{"id":1012661,"date":"2026-06-08T06:38:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T06:38:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1012661\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T06:38:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T06:38:17","slug":"why-prince-loved-tlc-but-thought-they-were-the-death-of-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1012661\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Prince loved TLC but thought they were the death of music"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Prince<\/p>\n

Credit: Far Out \/ Album Booklet \/ Warner-Elektra-Atlantic<\/p>\n

Prince<\/a> loved a whole range of eclectic artists, from Bj\u00f6rk to the Penguin Cafe Orchestra. It was part of his dynamism that he could be so varied, but he perhaps had the strongest opinion of the lot on TLC. <\/p>\n

Some may laugh at the apparent randomness of that revelation, but really, you should look at yourself and consider why that is. No one found it amusing when Prince said he liked any other manner of artists, but when it comes to girl groups and other bands of the kind, it seems that all hell breaks loose in terms of the supposed right of derision and mockery.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a simple tangent on the much deeper issue of why some types of musicians are valued differently to others, but the point still remains that Prince was free to enjoy whatever kind of sonics he wanted, whether they were somewhat unexpected or not. In this sense, there was no reason why TLC shouldn\u2019t come into fray and, in Prince\u2019s view, even take the throne. <\/p>\n

\u201cTLC is a very talented group,\u201d he declared back in a 1996 interview, clearly having enjoyed a bit of \u2018No Scrubs\u2019 and \u2018Waterfalls\u2019 along the way. Yet despite the band\u2019s 60million records sold and status as one of the biggest American girl groups of all time, there was an essential difference between them and Prince that meant one garnered a far greater legacy than the other<\/a>.<\/p>\n

With the band having filed for bankruptcy the year before, despite their massive stream of success, it truly put into perspective what was at stake for artists in terms of sales not equating to the money going into their back pockets. For someone as deeply revolutionary and powerful as Prince, it was a state of affairs that really resonated with him. <\/p>\n

\u201cTalent can\u2019t be bottled up or contained,\u201d he said while standing up on his soapbox. \u201cWe gotta wake up to that. Why should somebody else be making $100million when they\u2019re making $75,000? It will continue, too \u2013 that\u2019s the sad truth.\u201d Do you know what the even sadder thing is, though? He said those words 30 years ago, and truly, nothing has changed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The music industry itself has remained as cutthroat as ever, but the lack of financial viability has made it nigh on impossible for even fairly successful artists to make a properly fruitful living<\/a> that will last them the rest of their lives, never mind just the immediacy of the next few years. TLC famously faced the brunt of that three decades ago, but now, you\u2019ll find examples everywhere. <\/p>\n

Further reading: From The Vault<\/strong><\/p>\n

Of course, it does depressingly signal the death of an industry where genuinely ingenious artists like Prince could once thrive. It\u2019s also testament to his keenness to shine a light in the darkness that he gave a platform to TLC\u2019s plight, as a man who recognised the gift of what they had, compared to many others who would all too easily deride them. <\/p>\n

He was a notoriously impenetrable persona, but that example spoke volumes, more than anything else, about the type of human that Prince was, beneath the veneer of the stately artistry. He knew that girl groups like TLC were the true future: it was to the detriment of everyone else that they didn\u2019t see the value in investing in that.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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