Throwback Thursday: Next – “Too Close”
Conventional wisdom says kids should be shielded from suggestive material, but the fact of the matter is that it all flies over their heads 99% of the time.
It’s me. I’m kids.
When Next released “Too Close” in early ’98 as the second single from their debut album, Rated Next, my pre-teen mind was too pure to figure out what the group was singing about. I’m not sure what I thought they were singing about — or if I gave it any thought at all — but a decade would pass before I realized RL n ’em were singing about the bulge in their pants.
In retrospect, singing about your bulge feels like something out of an SNL skit.
“Too Close” is based on a sample of Kurtis Blow’s debut single, “Christmas Rappin’.” The song was co-written by all three members of the group and Kay Gee, the song’s producer. It spent five non-consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, with Mariah Carey’s “My All” interrupting for one week.
More than a quarter-century later, “Too Close” stands out as the group’s signature hit.
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