Supernova... 16 Years Later
'Supernova' was released during the beginning stages of TLC's fourth album '3D'. Lisa wanted the album to be released worldwide August 16th, 2001 - The day her father was born and the day her grandfather has passed (each dying at the age of 40 by the way). Instead was only released overseas on various dates and not in the states....
Unhappy with Arista Record's decision to do this, Lisa streamed the album on her website 'Eyenetics' for ALL her fans to hear no matter the cost. Speaking of cost, after the years of work and drama for this project, Arista never paid Lisa her back-end money for doing the album. Because of that, Left Eye ended up going on strike from '3D' before her death. She did plan on remaking the album, but as a potential artist named N. I. N. A. under Tha Row Records. Because of her passing at the beginning stages of the remake (only re-recording "Untouchable" and "Rags to Riches" with Kurupt), Suge Knight made the producer of her sophomore album as N.I.N.A., Darren Vegas, complete the album with the help of L.A. Reid, providing him with her vocals from the actual 'Supernova' album. They also added her completed song "Too Street 4 TV" from her sophomore album that they put on the 'Dysfunktional Family' soundtrack. The Lopes Family, however, was against it's release, and got the album shelved.
'Supernova' did see a re-release in 2006, making a minor flip in the track listing by switching the placements of "Jenny" and "Head to the Sky" (in which honestly, in my opinion, that small difference helped made the album A LOT more listenable). It hasn't been clear though, to this very day, how well this album has sold. Not just within the time frames of it's release dates but to TODAY. The album may not have charted well or at all due to the lack of promotion, performances, and interest by the industry and half the fan base, people mainly not being totally into the new sound she was delivering. The sole promotion Left Eye did for this album through interviews...
I will say this though, a lot of people pay or paid the album dust because of the low amount of noise it made in the media (Lisa always had a love-hate relationship with them) and the amount of shade it received *points to the cartoon of Lisa crying holding her "rejected" Arista Records contract for the album with the word FLOP being acronym from her name and T-Boz & Chilli with a shit-eating victory grin on their faces*. Which is disappointing knowing how inspiring this album is to a lot of people.
'Supernova' may not have that certain POP majority was expecting, but her lyrical content is EVERYTHING on this album from "The Universal Quest" (which talks about religion, spirituality, and freedom) to "Let Me Live" (which talks about being a celebrity and having no peace - Left Eye's favorite song on the album) to "Life is Like a Park" (which Left Eye and Carl Thomas preaches to people healing from abuse and in need of finding self-love). Through each eclectic beat with chants, Left Eye spreads inspiration in which ever direction she went on this album, even through expressing her past situations where she admits to selling cocaine and being a problem child ("Rags to Riches"), being in an relationship with someone who didn't think SHE was enough ("True Confessions"), thoughts of death ("Untouchable"), and mourning the loss of her father still and heals through conversation with him ("A New Star is Born").
There was a HIGH amount of interest when the album was coming out. People wanted to see what she was working with due to it being JUST Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes, and truly wanted to see what she could do standing on her own. After a lot of Celebrity's deaths, their merchandise starts picking up more speed in the sales department as well as others. People were buying or re-buying TLC albums, who's to say Left Eye's album wasn't getting picked up? Shit. IT WAS HER SOLO ALBUM. Lmao! Let's not forget the incredible days VH1 released 'Last Days of Left Eye' and 'CrazySexyCool: The TLC Story', when The Lopes Family released ''Eye Legacy', since it being 16 YEARS since the album released, 15 YEARS since Lisa passed only 15 years later for TLC to FINALLY release another album - the final album - and there being no Left Eye raps. Shit. People probably wanted more Lisa enough to finally buy her solo album after that. The album could have at least reached +2x Platinum status by now. I say that cause times have changed in the industry now. Artists today are DEFINITELY not selling like how they used to as the 16 years passed by. Due to the album only being for purchase on Amazon and Discogs (and not iTunes or any physical copies in retail stores), the album is easier to be heard by the click of a button on YouTube.
*low-key waits for the day The Lopes Family releases it on iTunes*.