in kick your game, the scent islike, almost got a splat thing to it.
There's a video online ofMac DeMarco playing demo.
He's sitting at the computer at thepro tools rig he's pulled up some
demos and he plays one and thatdemo in that viral video sounds
like the kick your game scent.

(43:26):
Mac DeMarco pauses it and he goes,Sounds like shit, but it's fun.
Um, and then in Digging On You, there'slike, It sounds like video game music.
It's like the demobutton on a Casio synth.
But the big caveat is like you takethe song craft underneath that and
it passes what has always been thelitmus for songwriter quality to me.

(43:49):
Would this sound good with justa voice and acoustic guitar?
What have you compelled to listen to it?
And I think the answer in almost allof the cases on the record is yes.

Cliff (43:57):
you should force seal to cover all of your songs acoustically
before you commit them to record.
If he can pull it off, you're good to go.

Kyle (44:05):
Can I just say, like, we mentioned Kiss from a Rose.
I want When I Die just to berecorded on the internet somewhere.
That like I think that's one ofthe greatest songs of all time.
I love that song so much.
Honestly, just play that atmy funeral and smoke a joint.
have you seen the video wherethe guy comes home wasted
and he sings it to his cat?

(44:25):
He's on the floor, his cat'strying to get away from him.
And he sings it and it's like pretty good.
I would love everyone to getwasted or it's also in community
where they do the karaoke.
The best thing anyone could do is likeget absolutely shit house and sing
kiss from a rose off key in a backyardand get the cops called on them.
That would make me happy.
Fantastic.

(44:46):
Um, but the other thing is.
we half joked at the beginning of theepisode about women containing multitudes.
There's dimension to this record.
it's not one thing or eventwo things mashed together.
There's, there's still really isn'tanything that sounds quite like this
Venn diagram of Subtle, thoughtfulhip hop elements, good soul voices.

(45:09):
the main thing that struck me about thatwas like, it gets almost motoric in some
places, like in the can sense there's somelike minimal head nod groove, a lot of the
arrangements, not a lot, but some of thearrangements can be like kind of sparse.
Yep.
and not crazy dynamic, butin a really interesting way.

(45:31):
So you take the production and thinkabout like hip hop bars on all of them.
You take away the hardness ofwhat a vocalist would do there.
A Nas, a Fife Dog, a Busta Rhymes,and it gets sort of hypnotic.
So like I was listening to case of thefake people with the OJ's backstabbers
interpolation and thinking aboutthe softness of the vocals with that

(45:53):
sort of rolling groove and was like.
I can't think of anything else thatachieves a sort of like Fela, Afrobeat,
Hypnotic thing, but it's also a pop,like make no mistake, it's a pop record.
So to do both those thingsis, I can't think of a single
other record that does that.
And maybe, maybe it does it to somedegree, but it doesn't, you know?

Cliff (46:17):
As usual, you just got me thinking about something while I need to talk my
shit into a microphone, so apologies.
Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense.
one of the things we might talk aboutlater that we like to do sometimes
to bust things out is like listen tothese albums in unexpected contexts.
So, this one, I noticed what you weretalking about in terms of the sparse

(46:39):
recording because I played it at a Lowvolume while I was doing something else
And realized that the beat was harder tokeep up with in a lot of situations than
I kind of expected And it was becauseit didn't come along with the really
dense heavy Beat level production that weusually have now It wasn't like rattling

(46:59):
my headphones every time an 808 hit.
It's just A little bit morelike a light kick drum.
Yeah.
And especially if you don't have itactively turned up, EQ'd, something like
that it actually feels pretty light.
And yeah, that I noticed, I wouldn'thave described it the same way, but
notice something similar to you.

Kyle (47:18):
Mean, I think it's another place.
There's definitely a Princeinfluence because I don't
necessarily listen to Prince forthe way those songs were recorded.
Or produce, but the songs areso good that some of the, of the
moment production choices are reallylike risk, you know, like trying
to forge new territory sonically.

(47:41):
I don't know, I think by like tryingto make a, Timeless, objectively
best sounding ever record.
You sacrifice uniqueness, you know,it makes it a little more medical

Cliff (47:53):
commit too hard to the moment and the way the moment sounds.

Kyle (47:56):
Yeah.

Cliff (47:57):
Yeah.

Kyle (47:57):
Yeah.
Or the opposite trying to make athing that doesn't sound like it
was made in 85 or whatever, and.
It's hermetically sealedand you can't place it.
This is right smack in betweenthe two, it, forges new territory.
It doesn't cash in on trends.
And as a result, some of it readsa little weird 30 years on, but

(48:21):
it's like, I wouldn't change it.
Cause it would it makes it what it is.
What about you?
What, surprised you?

Cliff (48:27):
I had surprises that made me smile to myself while I was listening.
And then surprises that were lessgoofy, uh, and more serious, I guess.
Why not?
I'll just talk about it likeI'm a goofy ass white guy.
Oh!
There's Fivetog!
Right at the beginning.
Like, just like, oh, where's that voice?
I Placed got it.

(48:49):
Okay, I mean just being honest,that's probably not a connection.
I immediately Recognized the first timeI listened to this record when I was
a child presumably at a sparkles doingsome sort of skating Around in a circle.
I don't know But I wouldn't have clockedthat necessarily And also just to kind

(49:10):
of like jump and book in this thing.
I mean, you know Maybe I would havedone this back in the day, but you know,
immediately you clock three stacks at theend, which, spoiler alert, there he is.
We'll talk some more about that.
Oh, you

Kyle (49:22):
mean Dre from Outkast,

Cliff (49:23):
as he's

Kyle (49:24):
credited?

Cliff (49:25):
Andre, yes.

Kyle (49:27):
Oh, yeah.

Cliff (49:28):
So, you've got immediately your book ending a really important record.
That is, not just ostensibly, butclearly and deliberately about female
empowerment, about the literal, specificthree people that are in this record and
yet you've got the current face of themoment and then what would become a new
face of hip hop immediately afterwards,just pleasantly surrounding you inside

(49:52):
of your album, not Showing you up,not taking over, not doing all the
singles, just literally five dog on anintro, three sax on a verse at the end.
And like just, clocking thosethings in that moment and having
the delight of just like, God, Ihope everybody had fun doing this.
I love so much of what came out of justthese people that I immediately recognize.

(50:16):
And so it's sort of.
In a goofy sense just occurred to me howenjoyable it is to be able to understand
references so quickly like the payoff issupposed to be if you read all the comics
and then watch marvel shit in the senseof like oh I understood that reference and
it's funny That's cool to be able to do inmusic and it was cool to do here in a way

(50:37):
that I couldn't have done before I becamean adult who spent a lot of time trying
to get better at listening to music.
So as always, I appreciate thatparticular bit and it just sort
of stood out and delighted me.
But then even in between those, likeI would have moments like, Again,
if I was your girlfriend came on andnow, nowadays, immediately I clock it.

(50:59):
Oh, print song.
That's why the bass sounds like this.
That's why the group, like, that'swhy this exact rhythm is working.
That's why the bass is not doing too much.
And yet sounds like it's doingexactly what it's supposed to do
in a way that none of the othersongs up until now were doing.
Which didn't mean any of them soundedbad, just immediately recognizable

(51:21):
as something really specific.
And that we usually get with hip hop, thelike, here's where the sample comes from.
And you can sort of take yourself downdifferent roads, like, this felt more
like bringing guests out on stage.
Like this was like J Cole showing up atone music fest last year and just like,
Oh, well, everyone knows who that is now.

