TLC - "Creep"
OK. It is time. Since I’m writing a Substack about dance moves, it’s time that I dive into a straight-up music video for a song that ran continuously through my head for much of sixth grade. Yes, you guessed it (and I also put it right there in the title): we’re talking about TLC’s “Creep.”
Just looking at the cover art for CrazySexyCool brings me back to being 11 years old at my friend Molly W’s house when she showed me her own freshly bought CD. (Yes, I had a friend with the same name as me. Also, hi, Molly W, like and subscribe!) We didn’t even have a CD player in my home yet, so I was mostly in awe of the CD itself as a precious object, but I was also amazed that her mom let her buy a CD with the word “sexy” on it. Molly W was light years ahead of me socially, so I did the closest thing I could to catch up: the next week I spent the entirety of my $3.00 weekly allowance on the cassette single of “Creep.”
I didn’t really listen to the lyrics nor fully understand them. I just knew it has some cool horn sounds and a chorus I could easily sing along with. It was especially fun to croon “OH-I-OH-I-OH-II-IIII” in the back of cars while parents in the front gave my friends and I confused looks through the rearview mirror.
Sadly, I didn’t have MTV, so I didn’t see this video until years later. It’s a shame, as I think it really would have been a nice respite from my early slide into puberty:
For a song about infidelity, this video has always just given me sexy slumber party vibes. I mean are there even men in it? Oh wait yes, of course, the guy holding the trumpet who looks like he doesn’t know how to play the trumpet. Even T-Boz has her doubts:
At one point he’s even caressing her thigh with the trumpet as if it’s a metal detector and he wants the change in her pockets. Weird use of the trumpet, sir!
The silk-pajamas-in-the-wind moments are the most iconic parts of this video: they’ve only buttoned one button, they’re touching their bodies, and they’re staring seductively at the camera. But what stands out to me now, as an almost-40-year-old, is how dang comfortable they look. So ahead of their time! And proof that you can put the Sexy in CrazySexyCool AND still wear giant flowy pants! See, even Chilli is so comfortable she’s yawning:
It seems like oversized clothes are cool again, and wearing pajamas as regular clothes is cool again, so does this mean I can get myself some giant-ass silk pajamas and wear them to work? I’m already falling asleep upright at my standing desk most afternoons so why not do it in style? I think I’d also need a giant fan to seal the deal. Let me know, Gen Z!
OK, but the dancing part. We really get down to it in the black-and-white sequences on the stage. Perhaps they’re at the slumber party rehearsal? Or maybe they’re just goofing around in an empty auditorium, like I did almost every afternoon in high school? That is the vibe of these parts of the video, and the vibe that 11-year-old me would have loved. I mean, look how much fun they’re having:
In case there were any questions about it, this is THE move of the video:
But here are some close seconds:
The swoop swoops:
And the the attitude glide:
(If any actual dancers or choreographers are reading this they are likely screaming at my made-up names for these bits. I need a reverse Google image search, but for music videos!)
Both of these look easy, but much like Roland’s wombat-ing, I cannot master them. It’s all about that confidence.
And again: they look so comfortable! As a child living in NH in the 90s, giant flannels were maybe the only on-trend thing I embraced at the time. I want to bring those cozy days back. Probably more work-appropriate than silk pajamas, too.
I love this little time capsule of 1994, and I wish I had seen it at the time. I had already stopped taking dance classes when I was 11 (unless you count the very basic choreo I was learning in my community theater production of Oliver!), and I was afraid to dance anywhere beyond a theater production. It was that weird time in my life where I was happy to do box steps and grapevines within the context of a musical, but at my first school dance that year I hid against the walls with all the other girls because dancing to popular music was too embarrassing. If only T-Boz, Left Eye, and Chilli could have magically appeared like R&B angels and shown me the way.
One important thing to note: when I was once watching this video with Lucas, he chimed into the chorus with “SO I SKREET.” Maybe it’s just because he’s my boyfriend that I almost peed myself laughing, but I feel compelled to share this remix option with you. Please play this song and yell “SO I SKREET.” As long as you also yell the “OH-I-OH-I-OH-II-IIII” part.
See you next month with more hot dance takes!
Love and jazz hands,
Molly