New Music Review: “This is Us” by Backstreet Boys
October 12, 2009
Although I certainly have a soft spot for pop music, I’ve never been much of a Backstreet Boys fan. Even in their heyday, their music was pretty mediocre. It didn’t help that, after BSB resuscitated boy band fever in the mid-nineties, *Nsync came along and beat the stuffing out of them. However, you’ve got to give Howie, A.J., Nick and Brian props for their persistence. While *Nsync and 98 Degrees ran for the nearest exits the second that their musical style became passe, Backstreet’s hung around all these years. Granted, they haven’t been anywhere near as successful, but it’s a credit to them that they’re still in the industry making music. “This is Us” is their sixth American studio album, and after a couple of albums of the group going the adult contemporary/soft rock route, it finds BSB returning to dance/pop with a vengeance, armed with today’s hottest producers, tons of synthesizers, and even some of that dreaded Auto-tune.
“This is Us” makes a valiant attempt to capture the heavily synthesized pop sound that’s so in vogue these days. This is probably due to a cast of writers and producers that include RedOne (who’s helmed GaGa’s hits), Ryan Tedder (of OneRepublic) and Jim Jonsin (who produced “Lollipop” for Lil Wayne). Unfortunately, that results in very little that sticks to the ribs. Part of that problem is due to the songwriting-memorable hooks are very hard to come by here, unlike back in the day when Max Martin and his team of writers and producers were able to come up with hooky, hummable lyrics. Even though Martin returns to the fold for one song (the fairly anonymous “Bigger”), his appearance doesn’t take away from the fact that, despite the caffeinated tempos, this album is relatively boring. Track after track of generic love (and anti-love) songs, with the only exception being the uncharacteristically horny “P.D.A.”, in which the fellas sing about being out in public with their “hands all on your booty”. While it’s certainly ear-catching, the guys sound like they’re trying too hard here, and come across as dirty old men in the process.
Then there’s an issue that’s always plagued the Backstreet Boys. These dudes are almost totally anonymous as singers. While Justin Timberlake and JC Chasez were blessed with fantastic and unique voices, and Britney Spears’ voice is so computer-manipulated that it stands out, these guys sound totally beige. It’s not that they can’t sing or anything, just that there’s no real character or personality to their singing.
While you’ve got to give BSB a little credit for not indulging their soppy ballad instincts on “This is Us”, it’s hard not to notice that the songs get better when the tempo slows a little bit. The two best songs on the album are the smooth groover “She’s a Dream” and album closer “Undone”. The former song has a pleasant, relaxed vibe with smooth harmonies that cancel out the inane lyrics (which are about how cool it is to flaunt your celebrity in front of your girl). It’s hard to stomach that this song was co-written and co-produced by (gulp) T-Pain. The latter song has hushed, dramatic harmonies as well as a smattering of real instruments. I have rarely been as happy to hear a guitar or piano in my life!
I can’t really say that I’m disappointed by “This is Us”…because I really wasn’t expecting much. The whole Nineties boy-band thing was never really my bag, and although BSB were able to pull some great singles out of their collective hat, they’ve certainly never made an album that was better than average. They’ll never be unique or distinctive singers, and today’s crop of popular songwriters and producers (excepting a couple like Ne-Yo) don’t really lend themselves to strong lyrics or melodies. So, what you end up with is basically the sound of a group that was never that good in the first place spinning their wheels. Even if you’re a fan, you’d probably still be best served keeping your ten bucks in your pocket.
New Music Review: Mariah Carey’s “Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel”
October 9, 2009
It’s been a long time since I’ve even been impressed by a Mariah Carey album. “The Emancipation of Mimi” was heralded as a return to form, but how many people these days want to listen to that album straight through as opposed to just playing “We Belong Together”? Last year’s “E=MC2″, was a shameless regurgitation of the previous album.