(51:43):
now I see her now he's gone.
And the obviousness of it made itfeel so important all of a sudden.
Yeah.
Like the star studded cast ofthe thing, um, really stood out
to me, made me appreciate it.
And then that was what really startedexciting me in a genuine way about like,
oh, this is gonna be one of those recordswhere I just need to write down everything

(52:06):
I think about as it comes to me.
I need to take notes, Ineed to make an outline.
I need to.
Ask an AI a question.
I need to Google whatever man,like anything and everything is now
interesting to me about this and itput me in that mood really quickly.
And it's, I mean, it's hard to do that forme these days, at least so immediately.

(52:28):
So that surprised me.
And then.
counterpoints or, uh, I guess, uh,or two things that sort of stand in
opposition of each other, almost likeon one hand, the red light special
guitar solo just hit me in a totallyfresh way than I'd ever had before.
Yeah.
I mean, I've heard the song.
No, I didn't play it a lot whenI lived in my mama's house.

(52:50):
Cause for a lot of reasonsbut You know now okay.
Yeah, i've heard a ton.
It's recognizable.
A lot of people like it the guitar solowas Tasteful in a way that I really
loved and that I appreciated in a new wayUh and learned a little bit more about
dwight sills the prolific r& b sessionguitarist who played that solo because
then I got really curious About it.

(53:10):
Because, guitar is a thing I know a littlebit about, and I can try to recognize
the sound from what I'm hearing, butthat one eluded me, so I got curious.
On the other hand, just, heh heh,straightforward by the time I got
to Sexy Interlude, I rememberedwhy I fucking hated all skits.
Uh, so just sort of being honest about,uh, I was really, really enjoying it and

(53:33):
I went back to really, really enjoyingit shortly after that but there's
nothing wrong with just saying, I didn'twant to hear a toilet flush just now.
Thank you.
It's a funny joke.
What

Kyle (53:47):
do you mean you didn't like wear my panties on the left below?
What, once again, you hit a handfulof really interesting things for me.
I will say as a counterpointto your bit about skits.
While the crazy sexy cool interlude isan automatic skip for me and not just
because of the yikes Diddy appeared part.
That interlude is right on the tightropeof swaggy and corny, you know, they do

(54:11):
it with confidence They pull it off, butI still hate it Um, but it's not for me.
So like fine whatever it's of the moment.
It's like it's a confidence swag thing.
Cool.
Great skip
The intro lude and the intermissionlude I thought of As almost Sonic
branding because they do the crazy,sexy, cool thing, like underneath.

(54:33):
And you kind of lose it a bit in, withFife and the star power of Fife in the
intro, but then when they come backto Interlude and it's like a palette
cleanser, is You Interesting to me thatthey do that, but specifically it reminds
me of the lost art of the like classicalbum interlude where you just have a

(54:54):
rough idea and you like the vibe andyou don't want it to stay a demo and
flush it out into a song years later.
You're like, well, we'll just fade ina minute of it and then have it be.
A thing between two intense songs,like nobody did that better than
Sabbath for my money, right?
So i'd put an in league with that orlike the title track from pet sounds Or
radiohead occasionally did stuff likethat Uh wild honey pie by the beatles

(55:19):
is an example you mentioned pod earlierin the season like I thought of checkin
levels by pod, you know what I mean?
Like that's a lost art.
That's a thing.
All right.
I'm with you, especially in the streamingera where it's like, let me I put as many
things out as I possibly can on a release.
It is kind of surprisingthat that's not a thing.

(55:41):
And maybe it is.
And I'm just like, it's aweird anti confirmation bias,
but I do really like that.
And to use an outcast example,another name that I hate saying out
loud, club donkey ass that interludeon, uh, on Southern Playalistic.
there's like an 808 Miami bass thingplaying in the background and I've

(56:06):
tried for years to find out what thatis and there's conflicting reports
of what is actually playing, insidethe club as environmental noise.
so anyway, it has a, it is a point ofinterest for me, uh, but also the sexy
interlude musically reminds me of the,after the dance instrumental on, I want
you musically, they, they sound similar.

(56:28):
So if you can like strip backthe dialogue part in your mind,
another version of Cliff rids thelyrics, there is some value there.
couple of other things.
you know, you mentioned the star powerof it all, like I specifically zoomed
mentally in on the hip hop cred.
Their first appearance as a group,their first like big interview
was on yo MTV wraps in 92 withEd lover and not producer Dr.

(56:53):
Dre.
So like they've always had a footin that world and respect in that
world and like Left Eye was a reallyunderrated MC in terms of her cadences
and like original voicing and surprisingthat she's not on more lists and
that's probably just because shedoesn't have that much discography.

(57:13):
But.
Right off rip, you got Fifeinterpolating two of his own songs,
like calling on his own greatest said.
So it really is to your point,like pulling him out on stage
to, Hey, look, it's five.
When the, when Busta Rhymes appearslater on the record, my first thought
was like, what the fuck is he doing?
Like, what is he going for here?

(57:34):
What's the point of this?
Cause he's not.
He's like doing like slam poetry.
He's kind of flirting.
I don't, it's a way I'venever heard Busta before.
Where I landed on all ofthat was everybody really
wants to be on this record.

Cliff (57:50):
Yeah.

Kyle (57:50):
All these dudes, it's not like, oh, thanks for the co sign, you know,
like given a dap up to the girls.
They knew the same way thatPrince knew how special this group
was and they loved their music.
I'm like, yeah, I wantto be on that record.
That would be awesome.
So I think that's like mentallywhere I've settled on it.

(58:10):
The last thing you mentioned, DwightSills, I want to point out one other
session musician story that I dug up.
On Waterfalls, the bassist, kind of ala the Prince slap bass on if I was your
girlfriend, the bassist is Mark Jefferson,who goes by went by remarkable The

(58:33):
provenance of this is unknown, but on thetalk base forum, there's a thread about
trying to find out who it was before

Cliff (58:42):
God, I miss random early internet.
Right?
Oh my God.

Kyle (58:45):
2004.
This is so 10 years after the records out.
I'll just read the quote in full.
Mark remarkable Jefferson.
He's in my motorcycle club.
He played his quote best ho on that song.
That's what he calls his white Sadowskifor because she quote brings in the money.
He's one of the greatestguys you'd ever meet.

(59:05):
He also co wrote the tedious.
Yeah.
Song by Usher.
By the way, waterfalls was improvised.
Good ear.

Cliff (59:13):
Jesus.
Well, let me give one little rabbithole that you can chase if you'd like,
because one thing I didn't mentionabout waterfalls, but now you've
brought it back up to my attention.
Obviously, I walked into thiswith a bit of outcast framing.
That is our disease and crossto bear together, me and you.
We'll probably always walk into everysituation with a little extra of that.

Kyle (59:36):
I'll never not be happy about that being our Rosetta Stone in music.
That gives us a dimension that.
The other 999 out of 1000 dudes with ourdemographics at the shows we go to will
have just a fundamentally different lens.

Cliff (59:54):
The around 3 minutes and 30 seconds in, in waterfalls.
Around the time where they used the lyric,no more lonely cries, the way that the
bass keeps going and the beat drops outreminded me so specifically of players
ball that it drove me absolutely nuts.

