"Unpretty" is a song by American group
TLC, released on May 17, 1999, through
LaFace and
Arista Records as the second single from the band's third studio album, FanMail. It was written by
Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins and the producer
Dallas Austin. Austin assisted Watkins in adapting the latter's written poem into "Unpretty" after feeling disgusted by an episode of American talk show Ricki Lake.
"Unpretty" was the album's second song to top the US
Billboard Hot 100, which it did for three weeks. The song topped the chart in Iceland and peaked in the top 10 in Australia, Canada, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. An accompanying
music video was directed by
Paul Hunter, which depicts the band situated in three separate storylines. The song was nominated for
Song of the Year and
Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal at the
42nd Annual Grammy Awards.
Background and composition
Tionne Watkins was in the hospital when she conceived the idea of "Unpretty" after watching an episode of American talk show Ricki Lake, in which the men on the show called women "fat pigs". She wrote the song out as a poem and gave it to
Dallas Austin to record in the booth. Austin wanted to incorporate
TLC's music into a
folk and
alternative rock sound. He wrote "Unpretty" as an "
acoustic-driven pop song" in order for people to conceive TLC as an established group.[1] Stacy Lambe of
VH1 described the song as having an "alternative rock vibe".[2]
Paul Hunter directed the
music video for "Unpretty", which was filmed in June 1999 in
Valencia, California, and cost over $1.6 million in production.[5] A shortened edit of the video was created, which was released to an all-ages audience (as "Children's Version"),[6] that removes both Watkins and Lopes' solo storylines, as some of the scenes were deemed as too explicit.[5]
Synopsis
The video begins with the TLC members entering a meditation hut. As the three women begin to meditate, a probe camera is released to record images of struggles in daily life, which ties together vignettes of several different stories relating to the song's lyrics. Several shots of TLC meditating and in a pink and purple field of flowers are shown intermittently throughout the video.
The main set of vignettes features a young woman, portrayed by band member
Chilli, and an overweight teenager (played by actress Tamika Katon-Donegal).[7][better source needed] Chilli's boyfriend convinces her to get
breast implants to augment her modest bust. However, after she sees another patient in the hospital (played by singer
Jade Villalon) getting her implants painfully removed, the woman flees the hospital in fear, and is later shown fighting with her boyfriend when she catches him reading magazines of busty women. The other girl is worried about fitting the "ideal" image of the petite supermodel and struggling with
bulimia as a result. Near the end of the video, however, she tears down the unrealistic images of models that she has tacked on her wall and changes into a bathing suit, a sign that she may be starting to accept her body shape.
Another vignette features Watkins as a high school student who is harassed by two white kids because she is a girl (which is based on what she dealt with in high school),[citation needed] only to be saved by her teacher, who sends the white kids away and retrieves her stuff for her. The last vignette features Lopes as an inner-city woman who plays her verse from "
I'm Good at Being Bad" to her friend in her car.[citation needed] They come across a city gang, who are approached by a rival gang who begin to threaten them. The two gangs start fighting, which becomes so violent that knives and guns are involved and Lopes and her friend duck for cover as her car window is damaged. When the fight subsides, Lopes leaves the car to assist the remaining injured and barely conscious survivors. One of the survivors has been mortally wounded due to being stabbed in the heart, so Lopes applies pressure on his chest to stop the bleeding and prays as they wait for the police to arrive. Lopes also appears in the "Unpretty" performance shots reciting the song lyrics in
American Sign Language.[8]
^Tensley, Brandon (May 30, 2017).
"How TLC Changed Everything". Pacific Standard. Retrieved June 13, 2022. ... she also taught me the sign language that Left Eye uses in the "Unpretty" music video, because naturally she had learned it.
^Unpretty (US cassette single sleeve). TLC. LaFace Records. 1999. 73008-24424-4.{{
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^Unpretty (US 12" single). TLC. LaFace Records. 1999. 73008-24425-1.{{
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^Unpretty (European CD single liner notes). TLC. Arista Records, LaFace Records, Bertelsmann Music Group. 1999. 74321 68254 2.{{
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^Unpretty (UK CD2 liner notes). TLC. Arista Records, LaFace Records, Bertelsmann Music Group. 1999. 74321 69585 2.{{
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^Unpretty (European CD maxi single 1 liner notes). TLC. Arista Records, LaFace Records, Bertelsmann Music Group. 1999. 74321 68253 2.{{
cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (
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^Unpretty (European CD maxi single 2 liner notes). TLC. Arista Records, LaFace Records, Bertelsmann Music Group. 1999. 74321 70204 2.{{
cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (
link)
^Unpretty (German maxi-CD single liner notes). TLC. Arista Records, LaFace Records, Bertelsmann Music Group. 1999. 74321 70209 2.{{
cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (
link)