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Rating: A heart-wrenching, deep, desperate scream rises from the ominous corridors of the music-biz: Whitney Houston, not even 49 years old, vanishes in a hotel room in Beverly Hills. Alone, desperate, intoxicated by too many "material" substances and an equally heavy moral weight that tormented one of the finest voices in pop for more than a decade. Leaving social networks and general audiovisual media the usual pedantic rituals normally offered to the moved and tearful masses—a mix of lotus, hypocritical and false media opium doled out with TV programming dedicated to the newly deceased (forgive the expression) and other techniques of post-mortem exploitative scavenging—I intend to dedicate to another star that departs a simple review, not exactly a literary epitaph, long, pedantic, and didactic.
The death of Houston further diminishes the relic, although still shining, of the mythical eighties: loved or hated passionately, terribly contrasting or damnably anonymous, rich in ideas or poor in creativity, the decade of the Eighties has always represented (and continues to represent) a remarkable baggage of sounds, colors, and moods. Within a mainstream context still immature when compared to today's marketing circus, amidst Michael Jackson's Moonwalk steps and Madonna's still "innocent" scandals, Whitney rapidly established herself with her pleasant musical dialectic between tear-jerking romantic ballads and funky dance tunes, all inscribed in a perfectly '80s background. And her second studio work, simply baptized Whitney, elevated in unison this '80s intoxication of broken hearts and dance floor shoes.
Far from the irreversible crisis of the end of the millennium, just a little more than a young girl freshly out of the typical Christmas gospel concert, Houston was about to temper the extremes of her more established colleagues, offering an ethereal and virginal image, moderate and relaxed (perhaps a bit too much, to be honest), audiovisually materialized in the most genuine pop spirit, free of excesses, extravagances akin to MTV. And thus, here is the hilarious funky-dance theater of the famous I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me), the almost adolescent nostalgic carefreeness of Love Will Save The Day, the danceable pop-rock combination of So Emotional, the cabaret doo-wop atmosphere in Love Is A Contact Sport. But also the ascending pathos of a soundtrack in Didin't We Almost Have It All, the soft lightness of Where You Are, the (lost) innocence in Where Do Broken Hearts Go, the slow and dense soul of Just The Lonely Talking Again. Exquisitely pop tracks, packaged to be absorbed by a potential crowd of die-hard fans, without too many pretensions of musical and/or literary depth, yet simple, pure, genuine, "well-made," excellent in their (often overstated) genre.
What will remain of these '80s, sang a known little character of ours, probably saddened by the end of his favorite decade. Twenty/thirty years after those years, too much and too little remain. The frivolous and disenchanted spirit of the charts of the time, with sequins and bright colors, the disco revival, the artists of today who feed (and overindulge) on the '80s mood, often distorting it and hybridizing it with the aberrations of the 2000s and post-2000s. But the true protagonists depart, suddenly masters of style and music, unfit to bridge the gap between yesterday and today, lost in a past glory that is thought uselessly to be recaptured, reborn like a Phoenix, packaged in an IV drip of ideas useful to a self-referential, arid, and empty mainstream context.
Requiem.
Whitney Houston, Whitney
I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me) - Just The Lonely Talking Again - Love Will Save The Day - Didn't We Almost Have It All - So Emotional - Where You Are - Love Is A Contact Sport - You're Still My Man - For The Love Of You - Where Do Broken Hearts Go - I Know Him So Well
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
02 Just the Lonely Talking Again (05:34)
It's the second time around
For you and I, boy
And believe me it's confusing me...
I'm afraid to say let's make up; and all's forgiven
But somethin' tells me I'm headed for heartbreak....
So darlin', please, I'm prayin' that
This time it will be different
That you and I can share this dream that I visualize...
(Chorus)
Tell me are you really ready for love, boy
Or is it just the lonely talking again
Are you really ready for love, boy
Or is it the lonely talking again.....
Now, the time before
When we got together
You promised you'd be forever true to me
But all I got from you
Was lots and lots of talking.....
Lonely nights filled with misery
So baby, please, please tell me now
That when I fulfill your needs
You won't up and leave me,
Even though you know I'll let you come back....