So here we are, about 18 months later, and Mariah’s released another CD, “Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel”. First thing I noticed was “damn, what’s up with the nutty album titles?”. Second thing I noticed was “damn, those titties are like POW on the album cover!”. Third thing I noticed is that it was almost entirely written and produced by Mariah in association with production/writing team Tricky Stewart and The-Dream. These guys have had a pretty scattershot history with me-they’ve worked on songs that are undoubtable earworms, like Rihanna’s “Umbrella” and J. Holiday’s “Bed”. They’ve also come up with a few steaming piles of sh*t, like Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” and two solo albums of nonsense from The-Dream himself. Was I prepared for a whole album of this?
So, here’s the verdict: “Memoirs” is not the complete trainwreck that I surmised it was going to be based on reviews and word of mouth from people I trusted. It could certainly be a lot better, although I think that has more to do with the production of the album than it does with the actual songs.
One thing I can’t get over is the fact that the album sounds so damn STERILE. It would be nice to hear a live instrument now and then, but this album is totally synthetic and canned. Also, “Memoirs” never rises out of it’s midtempo slumber. It’s more or less the same keyboards, the same processed drum sounds at several slight variations on the same speed. That’s not what Mariah’s long-time audience is checing for. People who have been following M.C. since back in the day are looking for a little meat to their music.
Mariah’s a fairly witty songwriter. She’s definitely got a knack for the kiss-off, whether she’s sneering “see right through you like you’re bathin’ in Windex” on “Obsessed” or cracking that “if we were two Lego blocks/even the Harvard University class of 2010/couldn’t put us back together again” on “Up Out My Face”. Hell, what other singer can you think of who would rhyme “Serato” with “model”, “McDonald’s”, “gelato”, “Picasso”, “soprano” and “me llamo”. Although her lyrics can occasionally sound like entries from a 14-year old girl’s diary, she’s also more than capable of coming up with a smart lyric when she wants to.
In addition to the tempo of the music rarely rising above a crawl, Mariah’s voice sounds sleepier than ever. The belt that once pegged her as one of the most powerful singers around has all but disappeared, leaving her floating back and forth between a whispery coo that stopped being cute ten years ago and that inane dog-whistle voice, which she probably uses more here than on any album since her debut. She also uses her lower register more than usual here, especially on the song “H.A.T.E.U.”. On this track, the plodding tempo and Mariah’s emotionless vocal makes it sound like she’s been slipped about 500 sedatives and then pointed to the mic.
Not to say “Memoirs” doesn’t have it’s moments. “It’s a Wrap” is a fairly sassy slice of throwback soul, while “Angels Cry” is a ballad with a very pretty melody and the most “pop” vibe of the album’s original songs. Then there’s “The Impossible”, a slow jam on which Mariah gets down with her man, a vocoder and some Jodeci and proceeds to make a song which gives off the vibe of some of the best bedroom soul of the past ten or fifteen years while not even being half as raunchy. However, that doesn’t make up for the bland anonymity of most of the other material, or the hideous chopped-and-screwed vocal effect that plays throughout “Ribbon”. It says a lot when the album’s best written song is 25 years old (for the record, that would be “I Want to Know What Love Is”, Mariah’s latest attempt to reclaim a Lite-FM favorite).
I guess there’s a part of me that’s waiting for Mariah to get it right, to put all the pieces into place and make the album that I think she’s capable of making. She’s exhibited flashes of brilliance on damn near every album, but consistently surrounds that brilliance with tons upon tons of humdrum trend-hopping. Whitney Houston’s recent “I Look to You” proved that there can be successful compromises when it comes to mature female pop R&B singers that can still make commercially relevant music. Ms. Carey, I think it’s time to play catch-up.
“Single Ladies”: Better Than Beyonce?
October 6, 2009
So, my buddy Kyle hipped me to this version of Beyonce’s “Single Ladies”, performed by an indie pop band called Pomplamoose. Not being a huge fan of the original (talk about a video making a song 1,000 times better), I wasn’t expecting much, but these guys did a great job here. I am SO not a hipster, so even though I’m kinda rolling my eyes at the ironic vintage tees and the skinny jeans, I’m tapping my foot to this neat cover.
