We were leaving a restaurant late Saturday night, waiting for the car to pull around, standing with a number of people including an African-American female and an Anglo-White male who were discussing Whitney Houston's death. The woman was explaining Whitney was "more pop" and she wondered why the man was calling Houston a "soul singer."
"She wasn't Aretha Franklin," the woman said in an exhausted tone.
And she wasn't. She was a pop artist who followed in the tradition of many others -- most of all Diana Ross and Barbra Streisand. Had she started out when Diana did, she'd be considered a "crossover" artist but the days when musical artists were segregated over the airwaves by race has passed. In fact, Arista's plan was to establish her on urban radio first with "You Give Good Love" but that song not only hit the top ten urban charts in May 1985 (it would rise all the way to number one), it made it into the top three of the pop charts in July of 1985.
Like Diana, she was a singles artist. Diana had 18 number one hits on the pop charts spanning the years 1964 to 1980 (16 years). Whitney grabbed the number one spot on the pop charts 11 times from 1985 to 1995 (10 years). For ten years, Whitney was one of the most successful female singers in the world.
Like Barbra, she was an incredible singer. While Barbra used that voice for albums, Whitney wrongly used it for singles. Wrongly? If she wanted to be a singer of popular hits, she used it wrongly.
Like Barbra, Whitney had an incredible range of notes she could access. That wasn't a good thing for the future of music as it aided in spawning the Vocal Gymnastics that so many bad singers would attempt to compete in, mistaking musical exercises for actually conveying the meaning of a song.
And most songs revolve around five notes. Most popular songs. You're not trying to run the scales, you want something that people feel they can sing along with -- in the car, in the shower -- without embarrassing themselves. Holland-Dozier-Holland, Motown's most successful songwriting team when it came to writing top forty hits grasped that and Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Edward Holland made a point to keep the melodies easy to reproduce. (Resulting in such classics as "You Can't Hurry Love," "Stop In The Name Of Love," "Where Did Our Love Go?," "Come See About Me," "Heat Wave," "Come and Get These Memories," "Baby Love," "Baby I Need Your Loving," "Back In My Arms Again," "How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You," "It's The Same Old Song," "I Hear A Symphony," "My World Is Empty Without You," "You Keep Me Hanging On," "Love Is Here And Now You're Gone," "Jimmy Mack," "The Happening," "Reflections," "Band Of Gold," "Forever Came Today" and many, many more.)
Diana Ross is a singles artist. Her range is less than Barbra's (and Whitney's) but she charted more often on Billboard's Hot 100 than any other female artist in the 20th century. She also topped that chart 18 times more than any other female artist in the 20th century. Barbra was an album artist who rarely broke the top ten on the pop charts.
Her first charting single was in 1964 with "People" which made it to number five. She was already a Broadway star by that point, had three top ten albums (all of which had gone gold), had won the Grammy for Best Female Vocal and Best Album. She did all of that without a hit single. Her next top forty hit would be "Second Hand Rose" in 1966 which made it to number 32 but she wouldn't hit the top ten again until the 70s despite the fact that she would be one of the sixties strongest album sellers.
In 1971, 24 singles after "People" broke the top ten, Barbra would again hit the top ten with "Stoney End" -- a cover of Laura Nyro's song which Michael Douglas noted was a note-for-note reproduction of Nyro's version. In 1974, she'd hit the top ten again with "The Way We Were" which was also her first number one hit, she'd do the same in 1977 with "Evergreen" (both were themes to movies she starred in). Also in 1977, she'd release "My Heart Belongs To Me" which would make it to number four and be at number one again in 1978 with Neil Diamond on the duet "You Don't Bring Me Flowers," and back at number one in 1979 with Donna Summer on the duet "No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)." Barry Gibb would produce her 1980 album Guilty which would give Barbra a number one with "Woman In Love" (her last number one) as well as a top three hit with the title track and "What Kind of Fool" would make it to number ten. She wouldn't score another top ten hit again until 1996, singing "I Finally Found Someone" with Bryan Adams (number 8). To date, it's her last top ten hit.
Barbra only made the top ten singles chart eleven times in her career; Diana topped it 18 times (18 number ones; 30 top ten hits; 52 top 40 hits). But Barbra's sold more albums than Diana (in fairness to Diana, Motown did a lousy job of cashing in on the CD boom) and more albums than any other female artist. A Barbra album is usually an event. As in: It's a gospel album! She's back to Broadway! She's doing contemporary pop again! She's returned to torch songs!
That could have been Whitney and maybe should have been after the disaster of 2002's Just Whitney. See, an artist with pipes like that can't just do the top 40. If she tries, it'll seem like vocal showing off and also like, with all that talent, she's slumming.
Whitney generally got away with the gymnastics because she put emotion into the delivery and was rather inventive when it came to her phrasing. In about ten years, her phrasing is probably what she'll be most critically praised for.
But the bulk of attention will be on her life. She got involved with drugs early in her career and, over time, drugs began controlling her. By her 1999 American Music Awards performance, drugs had overtaken her talent. Stamping the floor in frustration as she attempted to hit notes that were escaping her on live TV while her voice frequently cracked and she sweat profusely, the industry knew Whitney's addiction had just gone from whisper to roar. In 2000, she'd hit number 27 on the pop charts with "I Learned From The Best" and that would be her last top forty pop hit in her lifetime though she'd release ten more singles.
