All At Once
We're never sure anymore when one of these things happen... there were the erroneous accounts of Joe Paterno's passing 12 hours before he actually died, and god knows Twitter tries to kill a new celebrity seemingly every other week. But when you see it's from the AP, that tends to lend some credibility... and so it was that I learned of Whitney Houston's passing last Saturday. It was between games of a women's/men's basketball doubleheader at my current university, and when you're hopping on Twitter to see if there are any more goofy post-game tweets from Syracuse fans/bloggers, and instead you see "BREAKING NEWS: Whitney Houston dead at age 48," it can only be classified as a "whoa" moment. As in that's what I said to my friends... "Whoa..."
If there's one thing we know about our celebrity culture, especially the music industry, it's that the culture tends to eat its own, and often at a relatively young age. Pete Townshend once said in a documentary on the history of rock music that rock 'n roll was like a blazing fire, but that the fire is "stoked with bodies." In other words, part of the allure of the music is the fact that so many of its best voices and musicians leave us far too soon. And we shake our heads when it happens, all the way from Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, and Jimi Hendrix, through Kurt Cobain and Biggie and Tupac, to Michael Jackson, Amy Winehouse, and Whitney Houston. And the first thing you have to do is separate the great music from what ultimately did these people in. It's tougher in some cases than others, particularly when you don't see it coming.
Most people acknowledge that Whitney's was one of the greatest, if not the greatest voice of her generation. Honed in gospel music, it burst out of your speakers and made women everywhere wish they could sound like her. This had both good and bad consequences. On the good side, without Whitney there may have been no Mariah Carey or Christina Aguilera... on the bad side, a lot of American Idol contestants and national anthem singers have tried and failed spectacularly at sounding like Whitney Houston. It was only a few weeks ago that some of us were scratching our heads at the negative reception Steven Tyler received for his rendition of the anthem before the AFC Championship Game. We LIKED what he did because he was singing it his own way and not trying to be Whitney. There was only one Whitney, there was only one Whitney version of the "Star Spangled Banner." Let it go, people.
And let's face it, that 1991 Super Bowl rendition of the national anthem is the definitive one for many Americans. Jimi Hendrix had his moment at Woodstock, and then Whitney Houston matched the power of his guitar with the power of her voice. I can't think of anyone who disliked that performance... yeah, there are some Buffalo Bills fans who hear it and immediately think of Scott Norwood missing the game-winning field goal a few hours later, but that doesn't take away from Whitney.
Something about Whitney Houston's career that kinda gets taken for granted today... she was an African-American singer who crossed over to mainstream success at a time when few could. The post-disco backlash had whitewashed the Top 40 airwaves, Michael Jackson had only broken MTV's unspoken color barrier a couple years earlier. "The Cosby Show" was in its first season when Whitney's debut album came out in 1985, and the cumulative effect on pop culture was transformative. America could now accept a middle-class African-American sitcom, and it could now accept a young African-American pop star. Sure, as with Cosby, there was a backlash... Whitney was booed at the 1989 Soul Train Awards, but she was eventually and rightfully accepted and lionized.
As for that first album... I'm certainly not the most knowledgeable R&B/Soul listener on this planet, but I do know what I like, and I think Whitney Houston's debut was her best album. I actually mentioned it here a few months ago when talking about those songs of the mid-1980s that stick in my head. I pretty much believe that 1982-1985 was a "sweet spot" for music that we may never experience again... when all genres of popular music created some amazing music, that was live and real and required great musicianship, if I may go all "Dave Grohl at the Grammys" on you. Yes, there was also a lot of "guilty pleasure" crap from that period, but I digress. "Whitney Houston" sounds like an album that came from the R&B/Soul scene of 1985, so in that sense it might sound dated, but it sounds great to me, and her voice set it apart from all the rest. Prime examples are the breakthrough single "You Give Good Love", and her first #1, "Saving All My Love For You"; in the latter, Whitney gives one of the all-time torch singer performances. Even the much more pop-inflected "How Will I Know" has something extra-good about it... the way the opening bars of the song build up momentum until the song becomes and all-out attack on your ears, and then on top of that, Whitney's voice comes in and blows the doors off.
Her second album may have spawned more #1's, but by then, we had entered a period were music became more artificial, and it became more about drum machines and synthesizer approximations of instruments. On later albums, she would go more "Urban Contemporary", but what passed for that didn't do it for me in the 1990s, and of course there were all the movie soundtracks. But there would be one more standout moment... "I Will Always Love You" from the soundtrack to her first movie, "The Bodyguard." The song was all over the radio at the end of 1992, well past the point of oversaturation. At the time, I was more interested in hearing the latest Stone Temple Pilots single, but looking back now, I appreciate the song and its amazing success (#1 for an astonishing 14 weeks)... and there's a damn good reason for it. Musically, it was a return to the first album. Listen to "I Will Always Love You", then listen to "Saving All My Love For You"... you'll get what I mean. The same saxophone and keyboard splashes, the same soulful delivery, the same power. The fact that Whitney Houston could blow our minds whenever she wanted to in those days was what makes us remember her music. It certainly makes the damage she did to her "instrument" over the years that much more startling.
