=
Now through your hands up
For the next three minutes
It’s about the lovers
Now, baby, stand up
=

There are singers and then there are pop stars. Sometimes they overlap, and Whitney Houston was supposed to be proof of that. But after an unfortunately tumultuous relationship with Bobby the has-been Brown, a serious drug problem, and a series of embarrassing and highly public catastrophes surrounding her career, the woman was more or less deemed a sorry joke. She will forever be known as the “crack is whack” lady, even though she once had one of the most memorable voices in pop music. To make it clear, I’ve never been a fan of Whit’s music; but that’s not to say that I dislike the woman. There are a few singles on my mp3 player, but her records have never once interested me. This is quite ironic, as I do have more than just one Bobby Brown record. When she unleashed her comeback album in 2009, I was pleasantly surprised by one of her singles—but I was shocked at how weird she sounded. After years of drug abuse and self-inflicted hardship, Houston can barely carry a tune at this point. While her voice isn’t down for the count, she doesn’t really quite know how to work with what she has. She’s used to having this versatile, Mariah-esque voice that can hit notes as high as the angels; so when she tries to pull tricks she used to in her twenties, it either sounds like one of two things: studio manufactured, or like a cat being drowned. After watching some really bad clips of her on the supporting tour for I Look to You, I have to say that my confidence in Houston (which wasn’t that high anyway) is more or less through the floor at this point. And this record, though at times catchy, is proof that without a studio to help her, Houston is a shell of one shrill voice.

For I Look to You, which blatantly was intended to be a comeback record (being chock full of pity party tracks), Whitney enlisted some of today’s biggest names in music to help put her back on the map. Production credits, which in the 80s included Jermaine Jackson, now include Danja, who’s done work for Chris Brown and Britney Spears, and Stargate. There’s a useless cameo from Island-loser Akon, but the star of the show seems to be Whitney Houston, and I’m very unsure why. Out of the eleven tracks, Houston contributes lyrics to only two of them, and the songs that were handed to her rarely sound like something she would have written. But Houston has always been known as the voice of a generation—she’s a performer. A showgirl. Well, this is a horrendous vocal performance. She sounds suspiciously like a robot having sex with Kermit the Frog—it’s like there’s a lump of cancer stuck in her throat. Even the moments when she’s not trying to hit notes she can’t (with supreme studio help), her voice just sounds like it has been run through about 100 filters to sound decent. The smoky rasp thing really works with some artists, and even Marianne Faithfull made an entire career out of sounding like her vocal chords were soaked in lye. But in Whitney’s mind, it’s still the late-80s; sorry, babe, but it’s not. And you sound horrible. Seriously, based on the vocal performance on this album, it might be time to pack it in.

If any of the songs on this album are good, there’s a 91% chance that Whitney had nothing to do with it. And that’s certainly true of Million Dollar Bill, the second single released from the record. As with many established artists or iconic performers, their individual songs don’t chart well, and this song made #100 on the Hot 100. But regardless, it’s a super catchy and subdued soul track with a funky background and retro vibe. The song, however, does begin on a ridiculous holler from Whitney, who, right off the back, is trying so damn hard. But still, it’s a catchy song, and it’s one of the few Houston singles I had on my player prior to having a copy of I Look to You, which already managed to disappoint just a few tracks in. The debut single from the album was the title-track, and it’s boring. In addition to be ill-performed and generically produced, the song is entirely unmemorable. There’s something to be a third single to be released from the project, Nothin’ But Love, and it’s a catchy and upbeat pop track that could have been released in the late-90s. Again: good pop song; crappy pop star.

*Microsoft Word freezes and p’s off TJ*

Anyway, the rest of the album isn’t exactly good, but it has its moments. Danja does a great job with the mindlessly catchy For the Lovers, and even though Akon does his damndest to try and ruin it, Like I Never Left is a still a very stop pop track. Unfortunately, these are more or less the highest peaks of the record that aren’t Million Dollar Bill. Generic and thoughtless throughout, the ballads lack anything close to life, and the vocals at times are just entirely comical. Stargate does a really, really messy job with the cover of A Song For You, which can’t decide if it wants to be musically appropriate or just entirely obnoxious and outdated! Actually, that seems to be the vibe of this album. The “street” attitude on some of these songs is a little awkward, and her voice is awkward enough on its own. This record kind of reminds me of Donna Summer’s Crayons in that nobody really expected it, and it didn’t really establish Whitney Houston as a credible performer. Sure, it was successful; but when you pair it with the accompanying live performances and more erratic behavior, Whitney Houston proves with this plastic effort that she is no longer the voice people fell in love with (just one listen to the embarrassingly bad Salute will drive that point home…)

VERDICT
01.   Million Dollar Bill [4 Stars]
02.   Nothin’ But Love [3.5 Stars]
03.   Call You Tonight [1.5 Stars]
04.   I Look to You [1 Star]
05.   Like I Never Left [3.5 Stars]
06.   A Song for You [0 Stars]
07.   I Didn’t Know My Own Strength [1 Star]
08.   Worth It [1 Star]
09.   For the Lovers [4 Stars]
10.   I Got You [1 Star]
11.   Salute [1 Star]

BEST: Million Dollar Bill, For the Lovers
WORST: A Song for You
SCORE: 2 STARS (1.9)

Recommended: No