Happy 15th Anniversary to Whitney Houston’s seventh & final studio album I Look To You, originally released August 28, 2009.
What accolade have you not yet heard about Whitney Houston’s recording career by now? Up until hidden troubles began bleeding into her public persona circa 2000, it was a parade of beautiful gowns and red-lipped smiles, armfuls of coveted awards, glamour, glamour, glamour, and then that voice.
At once, powerful, supple, glass-clear, and cataclysmically moving, Houston’s soulful, agile soprano excused her from certain artistic tasks. She didn’t need the compelling concept of Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814, a penchant for penning Mariah Carey’s self-sourced crossover hits, or even Madonna’s command of musical trends. All she had to do was take breath into her superhuman larynx, and exhale her way to the top of Billboard’s charts.
Since her multiplatinum eponymous first and second releases in 1985 and 1987 respectively, Houston was a commercial force. Though briefly flapped by a chilly response at the 1989 Soul Train Awards, I’m Your Baby Tonight (1990) reinforced her connection with Black fans. Its success freed her to spend the ‘90s courting film stardom with The Bodyguard (1992), Waiting To Exhale (1995), The Preachers’ Wife (1996), and their related soundtracks.
On the much-anticipated My Love Is Your Love (1998), Houston teamed with Rodney Jerkins, Missy Elliott, Faith Evans, Kelly Price, Lauryn Hill, and Wyclef Jean for an R&B dream come true. As elite as Houston was, she wasn’t too elevated to party with those who revered her as if they were peers. Not until late in this period did I notice something askew. Though Houston excelled at melismata (a.k.a. “runs”), she was implementing them more than usual. They were masking her difficulty holding notes.
For the sake of brevity, let’s speed through the next troubled decade—mostly tabloid headlines of her crumbling marriage to Bobby Brown, and difficulty with substance abuse coming to light. Shorn of champion Clive Davis’ support at Arista Records, Just Whitney (2002) greatly underwhelmed. But with Davis returning to power in 2004 as head of the RCA Music Group that umbrellaed Arista, the stage was set for Houston to rise from beneath a decade of ashes. She would do so with her the last studio release of her lifetime: I Look To You (2009).
“I thought I'd never find my way / I thought I'd never lift that weight / I thought I would break,” she sang on the Diane Warren-penned “I Didn’t Know My Own Strength.” This triumphant ballad took a central place in her promotional appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show where her lyrics and candor went a long way to repair damage done during her disastrous Diane Sawyer interview in 2002.
Equal parts celebration and lamentation, I Look To You gathers Houston’s powers for a festival of urban AC pop-soul to toast her supporters one last time. Apart from familiar collaborator David Foster, Houston employs Nathan “Danja” Hills and Stargate, along with Alicia Keys & Swizz Beatz, Akon, Tricky Stewart, Eric Hudson, Fernando Garibay, Emanuel “Eman” Kiriakou, and R. Kelly as producers. However, it is likely Harvey Mason Jr. and Claude Kelly who most often come to her rescue as vocal producers, handling Houston’s fragile instrument like a rare artifact, they keep it behind glass, and always under the most flattering light it can bear.
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They mitigate the central problem on I Look To You: Houston could only access the lowest chambers of her head voice and a constrained belting range. Like her cousin Dionne Warwick, Houston’s youthful woodwind soprano had become a textured, reedy alto. “I did not discuss drug use with her,” Davis wrote in his 2012 memoir The Soundtrack Of My Life. “But I did know that she was smoking cigarettes—the equivalent of leaving a priceless Stradivarius out in the sun—and I relentlessly urged her to quit […] We were changing arrangements to accommodate the limitations of her range.”
This new voice—lower, patinaed, and sibilant—introduced itself with head bowed, on the inspirational first single “I Look To You.” She sings of near-collapse under the pressure of her uber-public life. When Davis first heard this demo, he asked writer R. Kelly to reserve it for the return-to-form he knew Houston was capable of.
For its follow-up, it was only natural for Houston to connect with fellow Davis-protégé Keys and her producer beau Swizz Beatz on “Million Dollar Bill.” The retro-powered single, built on Loleatta Holloway’s “We’re Getting Stronger (The Longer We Stay Together),” highlights the most resilient portion of her alto. While this hardly matches “How Will I Know” or “I’m Every Woman,” it places her in a register where she can feel free, enjoy herself, and let that freedom color the music. The winner went to #1 on the US Billboard Dance Club Songs and US Billboard Adult R&B Songs charts.
