There was a time when I thought Whitney has the best voice in the entire world. The ferocity with which she tackles the power ballads, the flexibility and fluidity with which she changes from singing voice to falsetto, the poise and elegance in her performances, the improvisations (though it bordered on terrible at times), and those big long notes (!) made her one of the most popular female singers of the 80s and 90s. "I Will Always Love You" stayed on the Billboard charts for a record 14 (I think) weeks at number one, until Mariah Carey broke the record with "One Sweet Day". Till today, The Bodyguard remains the best-selling movie soundtrack of all time.
So the hype was high when she returns with her touted-comeback album in seven years, free from Bobby Brown and crack coccaine, more candid and open and willing to succeed. Sadly, this comeback was not the kind I had hoped for.
Though brimming with the current crop of chart-topping producers and some old-favourites, the album cannot help but sound dated and languid in most parts. Alicia Key's opening track, Million Dollar Bill, sounds promising, and has a distinct Alicia-Keys signature ring to it. Unlike Whitney and Akon's collaboration, I'm glad she did not cheapen this song by guest-starring in it. Akon's now signature, though slightly off-putting, clanging-of-jail-cell sound just proves Whitney and her producers' desperation for a hit single by jumping on the Akon bandwagon.
One would assume that the singer of I Have Nothing, Greatest Love of All, and I Will Always Love You, arguably the biggest and greatest ballad of all, would be a master at it. Unfortunately, this album just proves that you need not only a big voice, but good songs to succeed. Title track I Look To You, an R. Kelly-penned ballad, is anti-climatic, and never did rise above the monotony at all. What a disappointment. I Didnt Know My Own Strength, by the mother of all ballad-composers, Dianne Warren herself, was slightly better. In both songs, Whitney's voice barely had the strength to carry them. She sounds inconfident and doubtful on both tracks, floundering as she could barely contain the huge notes, and limiting her falsetto to the minimum. So is the case on the other songs, missing the drive of her glory days, heck, of her previous album from 2001 even.
Her voice, once what I imagined to be a shining beakon of bright light, has now become one so hoarse that it only serves to remind you of Whitney-the-addict. While Billie Holiday, Aretha Franklin, even Joni Mitchell, made career breakthroughs with their change in tonal quality, it remains to be seen what Whitney can do with hers. This album sees her trying to regain the glorious days of the 80s, while being relevant to the present-day generation of Alicia-Akon listeners. A wild thought ran across my mind: why not work with Timbaland, he whom is responsible for many a career re-route? Look no further to Nelly Furtado and Justin Timberlake for successful examples. Whitney needs good materials and to regain her confidence. If breaking away from Clive Davis is the way to go, then do it. But if the recent Good Morning America concert, in which she performed 4 songs, were anything to go by, it might be a long long time before she makes a world tour. It was obvious she cracked, cant sustain, and couldnt reach the notes on most occasions (of which she blamed it on talking to much during interviews the day before). A singer should be responsible for the gift with which she makes money from. Those glory days I do hope they come.
In the meantime, I can only rely on youtube for hopes on that. Revisit the heydays of impossibly big ballads with huge arrangements, yet her voice still shone through, below.
Did't We Almost Have It All
Whitney was seldom this tender.
All At Once
This sounds very close to the album version, which is always a hard feat to follow. This was around 1985/6, after the release of her debut album.
All The Man That I Need
This ballad is SO HUGE it's crazy to imagine singing.
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