If you go over to their Youtube page, you’ll find a lot more goodness from these guys. I’m not sure where they’re based out of (why does something tell me they’re from Brooklyn?), but they’re pretty interesting. I highly recommend their version of Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September”.
Friday Throwback: “State of the Heart”
October 2, 2009
I send you off for the weekend with a little Rick Springfield for that ass.
Rick was one of the first teen idols that I was aware of. My cousin Sharon had a massive crush on him. She would make sure to get home in time to see him play Dr. Noah Drake on “General Hospital”, and I can distinctly remember going to Kings Plaza Mall in Brooklyn and watching her buy a framed black-and-white photo of Rick in his leather-jacketed glory. I also remember him having very hairy arms in the picture. Interesting the things you retain…
The Aussie conquered the worlds of both prime-time TV and pop music for a while, scoring hits in the skinny-tie power-pop fashion like “Jessie’s Girl” (which actually beat Bruce Springsteen for a Grammy…I remember this!) and “Don’t Talk to Strangers” (one of my favorites). Synthesizers began to creep into his music over the next couple of years with songs like “Human Touch” and “Bop ’til You Drop”, and he released what I understand to be one of the incredibly all-time bad rock movies with “Hard to Hold”. However, 1985’s “State of the Heart” is a moody midtempo gem that gets overlooked when most people look at Springfield’s string of hits.
Rick’s vocal is expressive, moreso than his pained facial expressions in the video, and the song has a very cool instrumental motif, with that whacked out synth solo in the middle. This pretty much marked the end of the road for Rick, as he only had one more hit with 1988’s “Rock of Life”. However, he’s still performing today, even in his early Sixties (actually, a quick Wiki check reveals that he just turned 60). Still looks good too…better than most 60 year olds I know. He still makes and puts out albums and also returned to “GH” for a time, too. Anyway, enjoy the video, sorry about the subtitles, and have a great weekend!
Pearl Jam’s “Backspacer”: Goodbye Experimentation, Hello Rock ‘n Roll!!
September 30, 2009
After exploding onto the scene at the height of the grunge era, Eddie Vedder and his band Pearl Jam seemed to have lost the plot at the start of this decade with albums like “Binaural” and “Riot Act”-two sets that found their way into my collection…and very quickly found their way out. There was just too much noise and not enough melody for me.
2006’s self-titled offering showed a ray of hope, even if I haven’t been enticed to listen to it lately, and Vedder’s solo “Into the Wild” soundtrack was quite good-but it was an Eddie Vedder album, not a Pearl Jam album. With the arrival of “Backspacer”, the band’s ninth studio album, the million dollar question in my eyes was: does Pearl Jam still have it?
Well, folks-the answer appears to be “yes”. “Backspacer” is a concise (11 songs in 36 1/2 minutes), tight, well-written and well-played album. Musically speaking, the band has never sounded as eclectic while operating within a mainstream pop framework. The songs here aren’t deliberately obtuse like some of the band’s more experimental work. The hooks are strong as hell, and for the first time in a while (ever?), the band sounds joyful. I mean, let’s face it: PJ’s last two albums were very political and downcast as far as lyrical content. It’s nice to hear them lighten up and sound loose and relaxed.
“Backspacer” gets off to a running start with the uptempo 1-2-3 combination of “Gonna See My Friend”, “Got Some” and first single “The Fixer”. Particularly on the second of those three songs, Vedder sounds as intense as he did on PJ classics like “Go”, speed-singing the lyrics atop caffeinated guitar licks from Stone Gossard and Mike McCready. “Supersonic” is another speedy, punk-inspired rave-up (well, except for the tempo-shifting instrumental midsection). These songs aren’t totally dissimilar from the work PJ has done on their last few albums-just…tighter and more polished. You can credit the band for sharper songwriting and playing, but you’ve also gotta give props to producer Brendan O’Brien, who is back in the fold for the first time since ’98’s “Yield”.