(01:00:15):
I had to listen to the songimmediately and all of that.
And for me, that.
This album is peppered with those justthe little like oh this oh that oh, oh,
yep Oh that reminds me of this and the waythat that gives me an appreciation for now
how that move that I otherwise associatedspecifically and only with players ball

(01:00:39):
is, Oh, that's just a move that can existin other songs that I can appreciate.
Like just those little bits and inunderstanding, you know, and maybe
it's also just a, a facet of the exacttiming of this record and how, Our age
at the time meant that we were probablyabsorbing a lot of this passively

(01:01:01):
and then only later would like putour adult brain thoughts onto it.
But yeah, that was, uh, that was broughtup specifically just so I could tell
people to go listen to Playersball.

Kyle (01:01:11):
In fairness.
Mark Jefferson, one of two bassistscredited on Southern Playalistic,
along with Preston Crump.
Even better.

Cliff (01:01:19):
Amazing.

Kyle (01:01:20):
He probably either played on Players Ball or the title track
Southern Playalistic or Funky Ride.

Cliff (01:01:27):
this was not a coy setup to you, by the way.
I did not know that.
That is very cool.
Um,

Kyle (01:01:33):
but like it was the organized noise crew that you don't get a sound
that distinctive without a core littlegroup of cats that, it's like our
muscle shoals thing almost in a way.
One of my big takeaways was, youknow, organized noise could have
been a factory for this kind of R& B.

(01:01:54):
They did hip hop, they mostly servedthemselves in the music that they made.
They only did shit with theirfriends that they wanted to do.
But they could have made Ithink a hundred waterfalls.
and it's really fascinating to me thattheir output is like relatively sparse
for the length of time that they operated.
they could have been like a muscleshawls, but I'm glad for exactly

(01:02:16):
everything that we have gotten from them.
All of it's a gift.

Cliff (01:02:22):
I'm glad they chose.
Not to chase it.
Who's the dad here?
you're rubbing off on meevery time we hang out.
It's always been me anyway.
You just have all the responsibility.
I have the weird humor.
there are plenty of segways into this,but why not use waterfalls anyway?
I think it's worth mentioning, atleast to some degree this does not

(01:02:45):
need to be a tabloid level episode,nor do we, for the most part, give.
Too many shits about people'sinterpersonal connections, but Interesting
things happened during the recordingof this record and waterfalls is one
good way to talk about it Because lefteye recorded her part of waterfalls
during a two hour break from rehab Andit is worth mentioning not just because

(01:03:10):
yes, it's Something more importantthan trivia to know that she was going
through a pretty difficult time andwas in a not great relationship during
these moments and things like that.
but
it's also just good to know why shedoesn't appear as much on this record
as she did on the previous one.
May not have been so much anintentional choice, which is part

(01:03:32):
of why I can appreciate the beautyof how great this record is.
The whole thing is about the equalcollaboration and Combination of these
three people and they had to take thatenergy and find a way to still channel it
into the art Literally without having oneof those three people around as much Uh,

(01:03:55):
and that's part of why you don't see asmuch left eye on this record which means
this opens up to me the there was a daywhere I read an article in like guitar
world or something that was like You Hewas interviewing Jimmy Page and I probably
talked about this before, but like JimmyPage for the first time ever was like, Oh
yeah, no, no, there's, there's like fiverecorded solos to stairway to heaven.

(01:04:16):
We just picked one.
And the interview was like,stop everything, forget
every question I've ever had.
There are other takes to thegreatest solo of all time.
He's just like.
Yeah, of course.
so immediately the interviewer getskind of sidetracked with like, well,
what was the, what would this mean?
And so similarly, like this gives a funlittle thought exercise to the thing

(01:04:37):
of like, it's this great of a record.
Would it have been better?
Would have been worse.
How different would it be?
Would it be more hip hop?
Would there be more funkand organized noise if left?
I had more literal presence on the recordor was this interesting coincidence of
sorts that produce something that maynot have ever come out of them otherwise.

(01:04:58):
And we get this cool snapshot.
Like I love the kind of hypotheticals ofWhat those different decisions meant and
how they played out and how you can tracethose to every individual song and there's
so much story here without just havingto be like Yeah, her and andre reisen
had a bad relationship and she burneddown his house Like okay That is true.

(01:05:22):
There's a lot of details.
She burned his

Kyle (01:05:23):
shoes.
The house just came with it.
Fair point.

Cliff (01:05:25):
Well, okay.
That's a, yes.
That's the, that whole premiseof, the headline of the detail is
probably not the story that you wantto know about so you can go further.
You've got plenty of that here if you areinto everyone's interpersonal details.

Kyle (01:05:40):
Schrodinger's crazy sexy cool.
Good grief.
Yeah.
But.
My version of that iswhat would the third.
Skinnered album with Steve Gainesand the band have sounded like
if there had been no plane crash.
I think about like what what?
1982 Leonard Skinner would have been likeI think about it all the time I listen to
the solo Steve Gaines stuff and I'm justlike man with it They would have been

(01:06:01):
the greatest country band of all time.
But now I just have to listen to whatthe live rips of what Sturgill Simpson
is doing right now to get anywhere close.
You don't like the LeonardSkinner Christmas albums
they're putting out these days?
No, the pro racism Leonard Skinner.
No, no, no, no.

(01:06:22):
Love, love my younger brothers, would notwant them to take over the band that is
my legacy, my very specific headspace.
but they also Recorded a lotof this record separately.
It wasn't just left eye.
They talked about how a lot ofstuff was kind of done in parallel.
They ma shuggered it.
They ma shuggered it which belies Whatyou know one of my like track by track?

(01:06:44):
Insights and I think they talked aboutthis too is how they finally like
cracked the code on blending theirvoices and their dynamics And that
seems like they would have only beenable to do that live in a room Hashing
it out together instead of stacking.
We talked about this with CocteauTwins, but that was like their,
what, seventh or eighth record.
And they'd honed the thing live.

(01:07:06):
And this is their second record.
They've been a group for three years.
They're very young too.
So there's something really astounding intheir ability to To, one, find something
really cohesive, and two, not be takenadvantage of and turned into something
they didn't want to be by having allof that daylight between themselves.

(01:07:30):
Kind of blows my mind.

Cliff (01:07:31):
It was helpful to me to think about as kind of supporting thought
or evidence for this idea of womencontaining multitudes and them being
these three mixes of a Venn diagram ofcrazy, sexy, cool, and that whole concept.
They had just on the previousrecord, which I will not say

(01:07:52):
out loud again, you're welcome.
Um, coming out of that record waslike, you know, Ain't Too Proud to
Bag was on there and they had alreadycreated An interesting moment out of
the forthrightness of what they werediscussing and You know speaking of
surprises It was really enlighteningto go back and in listening to the

(01:08:18):
interviews, especially Here again inreal time what the AIDS crisis wrought.
Oh, yeah and how I Again, once again, uh,uh, uh, likely a factor of our literal
time and space in relationship to thecultural moment that this was happening.
We were probably too young to pickup at that time, they were being
very, very direct about like,hey, Put on a condom, it's unsafe.

