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Houston Lifts Off
Will she succeed in her latest reinvention bid?
submitted by: Lisa (webmaster)
date: August/September 1999 issue
source: Untold Magazine
It doesn't sound like Whitney, and it sure doesn't look like Whitney. She's returned, looking sexier with new clothes, new groove, and a spanking new attitude. Whitney Houston's November 1998 release My Love Is Your Love has gone 5x platinum. The album introduces an invigorated Whitney, and is her first non-soundtrack album in eight years. The album cover is beautiful. She's wearing a sexy dress with stiletto calf-high boots and black leather gloves.
Her hair is different, the wiggy copper of the diva-esque days seems to be resting in peace, a softer and relaxed blonde works for her. Like all her tour ensembles, this outfit was designed specifically for her by Italian uber-designers, Dolce and Gabbana. They worked closely with her on the colours and designs they chose, all carefully picked to accentuate the vitality that underscores this album. There's still a lot of sequins and beading but unlike the matronly dresses she's been sporting in the last few years, these are on exquisite stilettos, Capri pants reminiscent of Star Trek, capes evoking starry skies, and revealing little tops, all to show her perfect size four body. Little fluffy and feathery mink shrugs, leather suits - this is a girlie, flirty Whitney that still exudes the worldliness that we have come to love. She looks younger than she has in formal pictures in years because she's relaxing, smiling, looking satisfied and happy to be where she is. When she appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show in June, she was so bubbly and friendly that I kept waiting for her to scream and slap someone because that's what I've grown to expect. Nope. It was a veritable fountain of happiness, Whitney was happy, Dolce and Gabbana (who made an appearance via satellite) were happy, the audience was happy... the cup of happiness was positively overflowing.
Arista Records, Whitney's label since her 1985 debut, have expanded their market by enlisting black music's hottest talent to write, produce and harmonize, while maintaining ties with longtime collaborators.
The highly acclaimed title track was written by eclectic Fugees frontman Wyclef Jean and Jerry Duplessis. Wyclef's music has always had an international flavour, and you can't help feeling that Bob Marley was playing in the background when he wrote this song. Whether you think Wyclef wrote a masterpiece or half-stepped with the Caribbean vibe, this marks Whitney's first foray. albeit a light one, into the non-traditional US contemporary arena.
The first single released in the UK, It's Not Right But It's Okay, has recently been certified gold, while Heartbreak Hotel, the first US single, is heading for double platinum. The reasoning behind the different releases is, according to George Levendis, who heads Arista's international division, "Its common to release different singles in different markets in order to appeal to the listeners. It's Not Right was released as the first UK single because of its contemporary club feel. In the US Heartbreak Hotel's release was aided by the Faith Evans and Kelly Price collaboration, since they're big in the urban market."
It's interesting to note that for the first time in Whitney's career, there seems to be a generational divide. No one doubts that Whitney can sing, but my question is, is it a case of something for everyone, or not enough for anyone? Maybe this album is a shameless effort to reel in the young 'uns who acknowledge Whitney as a powerhouse - but someone their parents listen to. Producers like Rodney Jerkins III, who was behind Brandy and Monica's monster hit, The Boy Is Mine, Missy 'Misdemeanor' Elliott, hip-hop's hitmistress, and the freshly crowned Lauryn Hill, she of the Midas touch, were brought in the studio in the two-month rush that birthed this album. Writing skills aside, these producers have one major factor in common - they have each steered several hit songs targeted at the demographics (youth) that My Love Is Your Love aims for.
If this was indeed a carefully calculated strategy, has it worked in gaining Whitney 'street credibility' from the audience too young to remember her before she became an icon? Editor-in-chief of hip-hop's Source Magazine, Selwyn Seyfu Hinds, thinks so. "I don't think that the support (of young urban listeners) was actually lost, but the music market turns over so quickly, that she kind of fell off the radar for the young urban consumers."
At the same time, Hinds doesn't believe that this album will create much of a backlash from Whitney's older listeners, while urban music writer, Michael Gonzalez, disagrees. Gonzalez remembers first seeing Whitney before her debut release at the now defunct Paradise Garage, a New York City night club that was the underground centre for what's known as house and garage music today, a place that was more used to the flamboyant sexuality of Grace Jones than the shy, short-haired teenager in a track suit. In his eyes, while Missy Elliott. Lauryn Hill and Wyclef may have delivered their audience, and a solid consumer base that'll buy anything Whitney puts out, there is also a contingent of older fans that will be alienated.
Sharon Gordon, an independent entertainment publicist, counts herself among Whitney's fans. "Honestly, this album seems to be a labour of commercialism, and not a labour of love. Whitney has established an adult contemporary sound that is missing. For the eight-year wait, it's too candy cane, too run of the mill - this album is not speaking to me. I love Whitney. but I'm not impressed."
Arista's president, Clive Davis, who Whitney calls 'my record industry father' in her latest album credits, said recently "...when you get to the superstar level, the knives are always out... they have to prove themselves, and they have to do it each time out. And Whitney's done that." In a 1998 interview with Billboard magazine, the singer admitted that there was pressure to demonstrate that she was still in the race, underlining the importance of keeping up with the times and fitting in with current trends.
Has fitting-in lowered a barrier that Whitney, as part of the elite, should be raising? The general consensus is that the tracks fuse to put Whitney where she had to prove she still belongs - in front of the pack. Yes, she sounds more youth contemporary, but c'mon, she's not geriatric yet and maybe the point is not that she 'sounds like everyone else', it's that she does it better than everyone else. In financial terms, this gamble has paid off with more than five million copies in album sales to date internationally, with the numbers climbing weekly.