For my money, though, the album’s best tracks are the mellower ones. “Just Breathe” is a slowly unwinding semi-acoustic ditty that would have been right at home on “Into the Wild”. The anthemic “Amongst the Waves” has one of those triumphant, fist-waving choruses that have become a Pearl Jam trademark, even though it doesn’t rock *quite* as hard as the album’s more uptempo offerings. “The End” is another pretty piece featuring Eddie’s soulful wail backed by a delicate acoustic guitar and a string section.
“Backspacer” is pretty much the encapsulation of everything good about Pearl Jam. There are hard rockin’ anthems, as well as songs like the thoughtful “Speed of Sound”, which is sure to follow in the footsteps of mellower smashes like “Better Man” and “Daughter”. Vedder is in fine voice throughout, the songs are immediate and not ponderous, and the end result is quite possibly the most consistently enjoyable album from the ’90s rock titans since their initial heyday.
CD Review: Jay-Z’s “The Blueprint 3″
September 21, 2009
Jay-Z’s been in a weird place these last few years, career-wise. After “un-retiring” in 2006, the rapper seemed to struggle to find his way. That year’s “Kingdom Come” was a credible attempt to make a “grown folks” hip-hop album, but it didn’t appeal to Jay’s younger contingent of fans and underperformed commercially. The following year’s “American Gangster” found Jay revisiting the hustling themes of his older albums and restored his position critically, although I personally don’t think it was much better than “Kingdom Come”. He’d been promising “The Blueprint 3″ for at least a year, tossing off a bunch of teaser singles that sounded, well…tossed off. To my ears, it sounded like Jay had lost his passion for rhyming. I wasn’t holding out hope that “BP3″ would be worth the money I would inevitably spend on it.
Surprise! Jay apparently regrouped at some point and came out of the studio with one of the stronger albums of his career. The production is uniformly solid, sounding right in the pocket of current radio trends without sounding like Jay’s trying particularly hard to appeal to a younger audience. Jay sounds rejuvenated on the mic; he hasn’t sounded this spirited and in love with words since “The Black Album”.
Every Jay album-even the best ones-have a few songs of fast-forward material, so what surprises the most about “BP3″-besides Jay’s renewed vocal dexterity-is that it’s a consistent listen all the way through. The only other Jay album that flows this well is the first “Blueprint”. The embarrassing moments on this album have nothing to do with Jay himself. Pharrell Williams delivers a lukewarm synth-pop beat on “So Ambitious”, but I’d give a pass to the song if it wasn’t for Pharrell’s God-awful chorus. “Reminder”’s insistent chorus is somewhat repetitious (and therefore annoying as hell), but Jay’s solid verses make up for the crappy hook. Other than that, there’s a forgettable verse (surprised?) by Young Jeezy on “Real As it Gets”, and the rest of the album is gravy.
Jay’s at his best when his songs follow some sort of narrative, and “BP3″’s standout tracks are the ones that focus on a subject other than Jay himself. The piano-spiked “A Star is Born” gives props to a string of other rappers. Jay even extends an olive branch to a few of the rappers he’s had beef with over the years. I wasn’t too keen on “D.O.A. (Death of Autotune)” when it hit the airwaves a few months ago, but it’s grown on me. It’s a back-to-basics Jay tune; straight-up New York boom-bap. Speaking of New York, “Empire State of Mind” is a loving tribute to Jay’s home, with a triumphant chorus from Alicia Keys.
Whenever Jay’s rhyming about himself gets a little tiring, the producers come in to save the day with hot beats. “On to the Next One” features a bassy, head-nodding beat flavored with vocal samples from Justice’s hit “D.A.N.C.E.”. “Off That” spotlights Jay’s awesome flow and proves that he can even rhyme on one of Timbaland’s more dance/pop oriented beats. Kanye West even digs up Alphaville’s 1985 synth-pop tearjerker “Forever Young” for the album closer “Young Forever”. Aside from the aforementioned “So Ambitious”, there’s not one bad beat on the “BP3″.
