Up until the night before the Grammys, very few people were listening to Whitney Houston’s songs. Although this 2-CD collection came out in 2000, the events of the past couple of weeks makes this music all the more memorable. It’s been over 10 years since Whitney Houston had a hit. Her disastrous marriage to Bobby Brown and their twin addictions are too dismal to recount. But the music survives. At one time, Whitney Houston had seven Number One hits in a row. Elvis didn’t do that. Neither did The Beatles. Whitney Houston lit up the screen in The Bodyguard and Waiting to Exhale. Her film career crashed and burned just as her recording career melted down. But the music survives. They’ll be listening to these songs 100 years from now. Just listening to Whitney sing “The Star Spangled Banner” from Super Bowl XXV in 1991 sends chills down my spine. GRADE: A
DISC ONE
1. You Give Good Love Whitney Houston 4:09
2. Saving All My Love For You Whitney Houston 3:54
3. Greatest Love Of All Whitney Houston 4:48
4. All At Once Whitney Houston 4:25
5. If You Say My Eyes Are Beautiful (Remastered: 2000) Whitney Houston with Jermaine Jackson 4:16
6. Didn’t We Almost Have It All Whitney Houston 4:34
7. Where Do Broken Hearts Go Whitney Houston 4:35
8. All The Man That I Need Whitney Houston 3:54
9. Run To You Whitney Houston 4:24
10. I Have Nothing (Remastered: 2000) Whitney Houston 4:47
11. I Will Always Love You Whitney Houston 4:23
12. Exhale (Shoop Shoop) Whitney Houston 3:21
13. Why Does It Hurt So Bad Whitney Houston 4:37
14. I Believe In You And Me (Film Version) Whitney Houston 3:52
15. Heartbreak Hotel Whitney Houston feat. Faith Evans and Kelly Price 4:05
16. My Love Is Your Love Whitney Houston 4:19
17. Same Script, Different Cast Whitney Houston & Deborah Cox 4:58
18. Could I Have This Kiss Forever (Metro Mix/Remastered: 2000) Whitney Houston with Enrique Iglesias 3:55
DISC TWO:
1. Fine (Remastered: 2000) Whitney Houston 3:34
2. If I Told You That Whitney Houston 4:33
3. It’s Not Right But It’s Okay (Thunderpuss Mix) Whitney Houston 4:15
4. My Love Is Your Love (Jonathan Peters Radio Mix II) Whitney Houston Feat. Dyme 4:18
5. Heartbreak Hotel (Hex Hector Radio Mix) Whitney Houston featuring Faith Evans and Kelly Price 4:20
6. I Learned From The Best (HQ2 Radio Mix) Whitney Houston 4:23
7. Step By Step (Junior Vasquez Tribal X Beats) Whitney Houston 4:05
8. I’m Every Woman (Radio Edit/C + C Club Mix) Whitney Houston 4:30
9. Queen Of The Night (CJ’s Single Edit) Whitney Houston 3:46
10. I Will Always Love You (Hex Hector Radio Mix: Remastered 2000) Whitney Houston 4:50
11. Love Will Save The Day (Jellybean & David Morales 1987 Classic Underground Mix) Whitney Houston 5:06
12. I’m Your Baby Tonight (Dronez Club Mix) Whitney Houston 5:05
13. So Emotional (Dave Morales Mix) Whitney Houston 3:57
14. I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Junior’s Happy Handbag Mix) Whitney Houston 4:25
15. How Will I Know (Junior Vasquez Club Mix) Whitney Houston 4:09
16. Greatest Love of All (Junior Vasquez Mix) Whitney Houston 4:51
17. One Moment In Time Whitney Houston 4:44
18. The Star Spangled Banner
I loved her music in the 1980s/90s. Great dance music like, “How Will I Know?” and power ballads like “The Greatest Love of All.” She was so beautiful in “The Bodyguard”–and then she just threw (or smoked) it all away. God, what a cautionary tale she is!
Whitney Houston’s hits dominated the airwaves in the Eighties and early Nineties, Deb. I had all her albums and soundtracks. But, as you say, she just smoked it all away.
Her music was already fading from public consciousness before her death though and I doubt it will survive at all. Too bad. She did almost have it all.
And they buried Whitney with $500,000 of jewelry, Patti. There has to be a story there.
Well, the week before she died I did consider adding “Saving All My Love for You” to my burgeoning early-’80s jazz-pop stack for “Saturday Music Club”…but decided it would be just one hit too many more on top of too many hits already…which, of course, would’ve been another apt metaphor.
It’s also notable that that early major hit is all about “bad” behavior that self-victimizes her…she’s saving all her love for her lover married to another…
Whitney made some bad choices when it came to men, Todd.
What else can you say but, what a waste?
“The Greatest Love of All” was written for The Greatest about Muhammad Ali and sung originally by George Benson. Of course, “I WIll Always Love You” was written and sung by Dolly Parton. Whitney did memorable versions of both.
Whitney Houston possessed incredible talent, Jeff. Yet her world crumbled around her. As Deb says, what a cautionary tale!
Not just men, George.
Point well taken, Todd. But I blame Bobby Brown for most of Whitney’s troubles.
No George, don’t let Whitney get off that easily. Bobby Brown may have been the person who initialy exposed her to a self-destructive lifestyle, but she was the one who chose to stay in it.
Buried with $500,000 worth of jewelry? I’d read that on the day she died her estate was hardly worth that much. Phew!
Yes, Deb. Plenty of family members were upset that Whitney went into the ground wearing a half a million dollars in jewels. I’m sure the current millions of downloads of Whitney’s hits on iTunes will swell the Houston coffers. I’m not letting Whitney off the hook, but Bobby Brown put her there.
We were just in WallyWorld and saw the cover of the Enquirer with a picture of Whitney dead in her coffin!
Classy. Apparently someone at the “private family viewing” sold it to them. Does anyone else remember the made-for-TV movie from 1995 with Burt Lancaster as a Murdoch-like tabloid sleaze merchant and Pamela Reed as the journalist he corrupts? It was called Scandal Sheet and was worth seeing. In the end (as I remember it) he forces Reed to take one of those coffin photographs.
Tabloid journalism is amoral, Jeff. Anything for a buck, including a shot of Whitney in her coffin. What a bunch of sleaze-bags!
Remember, back in 1980, one tabloid ran a picture of John Lennon on the autopsy table. This type of thing isn’t new–but it’s still just as reprehensible.
Reprehensible is too mild a word, Deb. It’s craven greed to profit off of a celebrity’s death.