Album Review – Whitney Houston
Whitney Houston – ‘I Look To You’
UK Release 19/10/09 (Arista)
If you’re under the age of 25 (as I am) it comes as a bit of a surprise when you find out Whitney Houston used to be a really, really huge deal. Known these days mainly for ‘I Will Always Love You’ and ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’, “huge deal” doesn’t quite cover the enormous success Whitney enjoyed in the late eighties and early nineties: seven consecutive Billboard number one singles, eleven number ones total, a diamond solo album and the majority of tracks on one of the biggest selling albums of all time and the most successful soundtrack ever, The Bodyguard.
So what happened? Drugs happened. Bobby Brown happened. Changing tastes in pop music, declining quality of her singles, general shifts in music happened. Since 1992 Whitney has been intermittently releasing albums here and there, with varying degrees of success. Every comeback is always a big deal, but I don’t think anybody expects her to hit the heights of her early career again. This comeback however, is a bit different because it is being promoted as the return of “the real Whitney”, the Whitney that was free from drugs and controversy and just about good music. Unfortunately the “good music” part of that isn’t always the case…
I Look To You opens with ‘Million Dollar Bill’, a deliberately retro-sounding track that could easy slot into the hits collection she released in 2000, but does not fit in with the music of 2009 at all. The disappointing US peak position of #100 seems to confirm this. Attempts at contemporary relevance such as ‘Like I Never Left’ (a duet with Akon) are catchy but ultimately fall flat. It is on the big ballads that Whitney does better – although her voice is different now, it isn’t completely gone. ‘I Didn’t Know My Own Strength’, a sort-of “buzz single” thing (who knows these days) was met with mixed reviews but it reminds me of key Whitney moments like ‘When You Believe’ or ‘Greatest Love Of All’, if not quite as universal. Bring Mariah in and run some movie credits over it and you’d think it was the glory days of the mid-nineties again. Unlike ‘Million Dollar Bill’, this sounds charmingly dated and plays up to Whitney’s strengths more.
Moments like that are few and far between on I Look To You. Whitney could do a fantastic album one day, maybe her next comeback will finally fulfil everyone’s expectations. It sounds okay while it’s playing but there is nothing here that will linger in the memory of any casual fans, and fans from way back at the beginning must be quietly placing this album under the bed and playing ‘I’m Every Woman’ on repeat. Whitney Houston still has the potential to make a show-stopping comeback, but muted R&B beats are not giving her a chance to shine.
**½
Richard Croft