Two more things that stood out to me: Jay successfully experiments with his flow on “BP3″, whether overdubbing his vocals on top of one another on the dark, mysterious “Venus Vs. Mars”, or trading off lines relay-race style with Kanye on “Hate”. It’s nice to hear that even though he’s 15 years into his career and pushing 40, he’s still exploring what he can do with his voice. The album is also fairly devoid of guest rappers, with the exception of Young Jeezy’s yawner of a verse on “Real As it Gets”. J. Cole (one of Jay’s newest proteges) contributes an inobtrusive verse to “A Star is Born” and Kanye delivers some of the most entertaining verses on the album with his contributions to “Hate” and the smash single “Run This Town”.
I’ve gotta admit, “Blueprint 3″ was a pleasant surprise. It has a consistency missing from a lot of Jay’s catalog, and his rhyming sounds more focused, more joyful, than it has in a number of years. It’s not a stone-cold classic like the first “Blueprint” (that would have required Jay to do a little more soul-searching on the lyrical tip than he did on this album), but it’s also thankfully not the overambitious, disjointed mess that was “Blueprint 2″. What you get with “Blueprint 3″ is a solid, enjoyable album, which proves that even in his advanced age (in hip-hop years), Jay-Z is still capable of recording material that challenges his best work.
Tiny Spirits in Paradise
September 18, 2009
“What the hell is this?” The guy standing next to me asks his friend. His friend shakes his head.
Cocorosie has just begun to play to a packed Paradise Rock Club in Boston.
A woman in a newsboy cap strums a harp and when she opens her mouth, opera warbles out. A tinny prerecorded loop plays the mooing of a child’s toy cow.
A few minutes later, the same guy says, “what is this?” This time, he’s staring at the band, enraptured. Converted. The rest of the crowd—exactly the kind you’d expect to gather on a Saturday night to hear a woman sing opera while her sister plays a series of cat meows—is similarly transfixed; faces have turned like sunflowers toward the stage.
There’s no way Cocorosie could play an average show—there’s nothing remotely average about them.
As a band, Cocorosie defies labels, though their record company, Touch and Go, aptly describes them as “tiny field mice singing gospel.”
Two sisters form the band. Sierra sings opera and plays the harp, guitar, piano, and kazoo. (The fact that the previous sentence is completely devoid of irony or sarcasm indicates the originality that makes Cocorosie so compelling). At the show, Sierra, with smudged eye make-up and exaggerated facial expressions, resembles a weeping clown. As she sings, she sometimes rocks back and forth as though comforting herself. Her unholy voice rises and falls manically, like a ghost haunting the opera.
The other sister, Bianca, has the tinny, trembling voice of a shriveled grandmother (with impressive range, of course). She manipulates various children’s toys, electronics, and other strange noisemakers. She wears a bandanna over hair that splits into two braids and she’s painted a V over the front of her face so that she looks like a cross between Skeletor and Raggedy Ann.
They’ve got a bassist on stage, but he’s practically invisible. A beatboxer supplies percussion, changing up and laying down grooves that ground the soaring voices and echoing loops.
They play only a few of their more upbeat songs—I’m surprised by the absence of favorites such as “Noah’s Ark.” The crowd dances when the beat picks up, but dancing isn’t the goal of the audience or the band. The show primarily consists of songs that make the hair on the back of your neck stand up.
Sierra’s vocals induce shivers, especially when her voice curls in on itself and becomes achingly plaintive. She doubles over and croons, “All I want in my life / is to be your housewife,” pulling at nothing with desperate hands. I keep thinking that the crowd will grow weary of this bizarre slow sadness, but they don’t. Cocorosie creates a mood I’ve never quite seen before at a concert—the sisters have cast a spell like a net over the crowd.
The fairy tale story of Cocorosie’s formation is consistent with their magical aura. Sierra and Bianca were estranged for much of their adolescence; Bianca studied in Brooklyn and Sierra moved to Paris to sing opera. In 2003, Bianca showed up at Sierra’s apartment and the two of them almost immediately began recording La Maison de mon Reve, which they recorded in the acoustical epicenter of the house—the bathroom.