(01:08:43):
And like the whole ain't too proud tobeg thing was them already experiencing
a bit of criticism about being forthrightas females, just literally in a song
about saying, it's nothing wrong withasking for what you want, it's not really
complicated, but it's what a snapshotin time because Reading about how

(01:09:07):
people responded to that song and thenlooking at them in the video was like,
so are we talking about the same thing?
You guys are upset about this video?
They're in like ArsenioHall looking outfits, right?
With like the cool like jesterhats and like, they look
quintessentially early 90s.
But.
In my modern brain, um, nothing about thiseven begins, this could be a children's

(01:09:31):
program, like this doesn't even begin totouch the level of explicit sexuality that
we would later, you know, be totally fine

Kyle (01:09:40):
to absorb.
And I would borderline useit to have the sex talk with

Cliff (01:09:43):
my kid.
And now to be fair, you know,that, that lasted one album, red
light district cause on this album.
And so was the musicvideo that came from it.
it's not so much whether one was right orwrong, but more to just say, like, they
already had some momentum in terms of,like, they weren't just trying to prove a

(01:10:06):
new point, they were trying to prove moreof a point that they were already on track
to do and show culturally, especially,with not just generic female empowerment,
but, like, literal female empowerment.
Personal empowerment.
Yeah, you can be whoever you wantto be you can exist However, you
want to exist with other peopleyou should protect yourself From

(01:10:29):
bad things that can happen to you.
You should make this choice,you know another thing.
We'll come back to you I mean that Theywere helping pioneer and drive some
of that conversation forward in thecultures that they were a part of, but way

Kyle (01:10:44):
before it was cool or safer.
Okay,

Cliff (01:10:46):
exactly.
But even on this record on that threestacks verse, he calmly drops a safe sex,
little public PSA type just realizingit in the moment that no, we, Nowadays,
we might feel like we've moved past whatthey were in the middle of in that moment.

(01:11:07):
And it is still powerful to me to seepeople using music as a vehicle to
say, You, your body, is important.
You have a choice.
You should, even inside of hip hop,even in the 90s, which would be
the same genre of music in the sametime, that would get all people up in

(01:11:28):
arms about it being violent and, uh,poor influence and everything else.
Here they are, plain as day.
Just speaking directly to you.
Hi.
Yeah, we're we're reinventing thecombination of r& b and hip hop and also
Put on a rubber dude, like oh, okay Like Iit just it really reinvigorated how much I

(01:11:51):
appreciate when artists give a fuck aboutwhat they're doing Yeah, and commit to it.
Yeah, totally Even beyond just the, Iwant the music itself to sound cool.
No, I am taking responsibilityfor my position as a human being.
Who's in front of other people.
I'm going to save somelives while I'm doing it.
Man,

Kyle (01:12:11):
They took seriously the responsibility of like, I want you to
see if you look like us we want youto see the best version of yourself in
what we are doing or new possibilities,you know, something you hadn't
considered before I also want to.
inner two quotes into thecongressional record that support
what you say like Clover Hopein the Pitchfork Review totally

(01:12:32):
reinforced exactly what you just said.
She said, The album's songsemphasize not just sex but
pleasure in all its many forms.
It's a liberating, multifacetedview that suggests sexy doesn't have
to be raunchy or explicit alone.
It can manifest itself in the movementof a serpentine saxophone, whispers
simply, Yes, it's me again, at thebeginning of a creep like it's foreplay.

(01:12:56):
So not just Raunchy or Explicit alone,that's not to say it can't be but I do
think that by contrast, you listen toTrina or you listen to Megan Thee Stallion
or Cardi B now, this walk so they couldfly, they would never do that, but I think
they would also just say like, Great.
You go girl.
That's not for me.

(01:13:17):
And in that regard, Chili saidwe were more than R and B.
We were hip hop and pop as well.
As far as R and B is concerned.
Now, I feel what's missingis the lyrical content.
You have people that are singing,but it's missing the stories.
When I think of Jodeci's albums,like forever, my lady, we don't
have records like that anymore.
I don't know what the date of this was.

(01:13:38):
And boys to men songs like endof the road or bended knee, like
really songs that people wantto hear at their wedding songs.
It could be you and your booze record.
Now you're just talkingabout beating it up.
What the hell are yousupposed to be beating up?
I know you're not talking about my vaginabecause now you're not going to get it.
Show parentheses chuckles.
There's no more foreplay,no more courting, no dating.

(01:13:59):
It's straight to the bed.
So like.
Man, I really

Cliff (01:14:02):
enjoyed

Kyle (01:14:02):
that.
That's a pretty, that's apretty rich thing to say.
Yeah.
When red light special gets it right upto the line, but Your honor speaks to
precision, and I really like when I'mthinking about bands and artists thinking
about the conversations they had about thedo's and don'ts, you know, the core values
or whatever of this artistic project.

(01:14:25):
And, Few, if any artists I can point toand say, Oh, they had those conversations.
Like they thought about that shit.
I think about like Mastodon having thesame logo, uh, the same sort of like
font and aesthetic on every album.
And they had to make that choiceearly when they were a totally
different band than they are now.

(01:14:45):
But it's created a world to liveinside as a fan of that band.
And you kind of have that withthe choices TLC is made here too.
Which is like, that inspiresme so much as a creative.

Cliff (01:14:57):
That's a lot of inspiration here for sure.
Sorry, I'm just playing back,um, the quote that you just said.
I'm just really enjoying that.
But no, great quote and greatto be aligned and see that.
It doesn't matter if an artisthits the bullseye in your, the
non artist's, personal opinion.

(01:15:19):
But it's helpful when you can go,But I know what you're shooting at.
I can see that target andthat makes sense to me.
you can align yourself to thevision of that sort of thing.
Uh, and it can pump you up.

Kyle (01:15:30):
One more chilly quote, speaking of knowing what you're shooting at.
Does they

Cliff (01:15:34):
contain the word vagina?

Kyle (01:15:35):
It doesn't, sorry.
Prettier.
I can like say it at random in themiddle of the sentence, but it won't,
please don't, it won't make sensethat this is the end of my value.
Yeah.
Yeah.
, this is their sophomore album and there'sno sophomore slump anywhere in sight.
And they also knew that was goingto happen because they were so, they
had such a sureness about what theyhad decided, the choices they'd made.

(01:15:57):
And how it had landed.
Chili said, making thealbum was a lot of fun.
We didn't feel the pressureof the second album.
Jinx.
We were just excited to be in thestudio coming up with new material.
And I remember when we were done,a guy at Arista records said, it's
a great album and you guys willprobably sell a couple of million.
We were like a couple of million, bitch.
We're going to sell 5 million.
At least she didn't say bitch.
I inserted that, but I, I hear it.

(01:16:19):
I hear the certainty underpinning.
But we weren't looking at itlike we think we're great.
We just knew it was special.
It was one of those albums whereyou didn't want to skip to the next
song, you know, skits notwithstandingcliff clip would say, uh, it's
rare to have a project like that.
And they knew like they had theprescience ahead of the album.

(01:16:40):
there's almost no artistthat knows ahead of it.
Like this is going to be, youcan say, I hope, I think, These
songs feel like they have a magic.

Cliff (01:16:51):
Last person to take a swing at that was Katy fucking Perry.
So let's see how thatplayed out for her in 2024.
Huh?
You guys are gonna love this.
Oh, you don't

Kyle (01:17:00):
women aren't you glad to be alive?
Uh, and then she immediatelydid the Tommy Wiseau.
No, it was parody Thank you all for comingto my comedy movie Katy Perry's the room

Cliff (01:17:14):
she deserved all of that.
So now i'm gonna give anUnusually direct prompt to you.
I would love for you to justtake me through What is most
interesting about the music here?
I can tell you some things like we'vealready kind of hinted at about like It
inspired me to think about other thingsbut like I feel like you've really drawn

(01:17:37):
out a lot of Particular insights, whetherit's samples, things to notice, whatever.
And this is always your wheelhouseanyway, and I'd just love for you
to just crank on this for a minute.