As we say goodbye to Whitney Houston with her funeral today, I once again go back to that 1985 self-titled debut album, specifically the first single, "All At Once." I was listening to that song the other day, and although the song is about heartbreak and romantic loss (as many a good Pop/Soul ballad is), the lyrics point to sudden realization, a specific moment when it hits you... that "whoa" moment. That's what happens when we lose someone who made so many people happy and had such a profound influence. I think we all had a collective "whoa" moment last Saturday night.
If there's one thing we know about our celebrity culture, especially the music industry, it's that the culture tends to eat its own, and often at a relatively young age. Pete Townshend once said in a documentary on the history of rock music that rock 'n roll was like a blazing fire, but that the fire is "stoked with bodies." In other words, part of the allure of the music is the fact that so many of its best voices and musicians leave us far too soon. And we shake our heads when it happens, all the way from Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, and Jimi Hendrix, through Kurt Cobain and Biggie and Tupac, to Michael Jackson, Amy Winehouse, and Whitney Houston. And the first thing you have to do is separate the great music from what ultimately did these people in. It's tougher in some cases than others, particularly when you don't see it coming.
Most people acknowledge that Whitney's was one of the greatest, if not the greatest voice of her generation. Honed in gospel music, it burst out of your speakers and made women everywhere wish they could sound like her. This had both good and bad consequences. On the good side, without Whitney there may have been no Mariah Carey or Christina Aguilera... on the bad side, a lot of American Idol contestants and national anthem singers have tried and failed spectacularly at sounding like Whitney Houston. It was only a few weeks ago that some of us were scratching our heads at the negative reception Steven Tyler received for his rendition of the anthem before the AFC Championship Game. We LIKED what he did because he was singing it his own way and not trying to be Whitney. There was only one Whitney, there was only one Whitney version of the "Star Spangled Banner." Let it go, people.
And let's face it, that 1991 Super Bowl rendition of the national anthem is the definitive one for many Americans. Jimi Hendrix had his moment at Woodstock, and then Whitney Houston matched the power of his guitar with the power of her voice. I can't think of anyone who disliked that performance... yeah, there are some Buffalo Bills fans who hear it and immediately think of Scott Norwood missing the game-winning field goal a few hours later, but that doesn't take away from Whitney.
Something about Whitney Houston's career that kinda gets taken for granted today... she was an African-American singer who crossed over to mainstream success at a time when few could. The post-disco backlash had whitewashed the Top 40 airwaves, Michael Jackson had only broken MTV's unspoken color barrier a couple years earlier. "The Cosby Show" was in its first season when Whitney's debut album came out in 1985, and the cumulative effect on pop culture was transformative. America could now accept a middle-class African-American sitcom, and it could now accept a young African-American pop star. Sure, as with Cosby, there was a backlash... Whitney was booed at the 1989 Soul Train Awards, but she was eventually and rightfully accepted and lionized.
As for that first album... I'm certainly not the most knowledgeable R&B/Soul listener on this planet, but I do know what I like, and I think Whitney Houston's debut was her best album. I actually mentioned it here a few months ago when talking about those songs of the mid-1980s that stick in my head. I pretty much believe that 1982-1985 was a "sweet spot" for music that we may never experience again... when all genres of popular music created some amazing music, that was live and real and required great musicianship, if I may go all "Dave Grohl at the Grammys" on you. Yes, there was also a lot of "guilty pleasure" crap from that period, but I digress. "Whitney Houston" sounds like an album that came from the R&B/Soul scene of 1985, so in that sense it might sound dated, but it sounds great to me, and her voice set it apart from all the rest. Prime examples are the breakthrough single "You Give Good Love", and her first #1, "Saving All My Love For You"; in the latter, Whitney gives one of the all-time torch singer performances. Even the much more pop-inflected "How Will I Know" has something extra-good about it... the way the opening bars of the song build up momentum until the song becomes and all-out attack on your ears, and then on top of that, Whitney's voice comes in and blows the doors off.
Her second album may have spawned more #1's, but by then, we had entered a period were music became more artificial, and it became more about drum machines and synthesizer approximations of instruments. On later albums, she would go more "Urban Contemporary", but what passed for that didn't do it for me in the 1990s, and of course there were all the movie soundtracks. But there would be one more standout moment... "I Will Always Love You" from the soundtrack to her first movie, "The Bodyguard." The song was all over the radio at the end of 1992, well past the point of oversaturation. At the time, I was more interested in hearing the latest Stone Temple Pilots single, but looking back now, I appreciate the song and its amazing success (#1 for an astonishing 14 weeks)... and there's a damn good reason for it. Musically, it was a return to the first album. Listen to "I Will Always Love You", then listen to "Saving All My Love For You"... you'll get what I mean. The same saxophone and keyboard splashes, the same soulful delivery, the same power. The fact that Whitney Houston could blow our minds whenever she wanted to in those days was what makes us remember her music. It certainly makes the damage she did to her "instrument" over the years that much more startling.
As we say goodbye to Whitney Houston with her funeral today, I once again go back to that 1985 self-titled debut album, specifically the first single, "All At Once." I was listening to that song the other day, and although the song is about heartbreak and romantic loss (as many a good Pop/Soul ballad is), the lyrics point to sudden realization, a specific moment when it hits you... that "whoa" moment. That's what happens when we lose someone who made so many people happy and had such a profound influence. I think we all had a collective "whoa" moment last Saturday night.
Labels: music, Whitney Houston
posted by Dave | 10:34 AM
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