May she rest in peace:
Whitney Houston, Saving All My Love For You. Possibly one of the most straightforward jazz tunes to make it to the top of the pop charts, Saving was the followup to the knockout of You Give Good Love, itself breathtaking. But Saving was unnerving because so much of Whitney's range was apparent in just the two songs - few women can negotiate the singing personas of both girlfriend and the Other Woman. Saving is a classic Other Woman song, and while her singing is techinically perfect, what's astonishing is the depth of emotion, when she says, at the end, "we'll be making love the whole night through" you don't just believe her, it's that she captures the reality of having to live, emotionally, on just though stolen moments. Critics carped, early on, that Whitney couldn't possibly be all these women... but I think that's the amazing thing about the true divas - the ability to connect emotionally with material when you don't think they have the life experience for it.
Whitney Houston, So Emotional. By the time of So Emotional, Whitney had done nothing but release #1 singles; this one, in fact, tied the record of the Beatles, at six (the next, a pure safety play so she would have the record, was "Where Do Broken Hearts Go"; not her best moment). This also works if you pretend, as the charts did, that "All at Once", which got a lot of radio play, was never officially released as a single. But regardless, So Emotional is one of those real change of pace singles that show her versatility: percussive beats, screaming rock guitars and probably her first completely straight up dance beat. Not necessarily lyrically daring ("I get so emotional, every time I think of you"), but Whitney infused with a playful urgency that somehow made "shocking" actually work. I don't know why I like it... I just do.
Whitney Houston, Didn't We Almost Have It All (Live; the VH1 video). She would be forever tagged as the Power Ballad champ of the eighties, both good and bad, but that's more than a little unfair; the fact that she could sing the hell out of a ballad and that she could vocally stand up to enormous orchestrations shouldn't be tagged as liabilities, and anyway, her discogoraphy is much wider than that (but there's a reason I'm not putting "Greatest Love of All" in this mix). When Whitney came out, it was clear that Didn't We was an obvious single choice, and it went to #1, but critics, again, suggested that it was only her pull out the stops reading of it that made it work (truthfully, by then, Michael Masser's heavy ballad productions were starting to grate). And the song, really, is an especially strong construction (a standard verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus). But Houston wasn't one to let that slide, and in concert she completely re-approached the song, starting gentle and light ("Remember when we held on in the rain?") and gradually building to the overwhelming emotional moments, until "Didn't We? Didn't We?" became a plaintive wail over love and loss. Take that, haters.
Whitney Houston and Jermaine Jackson, If You Say My Eyes Are Beautiful. Pure, by the numbers duetting, one of those "they didn't even record it together" trade-offs of verses, a little harmonizing on the chorus, and done. But gee whiz! Jermaine's an underrated singer, but like many, he could barely keep up with her. The song is all about Whitney's sections and an especially pretty lyric. And it never quite got the play it should have, I think.
Whitney Houston, I'm Your Baby Tonight. By the time of Whitney's third album, it had been nearly seven years since her debut, and the world of pop had changed, in no small measure because of her. And the real challenge was could she find her way doing different material? The answer, amazingly, was yes, as Houston began a long, and productive relationship with producer Babyface. It's not just the explosiion of drums at the opening that signals the real shift of this single, but the loping, slightly backwards beat throughout. And Houston shows herself entirely up to the challenge of a complicated rhythm track, drawing out a sly sexiness, and leaving a lot of the vocal tricks at home. But then, we already establsihed that she was good at Other Woman songs, too.
Whitney Houston, Queen of the Night (the CJ Mackintosh mix). Houston had a mixed history as a dance diva - her power ballads, naturally, didn't work on dance floors, and that put a lot of weight on her uptempo numbers (you can't really dance to "I Wanna Dance With Somebody"... nor could she). When you get a chance, go back and seek out "Love Will Save The Day" which also never quite got the moment it deserved. But as she matured, the possibilities of her in dance music also opened up. Queen, as a single, is an overproduced, top heavy rock number... but CJ Mackintosh found a deep house gem within it, playing with the lines of the chorus ("stuff that you want... thing that you need... more than enough... to make you drop to your knees") until they swirled into dizzying harmonizing ear candy. Rule the dance floor, indeed.
Whitney Houston, I'm Every Woman. Really, she was capable of almost anything. And there's nothing even especially wrong with Chaka Khan's original, yet there's Whitney, making it an anthem's anthem. And of course, you hadn't lived until you were surrounded by a sea of gay boys, hands in the air, claiming to be every woman, with it all in them. World peace, baby.
Whitney Houston and The Georgia Mass Choir, Joy To The World. In truth, she was a gospel singer, by training and by preference. Surely at some point, that's what she would have recorded, had there been time. As it was, only The Preacher's Wife soundtrack put her on truly religious material, and those gospel moments lift the album well above where it would be otherwise. The choice of Joy to the World was also, somewhat subtly, a dig at Mariah Carey, who had combined the orginial with Three Dog Night's song on her own Christmas album. Houston's response: who needs it? When she coos her way though the slow, nearly acapella opening, stopping to fully explore "heaven and nature"... it's a diva throwdown: don't come for me, honey, cause I'll crush you.
Whitney Houston and George Michael, If I Told You That. There's plenty of ways to go with the later career - even as her voice failed her, she found a second life singing full on in her mid range. The top notes might be elusively out of reach (which is why I don't immediately go to "I Will Always Love You"), but the trick turning was never what it was all about. When she turned, "It's not right, but it's okay" into a get the hell out statement, it was the power of interpretation and emotional connection that shown through. But what I loved was the sinewy magic she found working with Darkchild. Originally recorded for My Love is Your Love, If I Told You That became a sharp, stylized duet when she paired up with George Michael, two of the eighties icons united as survivors. Even if we didn't realize at the time how true that really was.
Whitney Houston, The Star Spangled Banner. In the end, though, it comes down to this: no one, but no one, could take the familiar and make it seem new the way she did. She did it, repeatedly with her own songs... so why not do it to the national anthem? Listen to her caress the word "ramparts", taking an emotional breath before soaring on "rockets red glare"... by the time she cruises up the extra high note on "Land of the Free", it's all over; she had the audience well before that, and that note is really just icing. Effortless. I just threw that in because I can. At the height of the Gulf War, she made the jingoistic patriotism that grated so much into an irrelevancy. It was all her. The National Anthem didn't become a top ten single because of the war, it was because of her.
Comments