They intended to keep La Maison among friends, but in late 2003 Touch and Go got the album, fell under the spell, and pursued a contract with the sisters.
Cocorosie perform as though they’re curled up in the bathtub in a roomful of friends. I feel communion with the band and with everyone else who has shown up and submitted themselves to Cocorosie’s charms. We all—even the skeptic from the beginning of the show—have fallen for this strange rainbowarrior music and for the band that takes spare parts, vocal gymnastics, and magic to make it so.
Tell Me Why You’re Crying My Son
September 17, 2009
Peter Paul and Mary play NY in 2006. Image via Wikipedia
Mary Travers, the Mary who blended her voice with Peter and Paul, has died at 72 according to published reports at CNN.com.
Watching a world pass them by but sticking to the idealism that made them 60s favorites, PP&M were the VH1 band of their day that wanted to break on MTV but not lose their loyal listeners. Puff (The Magic Dragon) wasn’t about anything but a child’s imaginary playmate they insisted, much like The Beatles insisted that many of their well known drug songs were simple odes about fun places.
Back to back Grammy Awards in 1962-1963 for Best Pop Performance for If I Had A Hammer and Leaving On A Jet Plane established the trio in music’s mainstream. They were no longer the torch bearers of Seeger’s legacy, but a musical force (much like early Kanye) that could keep a foot on each side of the road and walk straight down the center.
The artists they influenced are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as are the artists that influenced them. They gave voice to Bobby Zimmerman’s Blowin’ in the Wind. They did the same thing for John Denver’s Leaving on a Jet Plane in that awkward period the Far Out guy experienced between the Chad Mitchell days and his stint as a Rocky Mountain troubadour.
Peter Paul & Mary covered Dylan especially well. In The Wind, the band’s third album in 1963, featured three Dylan penned tracks. They would constantly return to Dylan covers, including I Shall Be Released and Too Much of Nothing. Tim Hardin was another favorite songwriter to cover, as was influence Pete Seeger.
Perhaps no better measure of the respect PP&M generated is found in the musicians credits on their albums. Artists like Herbie Hancock grace the credits of the band’s discography. And if Paul Stookey wanted to write songs and Peter Yarrow wanted to produce them, Mary Travers was the soaring voice cementing the two and firmly establishing the trio in pop music history.
RIP Mary. Day is done.
*For those who didn’t delve too deep into the discography, the headline is the first line of Day is Done, one of Peter, Paul and Mary’s last hits.
Live!…and in Living Colour
September 15, 2009
It’s not often that you get to see musical legends playing mere feet from you. However, that turned out to be the case last Thursday when I saw Grammy winners Living Colour play a tiny Boston bar called Johnny D’s. The groundbreaking funk/rock band was touring in support of their fifth studio album, “The Chair in the Doorway”, and their 2-hour plus set proved that after more than twenty years, they’ve still got the goods.
The band structured their show somewhat strangely, kicking off with an hour of hits before playing their new album in it’s entirety. However, they were good enough that they were able to retain almost the entire audience for that second hour despite the fact that they were playing music no one had heard before.
One thing that still resonates is the band’s diversity. Far more than your standard rock band, Living Colour’s performance incorporated elements of jazz, soul, electronica. Hell, there was even a 10-minute solo performed by drummer Will Calhoun! It’s a testament to their superior musicianship that they were able to traverse so many different styles and still sound like a cohesive unit.
Perhaps the most impressive thing of all was the fact that lead singer Corey Glover has retained a quite impressive set of pipes. Straddling the line between rock ‘n roll growler and soul shouter, with one hell of a vocal range, Glover was equal parts attitude (strutting through “Elvis is Dead”) and emotion (a heart-rending version of “Open Letter (to a Landlord)”). He might be one of rock’s most underrated frontmen-he’s certainly a much better vocalist than even Living Colour’s records indicate.