Kyle (01:17:48):
Yeah.
real quick speed round.
you mentioned samples.
There's not so much of that, maybewith the exception of the slick
Rick bit at the beginning of creepas there is like interpretation.
I got that luxury guy and hispodcast interpolation in my head.
shout out to our buddy, John Asante, whoworks as a producer on that podcast now.

(01:18:08):
Amazing.
What a guy.
So there's the OJ's interpolation.
There's Mr.
Big stuff interpolated on switch.
Fife, as we mentioned,interpolates himself on the intro.
It's a really coolanthropological document.
I would include the Prince cover in there.
that like it's so well executed andadds so much to the record that it is

(01:18:31):
a great rabbit hole for younger fans ofTLC to then go back to Prince and for
older fans to know where to put TLC inthe pantheon of classic album makers.
that song obviously is from sign ofthe times, which many would argue is
like even more than purple rain, thedefinitive Prince studio document.
a few other momentsworth calling out creep.

(01:18:52):
Is one of the coolest fuckingsongs Of all time full stop.
I would argue with anyone in anybar in any city on planet earth
about that They absolutely nail it.
Vibe, structure, sonics, message.
It is iconic from the very first hornsAnd I just want to mention that the
90s gave us two creeps both on thesame level So it's like choose your

(01:19:15):
fighter, which creep is your horoscope?
Absolutely incredible song.
Put it on the golden recordand shoot it into space.
Every alien ever should hear it.
Vocals are such anunderrated aspect of this.
They talk about their differentboy, like, you know, chilly, sultry
voice, T Boz's cigarette smokevocals, and Lisa's rap plus whatever.

(01:19:38):
But like you can use waterfallsas really the sort of like
golden, North star or whatever.

Cliff (01:19:44):
How nice for us to be able to use like the big song off of it
as the actual kind of Rosetta stone.
If we want to, for the record, itdoesn't usually work out that way.
It's nice here.

Kyle (01:19:54):
Organized noise, top flight, like heavy message material.
They talk about HIV, but theydo the three letters thing.
It's like no advertiser has ever come upwith an ad campaign that smart with like
the implication Dennis Reynolds voiceYeah, I mean that, that's a brilliant
pop song, a smart people's pop song.

(01:20:16):
They told the BBC it's the firsttime they felt like they cracked
the code of how their voices mesh.
Um, but you can also, in Red LightSpecial the chorus is really syrupy.
It's a very doo wop y style blending.
and I like try to put the videoout of my mind a little bit.
And if you heard it out of thatcontext, you can see them four tops

(01:20:38):
or Manhattan style snapping and, andspinning at their mics and then coming
together to harmonize on the one mic.
For the chorus,

Cliff (01:20:47):
um,

Kyle (01:20:48):
I'm

Cliff (01:20:48):
thinking about how that would have been an awesome

Kyle (01:20:50):
alternate music video, right?
They get at it a little and like creepthey recorded three different videos
four So there was an iterativenessto their process and they knew
when they hadn't nailed it yet.
They talk about that I think inthe VH1 video that you sent me.
It was a direct interview with them.
Like, Oh, that's interesting.
That speaks to their headspace.

(01:21:12):
I would never recommend that youwaste 20 gallons of water to get, do
an AI version of red light specialin the style of the Manhattans.
Um, but you could easily picturelike it would just, it would crush
as of an OG Philly soul song.
And then my personal favoriteexample vocally is in Take Our

(01:21:33):
Time, there's a chorus harmony.
That's really tight and delightful.
And then there's Chili's runs around it.
So at around a minute 25, there'sa low one and then a high one.
And the tempo of that song mixed with theserpeness of the harmonies, like stretches
the space time continuum musically so muchthat it borders on psychedelic, It's kind

(01:21:58):
of a masterclass and it's it's very likeeverything on the record is not Trying
too hard the rough edges and the whatever.
So there's a handful of moments likethe vocals are so Underrated not under
delivered like they almost strike me asoccasionally a little out of tune but
they're really good, it's just really realand authentic and good then the, the last

(01:22:21):
thing that I'll say is let's do it again.
Would also, I mentioned, I want youearlier with the, after the dance
instrumental on the interlude.
Let's do it again.
I think if you stripped back the hiphopiness of the beat programming, let's
do it again with sound like it fits on.
I want you.
And, and really to me, the wholeB side of the record where it is

(01:22:42):
like more overtly sexy feels like.
I want you.
100%.
For the 90s.
And I've never seen anybody make thatconnection before, but it's so It's so
there and similarly, they're both gettingat dimensionality of like adult desire
and how it's real and good and meaningful.

(01:23:02):
And we shouldn't be ashamedof the dimensions of it.
And they're like role modeling, but it'sokay to feel the feelings that you do.
And actually like, that's a beautifulway to connect and express yourself.
so yes, it's a, yeah.
It's a decade defining and genrebusting record, but it's also like
an all time soul document too.
That's really like buried in the details.

(01:23:25):
But I think you can make someof those other connections.
the last little thing is music videosactually really help, and we hit a dearth.
Kind of after this period and end ofthe millennium and we're only just now
coming back to investment in the art form.
now, thanks to 10 or 15 years of research.
YouTube.

(01:23:46):
But like, part of the reason thesesingles were as successful as they
were was they had really iconic musicvideos on this record and on Fan Mail.
Waterfalls, The where they turn intoTerminator liquid looks cheesy now,
but it was like, truly revolutionary.
And it also tells the story thatthey're trying to tell which is very,

(01:24:09):
to me, the, like, the way that peoplefade out in that video is akin to last
episode we were talking about the fadeout of the voice of the character in
Sing About Me, I'm Dying of Thirst.
So they're kind of doing thesame thing, but picture of
Sing I'm Dying of Thirst was.
the biggest song of the year withthat heaviness of subject matter, and

(01:24:31):
that, is a feather in the cap of TLC'sartistic brilliance and transcendence.

Cliff (01:24:37):
Amazing.

Kyle (01:24:38):
And the album cover!
There was a Vibe magazine coverwhere they dressed as firemen L O L.
Right.
Some A& R fuck thought they were beingclever and, and they just rolled with
it because they thought the outfitslooked dope and they were right.
I mean, yeah.
and then the story overly centeredon the trauma and whatever, but
wound up making some good points.

(01:24:59):
But also the album cover.
Art directed by Chris Stern, who was kindof, he, he wound up doing a lot of iconic
stuff for for Arista Artist and for Ipull at my collar nervously, bad boy, um,
the cover where their faces are read islike, I don't think it's hyperbolic to
say it's like Abbey Road level, iconic,nevermind level, iconic, replicated

(01:25:25):
for Halloweens and Instagram homagesand whatever, uh, at scale 30 years on.
So like, every bit of it.
And, and their fashion too.
They use fashion, to emphasize their.
Like it was an art form in and ofitself in their videos and their live
performances, but also to your pointabout the condoms It was like it was their

(01:25:49):
way of being woke in a cheeky way Like

Cliff (01:25:51):
yeah, they

Kyle (01:25:52):
make me think of Viagra boys in the way that they're subversive with
making really good deeply earnestpoints About the ills of the human
condition and I can't believe thatI'm getting to compare those two.
No totally but every detail adds tothe richness of the TLC experience.

