whitney houston

684. ‘I Will Always Love You’, by Whitney Houston

/ UK #1s blog / 13 Comments

I’ve enjoyed my journey through 1992, a year short on number one hits (just twelve) but a year that has valued quality over quantity. I’ve not actively disliked any of its chart-toppers, the worst I could say is that a couple have been fairly bland (yes, KWS, I’m looking at you). But before we wrap this year up, we have to grapple with its final hit. The year’s biggest-selling, longest-running #1…

I Will Always Love You, by Whitney Houston (her 4th and final #1)

10 weeks, from 29th November 1992 – 7th February 1993

The early nineties is the era of the soundtrack single. And it’s bookmarked by three songs-from-movies in particular, each of which got into double figures at the top of the charts. Enter Part II, then: Ms Houston, and the love theme from her blockbuster ‘The Bodyguard’. (And, as an aside, isn’t it interesting that both this and the earlier ginormous soundtrack #1 were from films starring heartthrob du jour Kevin Costner…?)

Anyway. First off, this record gets a lot of stick. It’s overblown, over-sung, overplayed… A misuse of Whitney’s undoubted talents. It also has the misfortune to be a cover – a cover of a wistful, tender original by the universally beloved Dolly Parton. Bryan Adams’ sixteen-week monster at least had nothing to compare it with… But is this stick justified? Does ‘I Will Always Love You’ deserve the hate…?

Well, yes. Let’s be honest, it’s rotten. A bloated whale corpse of a record. All the complaints I had about ‘Everything I Do (I Do It for You)’ – that it was too much, too serious, missing the tongue-in-cheek silliness that any good power-ballad needs – also apply here. Plus, this adds a teeth-grinding saxophone solo for good measure.

But what’s also annoying about this record is that for the first three minutes or so, it’s actually pretty dull. I compared Whitney’s most recent #1, ‘One Moment in Time’, to a couple of rounds in a boxing ring. She grabbed that tune, and pummelled the listener into oblivion with it. Ridiculous, of course; but I enjoyed the bombast. Yet on ‘I Will Always Love You’, she sleepwalks her way through the first couple of verses, with their gloopy production, and sleazy sax. Then comes the moment that everyone remembers when they think about this song: the pause, the drumbeat, and the rocket launch into the final chorus.

It’s like she knew that this song would be a millstone around her neck for the rest of her career, and thought ‘fuck it, we might as well have some fun’. Either that, or she foresaw that this would be murdered in karaoke bars from here to eternity, and so decided to make it impossible to copy, by going through her full repertoire of trills, belting, melisma… you name it. Because while you might disagree with her approach to this song – and I do – there’s no denying that the woman could sing. It’s an ending so aggressive, so over the top, that the ‘love theme’ becomes a stalker’s anthem: I-ee-ayye will always love you-hoo… (and there’s nothing you can do about it!)

This song stayed at number one for ten weeks – a total that Bryan Adams would have scoffed at, but that gave Houston the record for a female soloist. It made the top in late November, stayed there as Xmas #1, and was still there at the end of January to become my 7th birthday number one. (My ‘girlfriend’ at the time – we were in Primary 3 – liked to sing this to me as we walked home together…) Wikipedia lists it as making #1 in twenty-three countries, though I’m sure there were more. It set a new record for weeks at #1 on the Billboard chart, and remains the planet’s best-selling song by a female act… ever.

Yet here ends Whitney Houston’s British chart-topping career. From smooth jazz (‘Saving All My Love for You’), to dance pop (‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’), to overblown power-ballads (the last two). Her chart career, though, was far from over, and in fact she would go on to release some her best records once her voice had deteriorated through age (and drug use), meaning she could no longer attempt ginormous ballads like this one. ‘My Love Is Your Love’, ‘It’s Not Right but It’s Okay’, and ‘Million Dollar Bill’, among others, are all great.

