Music Dump - R.I.P Whitney Houston Edition
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The Imperial Whitney Houston by Jonathan Bogart (The Atlantic): For Bogart, Whitney Houston was an empress, a monarch. Or, at least, her voice was a monarch. She 'became, if not the girl next door, the trusted avatar of our best selves', he says. And this was why the likes of Bret Easton Ellis railed against her in a book like American Psycho. Whitney was omnipresent at the time, and music so often claimed to be about people at their best - songs like 'The Greatest Love Of All', "Saving All My Love For You', and 'I Will Always Love You' use words like 'all' and 'always' which suggest concepts like certainty and mastery.
To people who wanted to point out that people very often aren't at their best, that society is fucked - like Easton Ellis - Whitney became an avatar of the lies of mainstream society. Nonetheless, it was because Whitney was so very good at what she did that she did become an avatar, a repository of hopes and dreams.
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Her Life Played Out Like An Opera by Ann Powers (NPR): Ann Powers worked in a record store in 1990, and when Whitney was selling like hotcakes, all she could think was how Whitney epitomised the worst impulses of the '80s. But she's mellowed on Whitney since, hearing the tone and power of her voice, how she turned soul music's 'church' into a 'crystal cathedral'. And, in the end, she feels like Whitney's life was an opera, with all the transcendence and tragedy that implies.
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The Long Road To Overnight Stardom by Bud Scoppa (Billboard): Here's a 1986 piece from Billboard, after Whitney's first album became, pretty much, a greatest hits album all on its own. Scoppa is curious about how Whitney Houston came to be, and is surprised by how much work was put into her: the A&R who 'discovered' her did so in 1980, six years before her fame. He eventually signed her in 1982, and spent a couple of years making sure Whitney had just the right songs. An amazing look at a bygone industry -- when a record company would spend two or three years grooming an artist.
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Whitney Houston Opens Up About Her Marriage, The Pressures of Fame And More by Anthony DeCurtis (Rolling Stone): By 1993, when this interview was the cover story for an edition of Rolling Stone, Whitney was obviously feeling the pressures of fame. Her responses to DeCurtis are often surprisingly defensive for a woman who was theoretically on top of the world -- she uses the word "bullshit" five times, and she is notably suspicious of the way that rich black people are treated in American society.
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Whitney Houston's Invincible Voice by Sasha Frere-Jones (New Yorker): Frere-Jones' obituary is a humane piece, talking about the strangeness of how we approach celebrity death, how these people feel almost like family but how we don't really know them at all. We know singers through their voices, through their tones, and Whitney radiated invincibility in those early years. And her music, her singing, was never quite able to comfortably admit any weakness, even later in her life, and you wonder whether she her life would have taken a different course had she accepted her imperfections.
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Healing Through Tragicrafting: Whitney Houston Edition by Helen Killer (Regretsy): Etsy, that internet storehouse of whatever people are willing to craft and sell, has no shortage of ghouls cashing in on Whitney Houston's passing away. Looking at these 'tributes' is, shall we say, an interesting view into the darker side of human nature. As Killer says, "A plastic, battery-operated clock with Whitney Houston’s birth and death dates is a great gift for any occasion! What's the time? TIME TO HEAL, ASSHOLE."
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Bill And Jay's YouTube Adventure by Bill Simmons And Jay Kang (Grantland): Late last year, a couple of guys debated, in an occasionally not-so-PC kind of way, the highlights of Mariah Carey's career. Which is interesting, here, because of how they compare Mariah with Whitney: "she was always in Whitney's shadow...when it comes to flat-out diva-ness, where part of your skill is blasting anyone else who dares to get up on your stage, Whitney is the clear winner". And Lady Gaga or Katy Perry are talented singers, but they have nowhere near the technical virtuosity of a Mariah or Whitney; it's something society no longer values in a pop song, after a decade of the likes of Idol.
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After Whitney Houston, Musicians Wonder Who's Next by Touré (Time): Touré argues here that most people have no idea of just how difficult the musical life is, and he seems fairly certain that it contributed to Whitney's early death. A lot of successful artists work exceptionally hard, with no sense of proportion, with no ability or desire to stop when it gets too much. Tours go on regardless of how exhausted you feel, because millions of dollars will be lost if they don't. Thus the stimulants - crack, for example - that some take to keep them going. Being hounded by the media doesn't help either. And Adele, for example, has complained to Touré of the sadness of coming home from tour and see her friends grow apart from her, as their lives move on, as she's missed most of their big moments - weddings, babies being born, etc. - and how it makes her feel dislocated. It's just the nature of the game, and - as the title says - musicians just wonder who's next.
Tim Byron
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