Album Review: My Love Is Your Love

Date: November 28, 1998
By Betsy Powell

From The Toronto Star
Submitted by: Rachel D.


WHITNEY HOUSTON
My Love Is Your Love (BMG)

Houston and co-producer Clive Davis rounded up a herd of hip-hop and R & B hotshots - including Wyclef, Missy Elliot, Kelly Price, Faith Evans and producers Rodney Jerkins ("The Boy Is Mine") and Babyface - for her first non-soundtrack-related CD in eight years.

The aim is to diversify and update Houston's ballad-queen sound, a commendable move. Trouble is, the album is filled with too much mediocre, formulaic music to be compelling.

For example, Houston's choir-backed duet with Mariah Carey on "When You Believe," from the coming animated movie The Prince Of Egypt, is syrupy and soulless, neither singer's voice distinguishable from the other's.

Only the hidden track comes alive - Lauryn-Hill produced "I Was Made To Love Her," a funky, gender-switching remake of Stevie Wonder's classic.

About the most interesting part of the 13-track disc is the disclaimer: "The events & characters depicted in this album are fictitious & any similarity to actual persons living or dead, or to actual events, is purely coincidental."

Is she being ironic? Or is Mrs. Bobby Brown really trying to quell (more) rumours about her marriage?