Whitney Houston, "Whitney Houston"

Ken’s saving all his loving for you

Ken’s Pitch:

Ella, Billie, Aretha, Dolly, Whitney. The greatest female singers of the 20^th century are right there, and we know exactly who every one of them is just by uttering their first names. Each of them brought their own style to their craft, but it was Whitney Houston who paved the way for the Mariah Carey’s, Christina Aguilera’s, and Adele’s.  If you didn’t live through the rise and fall of Whitney’s troubled soul, you might be skeptical, but if you were there, you saw lightning captured in a gorgeous bottle embossed with impeccable style, an infectious smile, a gracious demeanor, and a once in a generation voice.

Everything she touched in those first 8 years turned to gold, or platinum, or quintuple platinum. She was King Midas on steroids, culminating in a mind-blowing rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner” at the Super Bowl in 1991 (for my money, far and away the best version I’ve ever heard) and her magnum opus in 1992, covering Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You” for the film The Bodyguard.

And then we failed her, the same way we failed Janice, Jimi, and Jerry, and so many others like them.  Masters of their craft struggling with addiction right in front of us. We did nothing except to manufacture headlines to make them the punch lines in the world’s most unfunny joke. We used them as court jesters for our own amusement, knowing without a shred of doubt that they were falling apart. We didn’t offer help or sympathy; we propped them up on stage and commanded them to entertain us. Her eventual demise was 100% predictable, the same way Cobain’s was, and Winehouse’s was, we just didn’t want to pay attention.

In listening to Whitney Houston this week, her 1985 debut album, it was such a joy to go through all the old classics. “Saving All My Love for You” is a pretty little piece that seems like nothing too special, and then Houston wows us with the high notes that will become a staple in her catalog. She effortlessly transitions between registers, every single note impeccably phrased and perfectly pitched. “How Will I Know” is peppy and fun, and I can feel her smile as she belts out the chorus.

While the musical styles range from terrible, mid-’80’s electronica to cliché, simplistic R&B that sounds like it could have backed a porn movie, it’s easily overlooked because of the majestic voice of one of the greatest singers of all time.

In her stunning version of 1977’s “Greatest Love of All” she laments:

Everybody searching for a hero

People need someone to look up to

I never found anyone who fulfill my needs

A lonely place to be

And so I learned to depend on me

She depended on herself, but she was flawed. She made some bad choices, and lost it all. It’s so hard to hear her belt out, “No matter what they take from me, they can’t take away my dignity” because that’s exactly what drugs took from her, and we watched it all go down and couldn’t (or didn’t) do anything to help. We talk a lot more now about mental health and drug abuse, hopefully removing a lot of the stigma that’s historically associated with those things, but we have a long way to go.

A talent like Whitney Houston comes around only once or twice in a century. Let’s do better and give the next one a society she can depend on. Help each other love themselves, because “Learning to love yourself, is the greatest love of all.”

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Mitch’s Response:

The greatest version of "The Star Spangled Banner" that I ever heard did not involve Whitney Houston. I was at a karate tournament in Boston and the emcee was trying to get the crowd of sleepy parents and jacked up kids under control. He yelled at us about parking. He admonished us for eating. He criticized and humiliated several people, wielding his microphone like a katana. He was an angry little man that set the tone for a horrible day. But I'll never forget the moment when he paused mid-rant and just started...singing. 

His rendition of the national anthem didn't feature the breath control or melisma that made Whitney Houston famous, but it was real. It was authentic. It was fueled by the passion of his anger and his need to get through the bullet points on his agenda. He wasn't a great singer, but he made me feel something.

Kind of the opposite experience of listening to Whitney Houston's Whitney Houston.

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Whitney Houston was obviously an incredible singer but Whitney Houston is a terrible album. She's let down by mostly-mediocre songwriting, arrangements best suited for a retirement home, and a production style that I would deem "schmaltzy" except schmaltz is delicious and this album is most definitely not. I honestly can't pick out one song to recommend - even the hits are best suited for the muzak station at the supermarket.

I'm not convinced that "we" as a society let Whitney down. She was incredibly popular and well respected, even after her "crack is wack"/Bobby Brown phase. Plenty of musicians like to do drugs, and Whitney was one of them. If anyone let Whitney down it was Clive Davis and Jermaine Jackson, who inauthentically marketed her as "the girl next door" and saddled her with material that would be rejected by Up With People for being a little too saccharine.

• Pitch Failed (NKOTB was a better album)

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CJ’s Response:

Between the three of us, we cover a lot of musical ground. Mitch is a reliable resource for jam bands and country. Ken knows more about folk/Laurel Canyon/jazz than just about anybody. And I feel like I can hold my own with the best blues-based hard rock and heavy metal aficionados. But one thing we don’t do well is pop music.

Admittedly, a lot of it has to do with musical snobbery. None of us can condone anything that prioritizes style over substance. And yes, I realize that there’s a good deal of style in all of the genres I mentioned above. But beneath any affectations there’s always something real.

When you peel away the style from a lot of pop music, there’s nothing else to recommend it.

Whitney Houston’s debut album is the perfect illustration of pop emptiness. It is nothing but sugar-coated air.

I’m glad Ken mentioned Ella, Billie, Aretha and Dolly. In addition to owning iconic voices, they each have something that Whitney doesn’t–outstanding music and lyrics to match their vocal gifts.

On Whitney Houston, the album’s namesake is given chicken shit from which she is expected to make chicken soup. The music is embarrassingly bad. It’s as if they stole Stevie Wonder’s Casio keyboard from “I Just Called to Say I Love You” and used it to compose the entirety of the score. And if a songwriter were to pitch me the lyrics from “How Will I Know?”, “Saving All My Love” or “The Greatest Love of All”, I would advise them to quit the music business and pursue a career in the insurance industry.

That these were big hits says less about the quality of the songs and more about the lack of taste in 1986 America.

Whitney Houston had a phenomenal instrument. The people who she trusted on this album misused it badly. Unfortunately, the people who she trusted in her personal life were even worse.

• Pitch Failed (Obviously, the best version of the national anthem ever performed live was by Marvin Gaye at the 1983 NBA All-Star Game. If nothing else, watch it for Jack Sikma’s hair.)

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Ken’s pitch was unsuccessful and Whitney Houston’s Whitney Houston will not be dancing into the Newbury St. Collection. What’s your take on Whitney Houston? Which Top 20 album from 1986 would you have pitched? Please let us know in the comments.

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Other albums from 1986 we’ve covered:

• R.E.M., Lifes Rich Pageant

• Bon Jovi, Slippery When Wet

• Bruce Hornsby and the Range, The Way It Is

• Run-D.M.C., Raising Hell

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Please join us next week as the EONS time machine heads back to 1973 with Mitch’s pitch for Loggins & Messina’s Loggins And Messina.