Was 1995 TLC the Greatest Pop Star Year Ever for an R&B Group?

The twelvemonth 1995 genuinely had it each for TLC. The trio of Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins, Rozanda “Chili” Thomas and Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes had go stars with their 1992 medium Ooooooohhh… On the TLC Tip, but successful precocious 1994, the merchandise of sophomore acceptable CrazySexyCool had taken them to the adjacent level — a winning streak that would past done each of ’95 for the R&B group. But adjacent successful the midst of aggregate era-defining No. 1 hits, VMAs-dominating euphony videos and unprecedented millions successful medium sales, the radical had to combat done countless setbacks — medical, ineligible and (particularly) financial.

On this week’s Vintage Pop Stardom episode of the Greatest Pop Stars podcast, big Andrew Unterberger is joined by NYU professor, longtime euphony manufacture exec and social media legend Naima Cochrane to retrieve a twelvemonth that fundamentally serves arsenic the midpoint for each of ’90s popular stardom. We callback conscionable what made TLC truthful exceptionally sensational — adjacent during an implicit aureate property for R&B miss groups — and speech astir each the factors that would marque specified a twelvemonth of popular stardom near-impossible 30 years later.

Along the way, we of people inquire each the astir important questions astir the Greatest Pop Stars of 1995: What made CrazySexyCool specified a large leap guardant for an already A-list group? Did you truly person to person 1 oregon aggregate sets of silk pajamas to beryllium alert successful the mid-’90s? How otherwise would we speech astir Left Eye’s toxic narration with Andre Rison successful 2025? Is “Waterfalls” a timeless classical oregon a dated connection song? Was TLC secretly the exemplary for HUNTR/X from KPop Demon Hunters (and each different miss radical of the past 30 years)? And possibly astir importantly: What would it instrumentality for america to truly get miss groups backmost successful the mainstream successful the 2020s?

Check it retired supra — on with a YouTube playlist of immoderate of the astir important moments from TLC’s 1995, each of which are discussed successful the podcast — and subscribe to the Greatest Pop Stars podcast on Apple Music or Spotify (or wherever you get your&...