Fanmail [PA] - TLC (CD 1999)

"The Times They Are A Changin'", and I don't think I'm changin' fast enough with 'em!

Early 1970's: My party years! Songs were banned from the radio because they mentioned the word s-e-x! The Rolling Stones sang, "Let's Spend the Night Together." Another group implored girls to "Plee-ee-ee-ease Go All the Way." "Wouldn't It Be Nice if we were older...then we wouldn't have to wait so long!" the Beach Boys wished.

Meatloaf pushed the envelope a little further in "Paradise by the Dashboard Lights." Girl trades sex for a promise of marriage. Couple lives unhappily ever after.

Fast forward to 1983, when I am now the mother of 8 and 5 year-old boys. We are listening to Z-100 and an ad comes on for the "Today Contraceptive Sponge".

"Mom, what kind of sponge is that?" my eight year-old calls out from the back seat.

Gulp!

Fast forward to 1989. I'm still carpooling, but the boys are now 14 and 11, and I have a daughter who is six months old (and yes, I've heard all those "oops" jokes already!) Bil Bev Devoe comes on the air, singing, "Do Me Baby!" But, oh, no! Something interrupts their drive towards home base. "Stop, I need a body bag!" one shouts.

"Boys, when they said that, are they talking about what I think they're talking about?" I said. (See, I have become more assertive over the years.)

"Yeah, Mom," my fourteen year-old answers.



Little did I know that by the time 1999 came along, and my darling daughter was about to turn 11, a group, TLC, would wear those very same body bags as costume jewelry! (Obviously not in the anatomically correct spot where nature intended!)

TLC is highly praised for having demonstrated "an uncanny ability to bridge the gap between rap, hip-hop, pop and soul." They received two Grammies, three MTV awards, and a Viewer's Choice Award for their song, "Waterfalls", in 1994. Their songs preach the anthem of self-esteem, and urge women not to be taken advantage of by no-good men.

The problem is that their songs are marketed heavily to the fifth and sixth-grade set who are not mature enough to deal with the language and issues contained within the songs. They are in VH-1 as well as MTV. They are played on popular radio many times a day along with such lyrically innocuous performers as Back Street Boys, N'Sync, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Will Smith, Ricky Martin, and 98 Degrees.

They cut two versions of their new CD, "Fanmail". That should have clued me in. One was edited; the other explicit. In my innocence, I thought that the edited version would be appropriate for my ten year-old, who wanted the same music her friends were listening to. Little did I know that the same themes would be promoted with inoffensive synonyms replacing the cuss words!

In "Silly Ho", the group sings, "I ain't never been that chickenhead to wake up in your bed," and "I ain't never been no silly b@#$% wantin' to get rich From a n@#$% bank account."

My daughter doesn't even know what a "ho" is. "They're silly," I sidestepped.

The two most popular songs on this CD are "No Scrubs", which puts the wrong kind of guy in his proper place, and "Damn Unpretty." While "Damn Unpretty" tells girls to look inside of themselves to find their inner beauty, and to forget about the hairstyles and nose jobs, the ten and eleven year-olds TLC is preaching to know that there is only one thing in the world which will make them "damn unpretty."

That one thing is being uncool. Not being able to listen to the CD's the other kids are listening to. Not being able to grow up too fast, urged on relentlessly by the pop music culture. Having parents who will throw away their TLC CD's.

Flash backward: When I was ten years old, I watched Annette and Tim Considine in the "Spin and Marty" series, featured on "Mickey Mouse Club" at 4:00 each afternoon.

There are some issues where parents have to put their foot down. And I intend to place my foot, clad in a three-inch high heel, firmly down in the center of this CD.

Or, better yet, I can "hide" it in my world's greatest classical music collection. She'll never find it there!