Tell me
chorus
04 Didn't We Almost Have It All (05:07)
Remember when we held on in the rain
The nights we almost lost it once again
We can take the night into tomorrow
Living on feelings
Touching you I feel it all again
Didn't we almost have it all
When love was all we had worth giving
The ride with you was worth the fall my friend
Loving you makes life worth living
Didn't we almost have it all
The nights we held on till the morning
You know you'll never love that way again
Didn't we almost have it all
The way you used to touch me felt so fine
We kept our hearts together down the line
A moment in the soul can last forever
Comfort and keep us
Help me bring the feeling back again
Didn't we almost have it all
When love was all we had worth giving
The ride with you was worth the fall my friend
Loving you makes life worth living
Didn't we almost have it all
The nights we held on till the morning
You know you'll never love that way again
Didn't we almost have it all
Didn't we have the best of times
When love was young and new
Couldn't we reach inside and find
The world of me and you
We'll never lose it again
Cause once you know what love is
You'll never let it end
Didn't we almost have it all
When love was all we had worth giving
The ride with you was worth the fall my friend
Loving you makes life worth living
Didn't we almost have it all
The nights we held on till the morning
You know you'll never love that way again
Didn't we almost have it all
Didn't we almost have it all
05 So Emotional (04:37)
I don't know why I like it
I just do
I've been hearing your heartbeat inside of me
I keep your photograph beside my bed
Livin' in a world of fantasies
I can't get you out of my head uh
I've been waiting for the phone to ring all night
Why you wanna make me feel so good
I got a love of my own babe
I shouldn't get so hung up on you
I remember the way that we touch
I wish I didn't like it so much uh
Chorus:
I get so emotional baby
Everytime I think of you
I get so emotional baby
Ain't it shocking what love can do
Ain't it shocking what love can do
Ain't it shocking what love can do
I gotta watch you walk in the room baby
I gotta watch you walk out
I like the animal way you move
And when you talk I just watch your mouth
I remember the way that we touch
I wish I didn't like it so much no
Chorus:
I get so emotional baby
Everytime I think of you
I get so emotional baby
Ain't it shocking what love can do
I get so emotional baby
Everytime I think of you
I get so emotional baby
Ain't it shocking what love can do
Ain't it shocking what love can do
Ain't it shocking what love can do
See I remember the way that we touch
I wish I didn't like it so much no no no
Chorus:
I get so emotional baby
Everytime I think of you
I get so emotional baby
Ain't it shocking what love can do
I get so emotional baby
Everytime I think of you
I get so emotional baby
Ain't it shocking what love can do
I get so emotional oh baby
Shocking what love can do
Hey yeah baby baby baby
Baby baby
Oh Ain't it shocking what love can do
Yeah baby
Shocking what
10 Where Do Broken Hearts Go (04:38)
ooooh........
I know it's been sometime
I've had something on my mind
You see i haven't been the same
Since that cold November day
We said we needed space
But all we found was an empty place
And the only things i've learned
Is that i need you desperately
So here i am, and can you please tell me....ohh
Chorus:
Where do broken hearts go
Can they find their way home
Back to the open arms of a love that's waiting there
And if somebody loves you
Won't they always love you
I look in your eyes
And i know that you still care for me
oooooooooooh.......
I've been around enough to know
That dreams don't turn to gold
And that there is no easy way
No you just can't run away
And what we had was so much more
Than we ever had before
And no matter how i try
You're always on my mind
So here i am, and can you please tell me ohh
Chorus:
Where do broken hearts go
Can they find their way home
Back to the open arms
Of a love that's waiting there for me
Now that i am here with you
I'll never let you go
I look into your eyes
And now i know, now i know ohh
Chorus:
Where do broken hearts go
Can they find their way home
Back to the open arms of a love that's waiting there
And if somebody loves you
Won't they always love you
I look in your eyes
And i know that you still care
Where do broken hearts go
Can they find their way home
Back to the open arms of a love that's waiting there
And if somebody loves you
Won't they always love you
I look in your eyes
And i know that you still care for me
For me..........
You still care..........for me
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