Cliff (01:26:12):
I'll just add to that point because it was also one that came up for me.
if you, listener, if you feel like therehasn't been a weird tonal shift in the
concept of pointing at someone and callingthem woke in a negative way, just consider
what the equivalent of that would havebeen In response to what's being said

(01:26:32):
on this record and in these moments oflet's protect ourselves from disease.
Let's have a good timeand enjoy ourselves.
Here's the thing you need to do.
Imagine pointing at these people andbeing like, you know what I'm going to do?
I'm not going to wear one.
Because that's a stupid idea.
And I'm going to dox your home address.

(01:26:55):
Like, okay.
Anyway, sorry.
Now I'm picturing

Kyle (01:26:59):
like the vent staples mom reading the lyric, but it's like a trad
wife on Tik TOK being like, they'resaying to use condoms, so we can't
do our God given thing to make babies

Cliff (01:27:13):
to
I don't know.
It was pretty good.
You should get on Tik TOK.
I liked it.
Thanks for that quick digression.
It's always worth pointing that out.
And if we can pull any of youout of the weird ether and back
into normal lines of thinking andappreciating other people, Send this

Kyle (01:27:31):
episode to your dad.

Cliff (01:27:34):
We'll get him with all the That'll teach

Kyle (01:27:36):
him.

Cliff (01:27:37):
Dad, listen to this record about, uh, Black women.
So as we toss that haphazardly tothe side quickly, I'd love to just
mention, I have really pepperedthe episode with this so far.
But just a couple of quick aspects ofthe kind of active listening session
that I went on which for anyonethat's not connecting with this in

(01:28:01):
the moment, just like if you're thetype of person who ever gets, like,
very, very interested in a thing forperiods of time, this is immediately
gonna kind of make sense to you.
If you're not, just try to imaginethat, you know, you're watching a TV
show, a movie, or something like that,and instead of giving a shit about the
movie, Everything the movie makes youthink about just gonna look up on your

(01:28:24):
phone as a way to think about the thingwithout having to like put all of your
attention directly on the piece of art.
There's a lot of

Kyle (01:28:32):
Martin Scorsese here you say about.

Cliff (01:28:34):
So like one of them would be, uh, and if there's another big meta
pulling people out of the, uh, stupidgroup collective into something good.
Amongst a lot of other options thisis a really good way to give you a
nice heya antidote to what you mightthink of outcast as And yeah, I'm

(01:28:56):
like, I am talking about thinkingabout Outkast through listening
to a TLC record and appreciatingboth of them at the same time.

Kyle (01:29:04):
If that's your window on Outkast, I'm so sorry.
What?
If that's your window on Outkast, ifthat's your frame of reference for
what they mean and what they did,may God have mercy on your soul.

Cliff (01:29:15):
I feel the same, but I also don't know.

Kyle (01:29:18):
Can't make a value judgment.
Well,

Cliff (01:29:20):
I recognize that like, Hey, y'all was like a, of a level of recognizability
that is difficult to describe.
Yeah.

Kyle (01:29:30):
Order of magnitude larger.

Cliff (01:29:31):
And if that is In actual sincerity.
We are looking directly intothe camera in this moment.
Okay, if that is sincerely yourentrance to outcasts, we welcome you.
Okay, that's betterthan not caring at all.

Kyle (01:29:42):
Keep going.

Cliff (01:29:43):
Yeah, but but with so much of what's embedded in outcasts, organized
noise, goody mob, dungeon family,everything else that we love so much of.
I mean, I can literally reach out andtouch a little figurine of, you know,
Outcast that's sitting right hereon my desk where they're sitting and
literally two dope boys in a Cadillac.
Yeah.

Kyle (01:30:04):
Thanks Elena Braves.

Cliff (01:30:06):
I had to hunt that guy down on eBay.
you know, outcast was thefirst hip hop act on the face.
So label mates here, as we mentionedearlier And they're, you know,
the group Outkast was making theirfirst appearance on a remix of
TLC's What About Your Friends.
And then we mentioned, uh, you know,a three sax verse at the end of this

(01:30:27):
record which also, you know, we, wementioned one of the funny moments
in time uh, another that caughtme that I had never caught before.
It's like, Oh, he just madefun of Michael Jackson.
Oh, shit.
Oh, okay.
Called shot real early in your career.
Fun stuff.
Calling Michael Jackson asellout is definitely a move.
But whether it is listening for thefunk in the music, whether it is getting

(01:30:51):
interested in three sacks and tracing whatAndre 3000 did from that moment on, uh,
and hopefully winding your way all the wayover to the thing he's doing nowadays, the

Kyle (01:31:01):
red light special, the new blue sun,

Cliff (01:31:05):
we contain multitudes, baby.
Yeah.
That is just one of many littlelike, okay, this is going
to be my focus right now.
I want to learn more andmore and more about this.
What does this make me think of?
Let me put on playersball because the base.
You know, riff and anothersong made me think of this one.
Now I'm going to listen to players balland what album was that on and who else

(01:31:26):
was, Oh, and what's happening here.
And Oh, there's a player's ball reprise.
And like, okay, now I'm listening toSouthern playlistic, you are going in
directions that are just making you asmarter, more interesting person with
a more full understanding of not justhip hop, but like the very particular
form of hip hop that came from part ofthis weird country that we love so much.

(01:31:51):
And that's just one of the weird little

Kyle (01:31:53):
asides that you could go on.
Please let Terminal Velocity for ThatRabbit Hole be spodeodydocalicious.

Cliff (01:31:59):
As it should be.
Speaking of horns, which youhad already mentioned, because
you're a sucker for those.
But then another, another example thatcould go in a totally different direction.
Again, these are just like singularmoments that I had listening.
But the, on intermission lude,the guitar there, and we're
going to insert this sample.

(01:32:19):
And then if you haven't listenedto it soon, we'll, we will
listen to it together soon.
but the guitar on intermissionlude immediately reminded me.
Of Crown on the Ground bySleighbells, which took me in
the like, Oh, wait a minute.
Is there Hyperpop buried in here?
In And first of all, no, no,generally speaking, those two

(01:32:41):
things are kind of too far apart.
However as is the kind of metatheme of this podcast, like

Kyle (01:32:47):
the two colors of the same reversible shirt,

Cliff (01:32:50):
I'm with you, I'm with you because what I kind of abstracted from there is
like, okay, we're not going to be able todraw a direct line, but I'm curious now.
So.
What about just bending and blendingdifferent things when new little sub
genres are being created and spawned off?
Because Hyperpop becomes sort of likea intentionally dense concentration

(01:33:12):
of things that were, you know,developed over time and blended into
one another and mixed with each other.
And so similarly on CrazySexyCoolthey're mixing and blending,
sounds like we talked about.
They're mixing genres together andWithout having to say too much about it,
they're blending traditional gender roles.

(01:33:34):
They're, shifting things around andreorienting them in a bunch of different
ways to make interesting sounding musicthat we hadn't heard before this moment.
And so similarly, you know, one thing welike to talk about anyway is, and we've
talked about here, like kind of going,Backwards or forwards in time, if you
want to go backwards, uh, even thoughit wouldn't be necessarily backwards too

(01:33:57):
much in terms of time, like we talkedabout Cocteau Twins recently who in
their own way were bending and blendinga whole lot of different things all
together to make an entirely differentsound and in their case, yeah, it's
sort of more a dense expression of thegenres that they were mashing together.

