A comeback, from 2013 at least…
[Video]
[6.14]
Katherine St Asaph: Two years, no call, but TLC has Kickstarted some repertoire. (It’s an indictment of the industry that a beloved, canonical, endlessly imitated group like TLC has to be crowdfunded instead of lavishly industry-funded, but are you surprised?) Lots of variables between this and pop radio, obviously, but isn’t it somehow refreshing to hear a song about reuniting with an old sweetheart one views as a sweetheart, and not a vessel for contempt? Producer D’Mile contributes a G-funk pastiche that sounds like summer pavements feel as they bake. Snoop’s verse is effortless, in both senses of the word, but more the positive. And T-Boz and Chilli’s voices play off each other as well as ever.
[7]
Alfred Soto: Good will and its blood brother nostalgia collaborate to transform this mild comeback into something more than a signpost indicating that one’s youth went thataway. It almost works.
[5]
Rebecca A. Gowns: A shameless throwback in every sense in the word, but is it good? It’s listenable, surely. Danceable? Just barely. Enjoyable? The jury is out. Any joy is tempered through a few layers of Nostalgia (TM): not the kind that comes from looking through a box of old pictures, but the kind that comes galloping across your newsfeed in a set of tiny GIFs. Yes, but is it good? Are the self-referential lyrics good? Is the “return” of TLC good? Is old man Snoop Dogg still good as he cruises by the studio to record feature after feature on a stack of “throwback” singles? Hard to say.
[6]
William John: The first ten seconds sound like the music put between scenes of a hypothetical sitcom about zany, woke twentysomethings from some so-fashionable-its-now-unfashionable part of New York. T-Boz and Chilli elevate the song from something commonplace and drab to a pleasant nostalgia exercise, with Snoop languidly filling in for Left Eye (rest in power).
[6]
Edward Okulicz: Snoop Dogg is basically the same age as both T-Boz and Chilli, and he gets to guest on a comeback to give it a more contemporary feel. That’s a bit cruel. And especially given how great TLC were, and how especially T-Boz is giving it everything like it was 1995 again, it almost seems cruel to say the song isn’t anything special, and that the obvious throwback-ness of it, from sound to performance to lyrics, weighs it down like cement shoes.
[4]
Thomas Inskeep: This is exactly what I’ve wanted from TLC for the longest time and never thought we’d get. A throwback jam with rubbery instrumentation and T-Boz singing in that delicious low register, Chilli on the support? Yes please! Snoop fills in for Left Eye (RIP) on the rap bridge just right, to boot. This is made for summer barbecues, and in 2017 I don’t expect groundbreaking R&B from TLC. I want — and need — comfort, and that’s what this serves up in spades.
[9]
Megan Harrington: While I’ll never understand the appeal of re-fucking the person you fucked when you were last a teenager, it’s obvious that nostalgia is a powerful substance. TLC and Snoop Dogg conjure up the production, references, and even diction of their silk pyjama and lowrider heyday. It’s a purple ditto of the past — good, but not as.
[6]