Whitney accomplished something else with this album. For the first time in years, she has managed a release without an accompanying tabloid feeding frenzy and, given her press of the last six to seven years, that just might be an award-winning feat by itself. And a little more on the media thing. This is for the little ones who, excusably, were in training pants fourteen years ago, and, lest we forget, those special ones among us that have no idea who Whitney Houston is. Once, long ago, in our galaxy, Whitney Houston was more than an icon.
That is to say, she was the embodiment of a successful performer or, as longtime fan and underground producer/composer, Evelyn Jean, puts it, "Black America's Barbra Streisand. Who else contemporary can you go into a doctor's office anywhere and hear? She's a powerful example of what we can aspire to, in any profession."
When Whitney first came to the public's attention nearly fifteen years ago, she was quickly labeled the new 'pop princess'. That moniker may not have been quite right but it had a certain resonance. She was born into music royalty: her mother, Cissy Houston, is a renowned gospel singer, and her cousin Dionne Warwick churned out hit after hit through the sixties, seventies and eighties. Whitney grew up surrounded by music, going to the studios with Cissy and learning the art and business of making music. It was her striking beauty and not her voice that caught photographers' and fashion editors' eyes and by her mid-teens she was posing on the pages of Seventeen and Glamour magazines. The modeling was a nice aside, but Whitney knew that music was her calling, saying in a recent interview, "I knew when I started I wasn't like anyone else - not my mother, my cousin or anyone. Somehow I knew this is what I would do. I just love to sing." Fourteen years ago Whitney's debut album, Whitney Houston, set off a storm that has subsided at times, but it has never truly abated. Whitney Houston was the rarest of gems; a sound that appealed across racial and chronological lines.
There was something for everyone. For the older folks, the resonance and purity of her voice's five-octave range had an innocence that reminded them of church on Sundays and recalled favorites of their time. The thirty-ish group had just come off a decade of frenetic music, were falling in love and starting families and were ready to slow it down. For Whitney's peers, songs like How Will I Know and Someone For Me captured their feverish emotions, while the more mature sensuality of the lonely dejected mistress in Saving All My Love allowed them to play at being grown-up. The message of self-love and acceptance in The Greatest Love of All, heralded as Whitney's personal all-time favourite, was invaluable to people of all walks of life and has become a radio and concert staple.
It didn't hurt that on the inside of the album cover was an absolutely beautiful picture of a long-legged, flawless and natural Whitney in a fabulous white swimsuit. Women of all ages admired and envied, teenage boys and grown men everywhere stood to attention and said, "good God almighty" and an entire fan-base was born. The album sold more than 13 million copies, and was the best-selling debut of all time by a female solo artist.
With the release of 1987's follow-up album, Whitney, which made history by entering the Billboard album charts at number one, the sanitized image was cemented with more songs of youthful exuberance like I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me). This album was a little different in that Whitney was beginning to sound like a woman who had lived a little and had her heart stepped on a little. With Didn't We Almost Have It All, So Emotional, and Where Do Broken Hearts Go, it was a maturing, wiser, and sadder Whitney.
Her look was a little different too. Gone was the minimalist make-up of the young girl, the simple hair coifs and demure clothes, it was Whitney in technicolor. Her hair had gone from black to copper, the fresh scrubbed face was now a palette and the basic black dresses and blue jeans were replaced by shorter, tighter multicoloured dresses. For the fans that were growing up with her, Whitney's status was assured.
Change came rushing in with 1990's I'm Your Baby Tonight. Like the two previous albums, this produced several number one hits. Lead by the title track, All The Man I Need. Miracle, My Name Is Not Susan, the album was acclaimed and became multi-platinum with sales over eight million world-wide. This was a tougher and undeniably grown-up Whitney and the tabloids took notice.
With Whitney's 1992 marriage to Bobby Brown came an abrupt reshuffle from pop princess into tabloid target. Bobby came to the marriage with his own press faction that had followed from his adoles-cent days as a pop prince with eighties boy group New Edition. Bobby fled New Edition's saccharine image as soon as his legs grew long enough, and made a solo name for himself as the premier bump-and-grinder of his generation. The honeymoon with the press was over. Whitney had linked her star to her peer group's most controversial performer. While the tabloids couldn't diminish her talent and accomplish-ments, which included two Grammy awards (she's since won three more) and countless industry honours, they vilified her as enthusiastically as they had praised her. For the next few years, Whitney was a headliner for every gossip magazine, and allegations and rumours swirled around her marriage. The world was barging in her front door via the media and she wanted the door sealed shut. Interviews and stories during this period depicted a wary and rancorous Houston defending her husband, extended circle and lifestyle with vehemence, revealing a blunt temper that quickly earned her a diva title; a divine, and difficult one.
Through it all, Whitney was taking on additional roles -motherhood in 1993 with the birth of her daughter, Bobbi Kristina, and actress with 1992's The Bodyguard. The accompanying album soundtrack becoming the biggest of its kind in history with more than 33 million copies sold. In her other film outings, 1995's Waiting To Exhale and The Preacher's Wife the following year, both generated number one albums.
We haven't seen or heard much of Whitney in the last couple of years but she's hardly been idle. She's kept busy with various endeavors, most importantly parenting. Bobbi Kristina is six years old now and is front row and centre in Whitney's life and at most of her concerts. She can also be heard as a tiny voice on her mother's latest album. Rumours aside, her marriage to Bobby Brown is heading for eight years and despite what you think you know, all seems well. Professionally, her production company, BrownHouse, executive pro-duced a 1997 Emmy award winning adaptation of Disney's Cinderella that has surpassed any other made-for-TV movie.
Whether you think she's the antichrist or a misunderstood artist, whether you love the new album or think she's peaked, Whitney has made the most significant point in her career by reinventing herself in a way few of lesser calibre have ever managed. As Whitney said herself in July, "Nobody is good or bad all the time. Everybody has ups and downs."
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