(01:34:17):
But then, uh, in another hand, I triedto think about, okay, well, If I went
forward and tried to take what I'mthinking about here in terms of this,
literally just this guitar remindedme of Sleigh Bells, what else am I
hearing that reminds me of Hyperpop?
And all of a sudden I could hear anythingfrom, and this will be a very fun

(01:34:39):
collection of four artists that I'm goingto name, I could hear anything from Charli
XCX to 100 gecs to The Armed To Frontierer

Kyle (01:34:48):
Oh totally.

Cliff (01:34:49):
not to send you too far down another side, but like, you
know, Frontier is a band thateffectively tried to introduce
weird glitch into super heavy music.
And almost 98 percent of youwho are going to go stream that
now will not like me for it.
And that's okay.
But the point is like The densitywasn't the angle that, that made me
think about Hyperpop, but insteadthe, it's not even subversion.

(01:35:13):
It's like, no, we can intentionally takea bunch of different genres together.
And then like TLC did here, which wekeep talking about, like they worked with
just a whole bunch of different people.
It wasn't an intentionallysingular, singular, cohesive,
sound approach, anything.
It was, we can do all of thesethings because we're TLC.
Why the hell wouldn't, shouldn't we?

(01:35:35):
We're three people, we're different, wecan do whatever we want together, and
we'll pursue whatever feels good about it.
And that definitely feels spirituallyaligned to me, to the type of artist
that would come later and would do thingslike hyperpop, or other just really
weird forms of music, where basically thereasoning for it is because we did it.
And doesn't it sound pretty cool?

Kyle (01:35:55):
Yeah.

Cliff (01:35:56):
Oh,
yeah, it does, actually.

Kyle (01:35:58):
Fife on the intro that sounds like the predecessor to the like almost
industrial ness of No Scrubs remindsme of the feeling of Charlie XCX's 365,
where it's like She's doing Yeezus.
She's doing death grips on this.
Yep.
That's Insane, and I love it somuch because it's a sensation.

(01:36:20):
I didn't expect and I've never felt before

Cliff (01:36:22):
Yeah,

Kyle (01:36:23):
and it it's like capital a art in that sense like My wife
showed me the painter Titus who islike reimagining Renaissance art,
and centering black people in it.
And there's so much modern art.
Like we, we went to the Brooklyn museumthis summer and there's all these

(01:36:44):
modern expressions where you're like,I'm seeing a combination of elements
I have never seen before and never ina billion years and infinite chances
could I have arrived at this combinationof and what it's trying to say to me.
So, I would use Hyperpop as thewrapper word, container word,

(01:37:05):
around recontextualization ofnovel elements in a really, really,
really modern, right now way.
Done with the quality to give it theability to sustain over years and decades.
Yep.

Cliff (01:37:19):
Yeah.
I'm so glad you said that, but like,that's the kind of defining bit of it
that stood out to me, like in the vein ofhyper pop that we're talking about, those
songs will always be able to be played.
They're not timeless specifically.
They're not timeless songs.
They are a very specificproduct of that moment.
Because that aligns withthe aesthetic in general

Kyle (01:37:38):
pop is for consumption.
Hyper pop is for expressionusing the consumption mode
or subverting it or whatever.
Yeah.
yeah, you, you stumbled ontosomething like inadvertently
kind of profound for me there.
Thank you.

Cliff (01:37:54):
Yeah.
You and your

Kyle (01:37:55):
dumb, stupid fucking brain got a, got a good one.
Count the bucket.
I'm doing my best.

Cliff (01:38:01):
I also.
On a much simpler note, even though,that also reminded me that artists in
that vein of genre, if I can stringthat sentence together, have been
historically known as huge advocatesof The LGBTQ plus communities,
all the way through those times.

(01:38:23):
And that again reminded me thereare so many different forms of
artistic expression that whenpeople put good intention into, pay
attention to the quality of, and theyattempt to do like a coherent thing
aesthetically, that can actually,
it can give a more sincere Ironicallyto a straightforward message of support

(01:38:50):
about a thing About taking care of peopleprotecting them taking care of one another
just in the way that like one of theeasiest vibes to catch is like You go
to almost any actual punk show You'remostly going to immediately catch the vibe
of like all right if anyone fucks withanybody in here Some shit's gonna happen.
It's gonna be do you understandand everyone kind of agrees, right?

(01:39:12):
And similarly here it, thinking aboutthose artists that would come afterwards,
but then TLC, again, like, the aestheticwasn't just, I want to be known for
fashion, and I care about a thing.
It was a whole package, on purpose.
I am this person, I, this person,am telling you this thing now, and

(01:39:32):
hopefully you're hearing me, andseeing me, and feeling supported.
And encourage because I know that I'mspeaking to you and I know that you're
looking at me and like I'm dressing thisway on purpose to be cool because I want
you to think that I'm cool, not because Ineed it, but because you'll listen to me.
Yeah.
And like, they're maybe we

Kyle (01:39:50):
contain the same multitudes.
Yeah.
If that dimension is of interest, Iwould recommend somebody go on the
journey that I have been on for a whilenow of finding other Domains other
worlds where they were doing that likecreating the safety specifically house
music and before that Like disco wherethey, where they represented culture and

(01:40:15):
community and they TLC use the freight,like we want to be for the culture.
We want people to seethemselves in what we're doing.
So you can also learn quite a bitof American history by tracing
your way back through, through thatthread up to the early seventies.

Cliff (01:40:31):
We say it's all in there.
That's cause it's all in there.
Just keep looking.
So let's, let's bring thisthing home because this will
probably be the easiest part.
Honestly, let's talk about all thestuff that would not exist if it
wasn't for pretty much this recordor at the very least this artist.

Kyle (01:40:50):
Starting at the top.

Cliff (01:40:51):
Yep.
Like literally the top

Kyle (01:40:54):
there, there would be no Beyonce, Outkast, or Usher.
Period.
three of the only diamond sellingartists of the 21st century.
Period.
So like, Three of the four starsin the big dipper, so to speak.

(01:41:15):
very rarely does an artist spawnalmost single handedly one artist
of that level where you canpoint directly in the lineage.
And I don't want anybody comingon our mentions talking about the
Beatles or any shit like that.
Blocked.
Immediate, immediate, straight to jail.
I, but just like wrap your head around themagnitude of that and they directly say

(01:41:38):
like Beyonce is quoted on the record assaying there would be no Destiny's Child.
In fact, there would be nogirl groups like this without.
and then like the Spice Girls who,if you're not from America, they
are huge on this level still to thisday and are individually iconic.
would not exist without some mutualinspiration and competition from TLC.

(01:42:03):
But then, the longer tail of influenceis like name a cool R and B artist
or indie artist or somebody that youfeel like is mutating the culture
or pushing it forward in some way.
Kehlani, Cardi B.
Frank Ocean, Kiki Palmer, Solange,Rihanna, Taylor Swift, the beehive,

(01:42:27):
the Swifties, the Rihanna Navy's,whatever a Chapel Rone fan is
called, uh, , a Rod, Rodrigo Hive.
None of that exists without the like.
culture permeating world building thatthey were able to do with their fans.
I also just want to shout out Cardi B onher debut album using the line smash your

(01:42:50):
TV from Best Buy you gonna turn me intoleft eye and I wanted to read that out
loud because when I read it out loud tomyself in preparation I knew I sounded
exactly like the white lady on the episode
shout out Colin Kaepernick

Cliff (01:43:07):
that's okay you can get me on record just repeating they call me left
eye because I write Oh, that's okay.
So that's a bar.
God, that's a bar.
Oh, it is.
It is really a thing to watcha video and watch someone
say a thing that sounds cool.
And then you're like, if my mouthsaid that, that's a hard no thousand

Kyle (01:43:29):
thousand percent.