The same strategy begins building a solid LP around energetic midtempos. The charm of “Call You Tonight” tries on girlish limerence to see if it still fits, while a yearning guitar riff frames her understated vocal. Similarly, “Nothin’ But Love” lets bygones be just that on a magnanimous electro-pop jamboree. These put her best foot forward, acclimating the listener to what she can still easily accomplish.
Houston rarely writes except to issue rebellious ditties like “Queen Of The Night,” “Try It On My Own,” or “Whatchulookinat,” but here, she puts her stamp of authenticity in a most unusual place: the gentle island knock of “Like I Never Left.” I would’ve never dreamed Senegalese rapper-singer Akon (with his AutoTune-heavy, carceral 2004 earworm “Locked Up”) could pair with a heavyweight like Houston, but he brings out her best. And if you position your heart right, it’s the most moving song on the album.
On one level, the duet frames “Akon and Whit-naay” as a reuniting couple, but Houston’s verses read so much more poignantly as a mea culpa to her fans (“Did you ever wish you could get back something that you did in your past? / If it wasn’t for me / I know what we had was definitely gonna last”). As if again the Whitney booed at Soul Train in ’89, when she says, “I want you to love me,” the sincerity of her deep need for love and acceptance grips me. Who could close their arms to someone who just needs love?
While carefully constructed, I Look To You loses some steam in its second half. Though perfectly acceptable, and immaculately wrought, “Worth It” and “For The Lovers” have such similar lyrics, one may lose track of which “lovers” anthem is which. Although the Donna Summer-esque trope of a slow intro giving way to higher BPMs is now a universal rallying call to any diva’s gay following, her house reworking of “A Song for You” does no favors. Never in her career has this standard’s bluesy lyrical pathos rung more true (“I've been so many places in my life and time / I've sung a lot of songs and made some bad rhymes / I've acted out my life on stages with 10,000 people watching / Well, we're alone now and I'm singing this song to you”), but that gets lost in the clattering technical production. The final result exposes more flaws than it hides—particularly given the stellar way she once rendered it during the Welcome Home Heroes TV special in 1991.
Although its melody carves some interesting shapes, “I Got You” is ultimately forgettable. The victorious “soldier girl” hook of “Salute” is on the right track with all of the hallmarks of late 2000s R&B (808 kicks and claps, and male hype calls of “eyy” at just the spot where Ne-Yo or Ashanti would have them). Yet, after the gauche spectacle of hearing Houston screech “kiss my ass!” on Being Bobby Brown, it’s mildly disdainful to hear her sing “You think that your s#!t don’t stink / well, it do.” Such explicit references had yet to make it to recorded material. Thanks a lot, R. Kelly.
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Karmic reckoning finally reached R. Kelly in 2021. Due to his own pathology and error, many can no longer enjoy his work because of its association with his crimes and perceived, implicit support of the disgraced musician. Whether listeners can ever fully extract the nourishment from “I Look To You” or “Salute” will be an entirely individual decision.
Chartwise, I Look To You was received well in the US, earning a platinum certification, topping the Billboard 200, the R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, and at least five other international charts, eventually selling over three million copies worldwide. Despite Davis’ sway and the full support of Arista, the Recording Academy snubbed her effort. Devoid of The Voice as people knew it in 1985, scads of fans abandoned her art. But there was a person inside that voice. That person was hoping against hope she could still be loved, accepted, celebrated, seen, and embraced—like she never left.
However ill-advised, she made a pass at mounting the Nothin’ But Love Tour in Australia, but the news of its travesty still circled the globe. Many turned away, leaving early with complaints of Houston being extremely hoarse and relying on audience singalongs. The tour took a terrible toll on her spirit.
Country darling Shania Twain weathered dramatic vocal changes from Lyme disease-borne dysphonia, but her Now (2017) and Queen Of Me (2023) didn’t have the weight of comparison to Houston’s former vocals crushing them. The gravelly alto Billie Holiday used on latter peak Lady In Satin (1958) only served to impart heft and poignance to her lovelorn repertoire. In the unforgiving late 2000s though, no such perception sweetened I Look To You’s reception.
Houston was known for singles that inspired (“One Moment In Time,” “Greatest Love Of All”), tugged (“I Will Always Love You,” “I Have Nothing”), excited (“I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)”), or electrified (“It’s Not Right But It’s Okay”). Often, the albums supporting these massive hits were inflated with fluffy filler, but no one could have cared less as long as she had The Voice.
Without its aid and ease, Houston could not rely on middle-of-the-road material and savvy marketing to assure cultural impact. She had to choose excellent songs, work around constraints, curate music that could resonate with her audience, but not betray herself. It is the greatest tragedy that she succeeded so handsomely in this endeavor and it is not acknowledged as such. I Look To You is a successful, completed assignment—and hardly anyone noticed.
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