Whitney died in 2012, after a troubled life, aged just forty-eight. A sad way for one of the most technically gifted singers of all time to go. Among the tributes paid upon her death was one from Dolly Parton, whom the media had suggested wasn’t happy with Houston’s cover at the time. Parton thanked her for bringing her song to a wider audience (not to mention for the royalties that must have rolled in…)

617. ‘One Moment in Time’, by Whitney Houston

/ UK #1s blog / 15 Comments

It’s well known that songwriters aim to write songs for the radio, for TV shows, for streaming playlists… Do some, I wonder upon hearing this next #1, write songs that they hope will be sung by school choirs from here to eternity…?

One Moment in Time, by Whitney Houston (her 3rd of four #1s)

2 weeks, from 9th – 23rd October 1988

Probably not, for where are the royalties in that? But ‘One Moment in Time’ does sound like the love-child of a hymn and a school song. It’s got a heart-tugging, traditional-sounding chorus, and lots of inspiring lyrics: I’m only one, Though not alone, My finest day, Is yet unknown… It was written for the 1988 Seoul Olympics, which makes sense, as it is all about seizing the day, racing with destiny, and similar inspirational twaddle.

The school choir comparisons fizzle out pretty quickly, though. For all their merits, not many school choirs sound like this. Whitney Houston could, fair play to her, sing. And this is the first of her chart-toppers, after the sultry ‘Saving All My Love for You’, and the poppy ‘I Wanna Dance with Somebody’, where she’s been allowed to let loose. And boy, does she let loose…

There’s not a school choir on earth that could keep up with her past the three minute mark, when the tempo changes: You’re a winner, For a lifetime… Whitney tells us, before embarking on what has to be one of the most technically impressive displays of singing we’ve heard in a #1 so far. Trumpets come in too, as if heralding the arrival of royalty. It’s a moment.

It’s also way too much. By the end, when Whitney holds the I will be free line…, it produces a sensation not so different from being walloped around the head with a bag of sand. It’s not often that you finish listening to a song and come away feeling like you’ve just done a couple of rounds in a boxing ring, but you do here (apt in a song written for a sporting event, I suppose). The legendary songwriter Albert Hammond wrote it with Elvis in mind, apparently. I can see it, but I also think Elvis would have given a more nuanced performance.

At the same time, perhaps there’s no room for nuance in a song written for the Olympics, required to appeal to people from all around the globe, and to recreate the moment a sprinter crosses the finish-line in first place. In the right time and place, this could really work. Unfortunately, I’m writing this on a cold Thursday evening, after a long day at work, and the last thing I need is someone howling in my ear about all of my dreams being a heartbeat away…

There are ballads, there are power-ballads, there are eighties power-ballads, then there’s this. I can’t think of many more bombastic chart-toppers, or of one belted out with as much gusto. And there possibly won’t be again, until Whitney’s final #1 some four years from now…

591. ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)’, by Whitney Houston

/ UK #1s blog / 13 Comments

And so on to one of the decade’s biggest voices, with her poppiest moment…

I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me), by Whitney Houston (her 2nd of four #1s)

2 weeks, from 31st May – 14th June 1987

Her poppiest #1, at least. ‘Saving All My Love for You’ was slinky jazz, and the following two are Whitney Ballads™. Here, though, she sings like the young woman she was, and sounds like she’s having one hell of a time.

Clock strikes upon the hour, And the sun begins to fade… It’s girly-pop 101: the need to dance with somebody, anybody, as long as they love you; from ‘Dancing Queen’ to ‘Just Dance’. It’s slightly contradictory, she is looking for an anonymous encounter with someone who already loves her… A man who’ll take a chance, On a love that burns hot enough to last… but really, who’s looking for lyrical depth?