Cliff (01:43:30):
So I'm glad that I recorded that.
Oh,

Kyle (01:43:32):
also, the Literal Recording Academy has an article on their website, 10 Ways
TLC, shaped the future of R& B and theycould have just cut it off at future.
One of the 10 ways is quote, they'vecontinued to pervade pop culture.
Although their recording outputhas been relatively slim over the
last 20 years, they've remained apart of the pop culture landscape.

(01:43:52):
One of the 21st century's most streamedhits, If you've ever been in a public
place, it's assaulted your ears.
Ed Sheeran's shape of you was deemedso similar to no scrubs that the
Brit was forced to acknowledge itsinfluence in the songwriting credits.
Furthermore, Drake, Zendaya and Catronataare just a few of the contemporary names

(01:44:13):
who've either sampled or covered the triowhile rapper J Cole managed to persuade
T Boz and Chili themselves to join himin the studio on 2013's Crooked Smile.
Hard pressed to find somebody.
That is still that relevant, updatingin the cosmic consciousness today.

Cliff (01:44:31):
And those are just a handful of things.
Barely scratching the surface.
You picked from a literal listicle thatthey wrote about how important they are.
That's

Kyle (01:44:40):
just the biggest, again, the biggest names you can think of.
There's a Freddie Gibbs songthat samples TLC that I love.
I mean, it's infinitesimal.
It goes so much further, but just again,name all the biggest artists right now,
the past five or 10 years, and there'sa TLC connection for all of them.
You can't say that about very much, youknow, like only Michael Jordan influenced

(01:45:05):
LeBron James to play basketball.
Like it's sort of that level of thing.

Cliff (01:45:10):
I think we've done the best we can to mention this with
appropriate seriousness throughout.
But yeah, on top of the musical impactthat they've had, I think this, the
topic of this record, as we've talkedabout, the concept of allowing people
to contain multitudes, not attempting toput them in boxes that are pre labeled,

(01:45:32):
just so that you can make a few extrabucks a little easier, and letting
people exist how they need to exist.
There was definitely some silliness here,okay but there was also a lot of bravery
that I think we should carry forward andacknowledge because it helps us remember
that especially society, societally, westill have a tendency to find people who

(01:45:55):
are not In this order, male, white, rich.
And we like to find all the people whoaren't those three things necessarily.
And we like to put them inboxes as soon as we feel that
we have an excuse to do so.
And Left Eye was one example ofthis, who I think, even in retrospect

(01:46:15):
reading a lot of the interviews,handled it, honestly, pretty well.
With a relative amount of lightnessand ease with the sense that some
shit happened that she was a part ofsome things happened to her, but what
we actually remember about that, ifwe're lazy about it, as she would go

(01:46:35):
on to talk about, actually, in a 95interview, was that she felt like she
had earned this label as a, jealous,crazy bitch, while her ex came off clean.
there were two people involved in thisthing, but she was the crazy one, and I
think it gives us a nice little moment toremember that not only are we responsible

(01:46:59):
for the boxes that we try to put peoplein, and that we try to label them as,
and especially the way that we speakabout them after they have passed on
from Earth and society in general, um,but These people are not only containing
multitudes, but fighting a multitude ofbattles against being put in these boxes,

(01:47:20):
and records like this come from momentswhere people I mean, someone was feeling
like the world was labeling them crazy,while they were having to be in rehab,
while they were helping record an albumthat would go on to have the impact that
you just talked about, and that's not tominimize at all the struggle that must

(01:47:41):
have come from her bandmates having todeal with somebody being in rehab it's
so much that we add to people sometimes,and it's, you know, We should not make
the mistake, especially when we havemoments like this Of forgetting that we
can also use music as a lens to go backand look at human beings and go As far
as we know they did the best that theycould We can look at things and we can

(01:48:01):
say that was probably not good and wecan say, uh, you know I wouldn't do that.
That wasn't a good idea.
Maybe they're a bad person for athing or else Especially decades
down the road, look back at artists,especially as multifaceted as TLC,
with so much intention, and just Putthem in buckets or talk about it.

(01:48:21):
Like it was just another nineties hiphop record or something like that.
Always, always, always minimizesthe magic of the thing.
so fun to try to unpack this by neversaying it directly every time we have
an episode, but just do not let yourselfbecome a dumb person who experiences

(01:48:43):
music as boneheaded entertainmentthat's coming in through Streaming
towards you that you're consuming.
That's just kind of filling yourbackground or Sort of accompanying you
as you go on in life like some musicdoesn't mean anything sure But a lot of
it means a fucking lot Yeah, a lot a lotand there's so much to it and there's so

(01:49:07):
much to love about it You really don'tever have to get too caught up in well,
so and so was a part of this So I don'treally need to care about that Okay you
can do that with Chris Brown records.
That'll be the one exception that I giveyou Everything else is like you must go a
few steps into it to see the thing againto rediscover the beauty of who they were

(01:49:31):
trying to Support and encourage in howseriously they took their own fame and how
seriously they took their collaborationwith other artists and like so much beauty
came out of Something that was meant tobe this singular moment to show how people
contain multitudes and like Definitely themeta theme of our conversations always,

(01:49:54):
it's like, no, look further don't turnaway, don't squint your eyes so that
something becomes easier to look at, likego into it, look at every detail, look
at the kaleidoscope of stuff, becauseyou're going to find the connection points
that inspire you to love things, andto appreciate things, and so like, once
again, what is otherwise, a nice, classic,popular, R& B and hip hop record from

(01:50:19):
the 90s has Touch my fucking heart againin like a really specific way where it's
like man I really appreciate what thesepeople did And I appreciate that they made
this music and that they cared about whatit would actually mean Because that care
meant something that care is what createdLike you mentioned Beyonce, it's not just

(01:50:42):
TLC's happenstance of existence, it'swhat they did on purpose every day that
led to people saying, TLC made me happen.
So dig the fuck in, man.
You know, like, when you care aboutshit and you really feel aligned with
the thing that you care about, dig in.
Commit yourself to it, try to keepyourself honest keep a fire extinguisher

(01:51:04):
handy in case things get out of hand.
But otherwise, like Man, lean intothe whole thing, because you never
know when it turns out like this.
They never could havepointed at this in 1994.

Kyle (01:51:16):
You know, you use the word brave, and I actually think that's going to be
the thing that I take away from this.
I wouldn't have gotten there on myown, so I thank you, but Thinking about
we all contain so many multitudes.
I hope that is the flavor ofmultitude that you take away.
Because not only was it brave to overcomea problematic domestic situation and rehab

(01:51:41):
and Oh, by the way, the insane bankruptcystory and taking Clive Davis hostage
story that we didn't even get into.
That's its own gobsmacking rabbithole at the core of it, though.
the choices that they made just sonicallyas musicians on this record is brave

(01:52:01):
and hopefully their bravery is aninspiration for you to be braver as
a listener and as a person who makesyour way expressing who you are and
finding your oneliness in the world.
so thank you for that.
I, hope I can be morebrave like these three.
Or sexy

Cliff (01:52:22):
or cool.

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Episode 58: TLC's "CrazySexyCool"

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