Although the crowd was there for “Cult of Personality” (which closed the show) and “Glamour Boys”, the new material was well-received, with one audience member shouting out “album of the year” in the midst of the proceedings.
I grew up admiring this band and I must say, they did not disappoint live. Their show easily placed on my list of favorite concerts, and this was the *start* of their tour. I’d almost hate to see how good they are once they get their legs under them. While history might not be as kind as it should be to Living Colour, believe me when I say that these guys are still worth checking out two decades after their heyday.
http://www.livingcolourmusic.com/
Review – Whitney Houston Looks To You To Reinvigorate Her Music Career
September 6, 2009
It took her seven years, but Whitney Houston is back, and if you believe the themes of her new album, I Look To You, she’s put her problems in her rear view mirror.
The first thing that should be talked about is her legendary voice. It’s not the same Whitney voice that you remember, but that’s not a bad thing. It’s consistent and while it doesn’t seem that she can hit those crazy notes of yesteryear, it’s still good and in this case, less can be more.
Whitty Hutton Wuld Tour
Back in the mid 90s on Martin Lawrence’s hit TV show, there was a story line in which he was jobless and decided to sell bootleg Whitney Houston t-shirts outside of her concert. His partner Brother Man couldn’t spell very well, so instead of saying, “Whitney Houston World Tour”, the shirt said, “Whitty Hutton Wuld Tour”. When Whitney Houston became the “crack is wack” Whitney, I just started calling her Whitty Hutton. It fit. The once singer of golden songs became a joke.
Whitney Houston's I Look To You
On Salute, which is written and produced by R. Kelly, she even borrows from Todd Smith’s classic line. Over a piano bed, she calls herself a soldier girl for standing strong.
Don’t call it a comeback, I’ve been here for years.
Who is she saluting? She’s trying to be the bigger person in saluting who you have to believe is Bobby Brown, as a way to get over her past issues and struggles in life.
Is She Still Our Baby Tonight?
Back in the mid to late 80s, Whitney Houston was so charming. I remember seeing her on the Arsenio Hall show and she had swagger before I knew what swagger was. She could’ve been Miss America, a great actress, and the world’s biggest pop star all in one, and I wouldn’t have been surprised. She played nicely, and while you could tell she had a little bit of a chip on her shoulder, but she gave you that wink and nod and simply owned the stage. Bill Cosby even wanted her to play his oldest daughter Sondra on The Cosby Show. But during the 90s, she wasn’t that Whitney anymore.
Fast forward some 20 years and she’ll never be able to be America’s Sweetheart again. But can she get back some of what she lost?
Lead single Million Dollar Bill has the team of Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz behind it, yet it’s slightly underwhelming. It does put Whitney immediately in a positive light as there are only so many songs she can do with the comeback theme before people start rolling their eyes. It’s not as strong as the Akon flavored Like I Never Left, which except for the fact that it starts off annoyingly with Akon making sure we understand that it’s a Konvict record, is sweet and light. Call You Tonight is signature Starlight, the Spotlight (Jennifer Hudson), of the album.
Whitney performs Million Dollar Bill on Good Morning American
What’s The Big “Whitney” Song That We’ll All Remember This Album By?
Sadly, there isn’t one. My favorite song on the album is the aforementioned Akon duet. But I think she and Clive Davis meant for it to be the title track. I Look To You is the second single on the album and is written by R. Kelly. It’s a slowly laced piano ballad in which she continues with the comeback theme. However, the stronger ballad in my opinion is the Diane Warren/David Foster helmed I Didn’t Know My Own Strength. It showcases Whitney’s voice in a very vulnerable place. The song builds up dramatically and is fulfilling by the end.
Save for the terrible Euro-dance version of A Song For You, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with Whitney’s comeback album. But there’s nothing on here that’s going to shock the world either. It should appease her current fanbase, which I guess is the goal. It’s a nice album, but one in which most music fans will be able to do without.