This is cheese. The lyrics, the castanet flourishes between lines, the strident synth chords before each chorus, and a peach of a key-change. But, there are levels of cheese. And there are two things that save this from being cheesy pop of the Stock-Aitken-Waterman variety. The first is that it’s being sung by Whitney Houston. SAW never had a singer of her capabilities (sorry, Kylie). Check out the way she breathes the ‘falls’ then belts the ‘calls’ in the When the night falls, My lonely heart calls… line. While Sonia ain’t never hit notes like Whitney does in the fade-out. The usual complaints about her over-singing don’t apply here either: it’s much harder to over-sing a bubbly pop tune like this. And even if you do, people are less likely to notice.

The second is that, under all the cheese, the production has quite an edge to it. The squelchy bass in the intro is fun, and the middle-eight breakdown especially has a Prince-like funk to it. It’s worth contrasting the ‘cool’ production on an American hit like this, with the most recent British equivalent, ‘Respectable’. As much as I did enjoy it, and I know it sounds like I’m picking on SAW here, there is a big difference in quality…

Critics picked up on ‘I Wanna Dance with Somebody’s similarity to Houston’s own ‘How Will I Know?’, and Cyndi Lauper’s ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’, similarities which are there for all to hear, but they didn’t stop it from being a worldwide smash. And, in the UK at least, it marks a significant milestone: the first single issued on CD. The future is rapidly approaching…

And as fun as this song is, it’s skirting very close with being overplayed to oblivion. At hen-parties and ‘80s nights you can safely bet your house on hearing it. I’d suggest it be retired for a decade or so, in order to preserve what is one of the most enjoyable moments, for me at least, in Whitney’s discography.

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561. ‘Saving All My Love for You’, by Whitney Houston

/ UK #1s blog / 17 Comments

The second last chart-topper of 1985 (an eclectic year of decidedly mixed chart-topping vintage) introduces one of the most famous, most powerful voices in pop history.

Saving All My Love for You, by Whitney Houston (her 1st of four #1s)

2 weeks, from 8th – 22nd December 1985

And it’s a pretty low-key entry for such a mighty voice. The intro is very of-its-time, soft, soft soul… Elevator-soul, I’m going to call it from now on, even though playing muzak in lifts hasn’t been a thing for many years. Houston’s voice also comes in very softly. A few stolen moments, Is all that we share…

Following on from Wham’s ode to spontaneous and anonymous (and possibly gay) sex, this record is keeping the illicit theme going. You’ve got your family, And they need you there… Whitney, the homewrecker, is having an affair with a married man! They’re making love the whole night through, while his children ask why daddy’s not home for dinner… Whitney’s mother, Cissy, was against her daughter recording such an immoral song, but to no avail.

Personally, I like the fact that she’s completely unrepentant. Her friends warn her off, she pines away lonely at home… But, she sings, no other man’s gonna do…. So I’m saving all my love for you… She doesn’t come across as very sorry about it at all. The way she slams her fist down on lines like For tonight, Is the night…! In the video, she’s having a great time at a club with her lover, as the wife serves side-eye from the balcony. (In the end, though, the couple re-unite while Whitney walks home alone. You wonder if this scene was thrown in last-minute, by a nervous record label…)

It’s very classy, and well-produced. I’m even enjoying the lounge-bar saxophone that’s crooning away in the background. I could complain about the slick-as-a-seal’s-arse eighties production, but by this point I’d just be shouting into a typhoon. It’s December 1985, things are glossy, and they’ll be staying that way for some time to come. It does feel like a slightly understated song to have been the breakthrough hit for a voice such as Houston’s, but there are moments where she shows what she’s capable of. The that’s just an old fantasy… line, for example, as well as some impressively long notes at the end of the choruses.

I may well be pining for this understated version of Whitney come her final, monster #1 (you know the one). Here she was just twenty-two, with a massively successful career ahead of her. It’s elegant, and very well sung: a grower not a show-er. In the US, ‘Saving All My Love for You’ was the first of seven chart-toppers in a row for her. While never quite as successful in Britain, she would be a big chart presence for the next twenty years. More to come very soon, then, from Miss Houston …

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