Whitney, Interesting At Last...

Guardian: Colin Paterson looks on the bright side of Mrs Bobby Brown's life

Saturday September 14, 2002

On Tuesday, Channel 4 screens Whitney Houston: The True Story. This looks at the drugs, drink and Bobby Brown-based hell that has constituted her last few years, charting her descent into a mind-set so addled that she started copying Moira Stewart's eye make-up.

All Whitney's classics are included: the imaginary piano-playing, calling the president a heroin user, the accusations of lesbianism (hey, Robyn is a confusing name), being sacked from the 2001 Oscars for forgetting the words to Somewhere Over The Rainbow. Whitney once sang the official song of the 1988 Olympics. If she was involved now, the Chinese weightlifting team would have to keep an eye on their stash.

Her family has not helped matters. It cannot be easy having Bobby "Thumping Around" Brown as a husband and Dionne Warwick for a first cousin and role model. Warwick was recently caught with marijuana at an airport. She also works for the Psychic Network. Surely she should have seen it coming.

But all this behaviour is the reason why, for the first time in her career, Whitney is interesting. She may have had seven straight US Number Ones in the past, but there is no mistaking that her new album is a comeback.

All great soul music has been made through adversity - Marvin Gaye, Al Green, Aretha Franklin. In contrast, Whitney Houston's pop was some of the slickest, whitest music ever to be made by a black artist - a five-octave voice yes, but oh, those blonde wigs and that thin production.

This is why she was booed during the 1989 Soul Train Music Awards. And it is also why Whitney's best singles were those on her last album, released after her personal life began to go wrong and she started to rediscover her roots - or at least Lauryn Hill's.

It has been said that Whitney has lost control of her faculties. Her new single is called Whatchulookinat. She has certainly lost control of grammar. The media-bashing single (out here later this month) gave Whitney her lowest ever entry on the US charts at 96 and was gone within a month.

Her ancient version of The Star Spangled Banner is in the Top 30 because of the anniversary of September 11. Sadly, it is clear which Whitney incarnation the US public prefers. Seeing her forced to fight will encourage a morbid curiosity - and will also hopefully mean her work will continue to improve.

A new album, Just Whitney, will follow in November. The collaborations list is frightening. Who let Tweet get involved? Has Whitney never heard the Birdie Song? While collaborating with the coolest name in R&B to drop is a bonus, having your comeback single produced by Bobby Brown is not.

It is hard to believe that Whitney still takes advice from the man who insisted they called their daughter Bobbi Brown. But as long as she does the bad times should keep rolling. Amen to that.

[Colin Paterson is a columnist for The Guardian Newspaper]

NEWSFILE: 15 SEPTEMBER 2002