While her media moments during those last twelve years didn't help her any (her "crack is whack" interview with Diane Sawyer made her a laughingstock), the reality is that even if each media moment had impressed, Whitney still would have career problems.
Her singing was more mature on 1991's I'm Your Baby Tonight. But there were no huge pop hits and only one song cracked the top ten ("Miracle" at number nine).
What happened?
Grunge.
Grunge happened. And the woman who owned the big power ballad format was left to hunt for relevance. In 1992 and 1995, movies would give her number ones. But the reality was you can't just sing about love. Not even the greatest love of all.
Not if you want a top 40 career on the singles chart. Her material suffered from the sameness. That was obvious on the first album but more so on 1987's Whitney. All those love songs, all in the same tempo, all in the watch-how-high-on-the-scales-I-can-go, all 'hear me hold this note!' overwhelming.
Whitney was high fashion and stylish in the latter half of the eighties but sorely out of touch with the music purchasing public of the early 90s. My Love Is Your Love is her finest album of the 90s and the only one to successfully (in terms of both critical and commercial success) establish a different and contemporary sound for her. But the gift of self-recreation really wasn't something Whitney possessed. Which means, like her cousin Dionne Warwick, she'd need to be out of the public eye for a bit in order to resurface with a successful music project.
When your life is considered to be tsk-tsk worthy, you're not going to get the chance to take the break you and the public need. And when you take part in a reality show that brings you and your entire family ridicule, you have to take some of the blame for the tabloid-ization of your life.
Whitney Houston passed away on Saturday and already you see the effort to hype her into a supernova to justify all the press coverage that's coming. Remember her right now, if you can, because in a week or two, you won't recognize the person they're speaking of.
By Saturday night, the lies were already making their way into print. Some we read, some we heard of, one had us waking up an editor and lodging a complaint about the lies in his reporter's obit. That did get changed. It needed to be.
The false claim was that Whitney Houston broke ground with MTV the same way Michael Jackson did but for Black women. That Whitney was the first African-American woman to make it into heavy rotation on MTV. Considering that Grace Jones' "Pull Up To The Bumper" was an early MTV staple, that's a questionable claim. Factor in that 1984 saw Chaka Khan's "I Feel For You" in heavy rotation on MTV along with various hits by the Pointer Sisters ("Automatic," "Jump For My Love," "Neutron Dance" and the re-released "I'm So Excited") and Sade's "Smooth Operator." Or, maybe more importantly, 1984 was the year a woman broke through that MTV couldn't ignore. She wasn't pop, she was rock. (MTV always had a line about women being "too soft" for heavy rotation. A line that never applied to, for example, the group Chicago.) And she was number one on the singles chart.
Her name?
Tina Turner. "What's Love Got To Do With It" (which would go on to win the MTV Video Music Award for Best Female Video of the Year) and "Better Be Good To Me" would dominate MTV from summer 84 through the end of the year. She'd stay in heavy rotation in 1985 with "Private Dancer," "I Can't Stand the Rain," "Show Some Respect," "We Don't Need Another Hero" and "One of the Living."
So claiming Whitney was the one who broke the MTV color barrier for Black women was always going to be a stretch. Even more amazing was the article insisted she paved the way for Janet Jackson and Sade. As already noted, Sade was on MTV a year before Whitney. In 1984, Sade was a multiplatinum album artist with a unique musical sound. Janet?
In 1982, Janet cracked the Billboard Hot 100 with "Young Love" (number 64) which also hit number six on the R&B chart. "Come Give Your Love To Me" would also crack the Hot 100 again (58) and hit number 30 on the dance charts and 17 on the R&B charts. 1983, she'd hit number 11 on the dance chart with "Say You Do" and number 17 on the R&B chart. 1984, she'd be at 23 on the dance chart and number 9 on the R&B chart with "Don't Stand Another Chance." Before any of those songs were ever recorded, she was already famous as the sister of the Jackson 5 and as Penny on Good Times. Janet didn't follow Whitney.
But that's how the hype machine works.
And the hype machine is no longer just newspapers and TV. It's now things like Crapapedia. A few friends working on stories called to check some facts Saturday night. We couldn't stop laughing when we were asked if Whitney Houston's debut album won the Rolling Stone magazine's best album of the year award? Crapapedia said so! It said it won the 1986 award for best album.
Her debut album received a so-so review from the magazine. 1985 (when the album was released) saw no woman get the honor of best album from the magazine's writers. The readers' picks were Tina and Madonna. In February 1987, when the 1986 honors were awarded, the best album of 1986 picked by RS was Paul Simon's Graceland. You can, and they do, make up any s**t at Crapapedia.
It's not enough to note that Whitney was a gifted singer with an impressive range, knew how to put a song over and make it believable, sold millions, influenced a crop of singers (Mariah Carey was a Whitney clone in the 80s and for much of the 90s), starred in three successful films (Sparkle is set to hit theaters this August) and delivered the definitive performance of the "Star Spangeled Banner." While most people would be thrilled to have just one of those things attached to their name, the press can't be satisfied with that. If that's all they have to offer, then it's a one day story. They don't want a one day story, they want a cottage industry and so they'll hype her and hype her until no one can recognize her. And a year or two after her death, as with Janis Joplin, Cass Elliot and others who died young, a music lover will discover Whitney for the first time, be moved by her recordings and think, "They've got her all wrong." And she or he will be right.
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Monday, Feb. 13, 2012 note from Ava and C.I.: The last two paragraphs were added after this published because of e-mails asking about this story mentioned in Jim's note to the readers.