From The New Zealand Herald Submitted by: Rachel D.
WHITNEY HOUSTON
My Love Is Your Love
(Arista)
Put it down to a seasonal softening of sensibilities.
Put it down to the high sugar diet that comes with this time of year. Put it down to the relief that comes to knowing that if there is proper Whitney Houston album out she won't be acting in a movie for a while.
But when it comes to this, Houston's first album proper in eight years ... well it's hard to put it down.
It's really quite good and packs some surprises - one being that Houston may have, after 60 million or so albums sold, discovered soul.
OK, she's not about to start writing songs herself and there's some of the usual Whitney-isms. Like the Big Movie Production Number - her Prince of Egypt duet with Mariah Carey When You Believe which has the divas' respective larynxes going at it like arm-wrestling octopi.
And there is quite a bit of filler clogging up the later stages including the rank Oh Yes. Though with its opening lines ("you held me in your arms ... I still smelt the scent of you on my dress ... unbelievable") it could well become a hit on the Impeachment Party circuit.
That one was a co-write by rapper Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliot but she makes up for her sins on the tough and sassy In My Business. Other highlights are mostly up front with the opener It's Not Alright But It's Ok with Houston holding back against a sparse backing of a clipped groove and a looped vibes motif.
Next up Heartbreak Hotel (no relation) has Faith Evans and Kelly Price help with the generally low-slung 70s soul setting and heavy-hearted mood.
Then on the title track, the Fugees' Wyclef Jean lifts bits of No Woman No Cry's tune and rhythm for Houston to get neatly loose on.
From there it's an increasing among of filler and trad roof lifting ballad Houston (like the faux Bond-theme I Learned from the Best and the mawkish all-together-kids You'll Never Stand Alone).
But the unlisted extra track, Stevie Wonder's I Was Made To Love Him tempers the saccharin aftertaste of the latter stages with a pinch of soul. No you could put it down as just more Whitney product, but some of it isn't bad at all.
