I am writing this about an hour after the news first appeared: Whitney Houston has died.
It's one of those losses that is utterly unbelievable, yet somehow, inevitable.
To think that we'll have to - I'll have to - explain to people what she was, what it was like, what she meant. There hadn't been anyone quite like Whitney Houston; no one who had that voice, her looks, her onstage presence. Just as music video changed everything (and Whitney was as video-ready as anyone), changes in television production allowed more artists to perform live onstage, as opposed to lip-synching to already recorded tracks. Whitney Houston was one of the first artists to use this opportunity to her advantage, rearranging and reconstructing her songs on the fly. It wasn't the strength of her voice or the breadth of her range that was so astonishing. It was the times that, mid-song or mid-phrase, she'd simply take off in an entirely different direction than she'd gone the last time you'd heard her. I remember when she performed "All At Once" at the American Music Awards, and re-did the second verse so it rose from the depths of her low range to soar an octave higher by the end of the phrase, all in one breath.
That was the way she paved the way for all the Mariahs and Christinas and at least three seasons of American Idols; none of what happened to pop singing - the extended melismas, the fluttering around notes, the frank oversinging - was possible without the way Whitney Houston took on a song. At her height, she was unstoppable, undeniable. No one sang like she did, no one sang as consistently. And she made it look effortless.
Of course, it was too much, too soon and all of it was insane. I remember seeing her live - it was an imperative - with the lucky break of getting a seat in the fifth row. It was astonishing. And she was so innocent, so ingenue to it all. When she sang "I Am Changing", and got to the final notes, "and nothing's gonna stop" - pause - the audience couldn't wait. The ovation was deafening. And she stared at us, wide-eyed. It was a mixture of appreciation... and fear. It's scary, I think, to be that loved, no matter how good you are at what you do.
Clive Davis sold her to America as the embodiment of the American Dream; our Golden Girl, the triumph of talent and beauty and class and taste. And it worked. So what if she couldn't dance? (In Living Color, famously, spoofed her as the "Rhythmless Nation", verbalizing something we all whispered). It was two albums and six years before the reality, and then the less pretty parts, started to sink in: no one's life is that golden. No one, really, can not break under all that pressure.
The problems were apparent long before the rumors moved from whispers to scandal. She was erratic on her films, not a strong actress, and tales off set suggested some real problems. The fact of her drug use was apparent long before it was openly discussed. By "I Will Always Love You" it was clear that her voice was suffering under the strain. By My Love Is Your Love it was all too clear that her range was far less than it had been, and there'd been some real damage. And maybe, just maybe, the story of the past year or two is that her singing could never entirely recover. And she lived to sing. I'm sure that would be crushing.
I am, frankly, stunned. I can't explain, exactly, how much she meant to me, how influential she was, how much I admired her; the most analogous I could be is to say she was, in some sense, my gay generation's Judy Garland, the singer of our age against whom others were measured. Such a beautiful, stunning, talented creaure. And, of course, perhaps how obvious that talent that burns that bright cannot last for long. Not long enough. Not nearly long enough. I just thought we'd get to see her rise, like a phoenix, one last time. And instead... she's gone.
just realizing how many Whitney songs were signposts for me along the way...How Will I know at the college paper all-nighters...Love Will Save the Day and So Emotional at the Hippo I'm Every Woman at that Pier Dance...Of course It's Not Right, But It's o.k. all over NY and Your Love Is My Love at Fire Island...when she produced it was always a monster hit
Posted by: jinb | February 12, 2012 at 02:06 PM