Whitney Houston

My Love Is Your Love

from witless back to whitney

Review Score:

(8/10)
100 years ago, Whitney beguiled us all with her incitation I Wanna Dance With Somebody. It's been a wasteland of paint-by-the-number soundtrack screamers ever since. One can blame her attempt at Hollywood starletdom and a desperately dysfunctional marriage to one-hit wonder Bobby `Ike Turner' Brown for some of the career limp. But Houston's no saint either. After ceaseless years of prancing to the stage to collect her obligatory statuettes, interviews have revealed a rubber-necked diva, a wasted Whitney who appears close to nodding off to Neverneverland. It appeared the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed babe who bounced on the scene with her pipes stoked in the early `80s had been beaten out of her. And along comes My Love. It's no revolutionary R&B album, but it tames the roaring lions waiting to chew Houston in to a walking anachronism. Reems of new comers are largely to credit for saving her, including Babyface Edmonds, Wyclef Jean, Lauryn Hill and Brandy/Monica studio wizard Rodney Jerkins. They help bring the groove Houston's been missing for so long, turning her MOR tales of love lost, love won and life questioned in to a suitably charming and listenable package of diverse styles and catchy hip hop, soul and Wyflef reggae creations (there's even a so-called hidden track, a pleasing cover of Stevie Wonder's I Was Made to Love Her). Yes, there are dabs of the brand of schmaltz which has come to epitomize her worst. But Houston's weaker moments are overpowered by the cool samples and pure pain and emotion this diva uses to ram each and every note. A nice move sideways.

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