Bell Biv Devoe - Three Stripes

Pitchfork 55

Few anticipated the trio Bell Biv Devoe’s sensational 1990 debut. All three members were in the important and longstanding R&B vocal group New Edition, but none were ever a central focus of the ensemble. They were consistently overshadowed by Ralph Tresvant, who provided lead vocals on most New Edition tracks; Johnny Gill, who joined the group in 1988 for their most fully realized album, Heart Break, but already had hits of his own; and even by former member Bobby Brown, who left New Edition in 1985 and hit No. 1 on the Hot 100 three years later. While Ricky Bell, Michael Bivins, and Ronnie Devoe were essential to the success of the group as a whole, they almost always served to support their more prominent co-stars.

Until they didn't: heeding advice from the world-class production duo Jam & Lewis, Bell Biv Devoe formed a trio and released an album that was eventually certified quadruple platinum. Of the New Edition diaspora, Brown enjoyed the most sales and notoriety, Tresvant approached one-note perfection with “Sensitivity,” and Gill built an enviable collection of ballads, but it was the underdogs in Bell Biv Devoe who came up with that elusive thing, a crossover standard which everyone will know for eternity: “Poison.” President Obama recently invited the group to the White House to perform the track, confirming its designation as a piece of universal American pop culture.

That honor makes it a fine time for Bell Biv Devoe to reemerge with Three Stripes. They're also likely to benefit from New Edition’s high level of visibility at the moment: the group returned to the radio for the first time in over a decade last year, credited as featured vocalists on Johnny Gill’s No. 1 R&B hit “This One’s For Me And You,” and a three-part New Edition biopic is slated to air on BET the same week that Three Stripes hits the shelves.

This is the first Bell Biv Devoe album in 16 years, and early on, it feels like the trio is stepping gingerly, with continuity in mind above all else. Despite their time away from the studio, Bivins and Devoe still rap in the end-rhyme-heavy style of the late ’80s. And since the majority of the group's early hits were smutty accounts of the group's interactions with the opposite sex, similar narratives guide several songs on Three Stripes. “I’ll say a bunch of slick shit to get between your thighs,” Devoe promises in “I’m Betta,” a pushy, hurry-up-and-leave-him-number which reminds listeners that 49 year-olds have the right to be juvenile, too.

But despite these allusions, Three Stripes rarely crackles in the manner of early Bell Biv Devoe—the Poison album is resiliently pesky, like an especially pugnacious welterweight, but there's little of that scrappy spirit here. As they did in 1990, the trio calls on hip-hop producers for help: Erick Sermon of the famous New York hip-hop duo EPMD crafted “Run,” and other beat makers here include DJ Battlecat (Snoop Dogg, Xzibit) and Doug E. Fresh. But the tracks are mostly either pedestrian and unmemorable, or memorable for the wrong reasons. This is exemplified by the lead single, “Run,” which redundantly interpolates Notorious B.I.G.’s “Hypnotize,” a song too molded to Biggie to provide a favorable look for anyone else.

It’s a pair of the least energetic moments, though, which turn out to be the richest on the record. While Bell Biv Devoe classics mostly eschewed harmony, a New Edition hallmark, in favor of skeletal thwack, the trio embraces the full-group approach on the back half of Three Stripes. When Bell trades verses with SWV’s scene-stealing Coko on the ballad “Finally,” her full, trembling tone nourishes his lancing falsetto. And Boyz II Men, who owe their name to a New Edition song, appear on “One More Try,” helping create a benign, slender number based around Jerry Butler’s “I Could Write A Book” from 1970.

Plummy as these tracks are, they make you wonder why Bell Biv Devoe didn’t recruit from the crack platoon of contemporary songwriters most adept at balancing R&B tradition with the requirements of today's production practices. This coterie includes Babyface, who writes nearly as well as he did two decades ago (see 2015’s “Love and Devotion”); Gregg Pagani, who helped pen Gill’s No. 1 last year; and the duo of Pop & Oak, who gifted the world with Usher’s “Good Kisser” and Tamia’s “Sandwich and a Soda.” But Bell Biv Devoe aren’t looking for that kind of help, and who says they need it? “Run” is currently a top ten record at Urban AC radio: once again, this underdog trio is enjoying unexpected success.