The queen of all big voiced songstresses is back, but unhappyly not in true diva form. Her voice hasn't totally crapped out on her after years of substance abuse and a tumultuous marriage to Bobby Brown, but the same can't be said for her production crew. I Look to You takes a page out of R. Kelly's manual for generic R&B and the results aren't pretty.
The few successes on this mediocre album tend to be the dance songs — particularly the first track, “Million Dollar Bill,” written and produced by Alicia Keys. It's a solid callback to days of Earth, Wind & Fire and it's a hopeful sign that the real Whitney Houston is back and ready to retake the throne from the likes of Beyonce and Jennifer Hudson.
And she is — but not really.
She can still out sing 80 per cent of the population and she sounds so happy to be singing again that it tugs at the heart, but getting R. Kelly to produce her tracks — creating barf-inducing ballads instead of sultry guilty pleasures, and making her sound like Mariah Carey circa 2006 — overshadows it all. When you're copying the diva songstress who, a decade ago, was copying you, clearly something has gone terribly wrong.
But for many of Whitney's older fans (Hi Dad!), she'll likely sound as fierce as she did 10 years ago. The title track, “I Look to You,” might very well cause middle-aged mothers and fathers to uniformly mortify their children by leaping off their sofas and weeping at the overwrought vocals and 10,000-piece orchestra.
Suffice it to say, the queen is back. It's just too bad her throne reigns over a mound of mediocrity.
The few successes on this mediocre album tend to be the dance songs — particularly the first track, “Million Dollar Bill,” written and produced by Alicia Keys. It's a solid callback to days of Earth, Wind & Fire and it's a hopeful sign that the real Whitney Houston is back and ready to retake the throne from the likes of Beyonce and Jennifer Hudson.
And she is — but not really.
She can still out sing 80 per cent of the population and she sounds so happy to be singing again that it tugs at the heart, but getting R. Kelly to produce her tracks — creating barf-inducing ballads instead of sultry guilty pleasures, and making her sound like Mariah Carey circa 2006 — overshadows it all. When you're copying the diva songstress who, a decade ago, was copying you, clearly something has gone terribly wrong.
But for many of Whitney's older fans (Hi Dad!), she'll likely sound as fierce as she did 10 years ago. The title track, “I Look to You,” might very well cause middle-aged mothers and fathers to uniformly mortify their children by leaping off their sofas and weeping at the overwrought vocals and 10,000-piece orchestra.
Suffice it to say, the queen is back. It's just too bad her throne reigns over a mound of mediocrity.
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