FanMail

1	Fanmail 3:59
2	The Vic-E Interpretation (Interlude) 0:18
3	Silly Ho 4:15
4	Whispering Playa (Interlude) 0:52
5	No Scrubs 3:34
6	I'm Good at Being Bad 5:25
7	If They Knew 4:04
8	I Miss You So Much 4:56
9	Unpretty 4:38
10	My Life 4:01
11	Shout 3:57
12	Come on Down 4:17
13	Dear Lie 5:10
14	Communicate (Interlude) 0:51
15	Lovesick 3:52
16	Automatic 4:31
17	Don't Pull Out on Me Yet 4:33

Barnes & Noble

Since their emergence in 1992, TLC have become more firmly established as the anti-En Vogue. While most girl groups of the day -- Xscape, Allure, SWV -- choose the glitzier, and more clichéd, path of designer dresses and soaring harmonies, T-Boz, Left Eye, and Chili have distanced themselves not only from the limitations of such posturing but also from the novelty-act stance of their own early personae. Although men -- particularly Dallas Austin, Jermaine Dupri, and Babyface -- still handle much of the group's writing and producing, the sentiments in TLC's songs feel resolutely like their own. On FANMAIL, the long-awaited follow-up to 1994's ten-times platinum CRAZYSEXYCOOL, the ladies show that they have grown up a bit since we last heard from them (perhaps most notably Left Eye, who went from being a hotheaded tomboy who burned down her boyfriend's house to the stylish diva who upstaged Lil' Kim and Missy Elliott on Kim's "Not Tonight"). The trio is now old enough to critique youthful trends in black culture -- this is done via dispassionate voiceover interludes, a nod to A Tribe Called Quest's classic MIDNIGHT MARAUDERS -- but they're also young enough to have a bit of irreverent fun. "No Scrubs" playfully sets the bar for the kind of men they'll spend some time with, but "Unpretty" deals straightforwardly with the self-image problems common among young women. Sassy, savvy, and sometimes serious, TLC deliver a strong message with FANMAIL. Martin Johnson

All Music Guide

Crazysexycool was one of those records that defined an era. Few records before it combined hip-hop and classic soul songwriting quite as intoxicatingly or gracefully -- the performances and productions were utterly seamless. It would have been difficult to top anyway, but TLC had it doubly bad, since a number of behind-the-scenes problems delayed a sequel for nearly five years. As with any eagerly anticipated record, that follow-up, FanMail, arrived with too many expectations. And initially, it may be disappointing to realize TLC doesn't forge new ground with FanMail, but after a few spins, it settles in that nobody else makes urban soul quite as engaging as this. Not that it was easy to make this record, as the head-spinning list of collaborators indicates. Almost ten producers worked on the record, all trying to replicate the easy, appealing sound of Crazysexycool. And "replicate" is the right word, since there are no new innovations on FanMail, apart from a few lifts from the Timbaland book of tricks. Nevertheless, that may be for the best, since TLC and their army of producers have spent time crafting the songs and productions, turning FanMail into a record that almost reaches the peaks of its predecessor. By the end of the record, it appears that they can do it all -- funky, hip-hop-fueled dance-pop, seductive ballads, and mid-tempo jams -- and they can do it all well. Other groups try to reach these heights, but they don't have the skills or the material to pull it off quite so well. True, the five-year wait felt interminable, and they're now standard-bearers instead of pioneers, but if takes TLC as long to make a sequel to FanMail, so be it -- they have one of the best track records in '90s urban soul. [Fanmail was also released in a "clean" edition, containing no profanities or vulgarities.] Stephen Thomas Erlewine