September 4, 1999

TLC : Unpretty

A gentle strum-rap wrapped around a scathing lyric about destructive ideals of female beauty, it initially feels like a rad-fem razor blade concealed in candy.

In the Girl Power stakes, loading up on booze and burning down your deadbeat boyfriend's house is premier league material. Alas, TLC's records never quite live up to their incendiary offstage image, and so it is with this catchy but softcore sequel
to
'No Scrubs'.

A gentle strum-rap wrapped around a scathing
lyric about destructive ideals of female beauty, it initially feels like a rad-fem razor blade concealed in candy. Sadly, the ultimate message seems to be that laydeez should be pretty on the inside as well as the outside D so that's two sets of tyrannical standards instead of just one. Cheers.

And whining about skin-deep attraction
when you look like these ultra-manicured Atlanta cuties is a bit rich too, surely? Go read Naomi Wolf's The Beauty
Myth
and get back to us. Meanwhile, we'll be listening to the much more swoonsomely futuristic smooch-soul sirens Destiny's Child.

Stephen Dalton