14 DAY TRIAL // Whitney Houston has dropped “I Look to You,” her much-hyped and long-overdue comeback album, just in time for the Grammy race, on the last day, for that matter. Whether she will actually manage to score a nomination is an entirely different story, but critics seem to agree that the album is mediocre at best, a deplorable attempt at making a comeback at worst. Fans don’t agree, of course.
As Rap-Up sums it up, most of the early reviews that have already started popping up on the Internet say the new material is tepid at best: great if compared to what current pop artists release, interesting if considered on its own, but definitely a far cry from the kind of performance Whitney was once able to deliver. There is no strength, no authority and definitely little of the confidence that once made Houston the supreme diva she was just years ago, critics say.
What’s worse, they don’t know whether this has to do with the fact that her voice is no longer as clear and powerful as it once was, having now been reduced to a raspy whisper, which is sensual enough at times, but cracks when too pressured. Without coming across as overproduced, “I Look to You” seems to play one final trick on Whitney by making her look a simple marionette in the producers’ hands, several reviews say, which makes the album good, but clearly a disappointment as far as this particular diva is concerned.
“It’s a middling album by an artist who was once the greatest R&B singer of her generation. Where once she would have elated us with power and grace, she delivers the lyrics with a faint trace of her former authority. […] It’s always unfair to judge a work for what it’s not, but Houston was such a gifted artist that thoughts of what might have been rise to top of mind. There are plenty of allusions to her troubled recent past in the lyrics and at times they seem close to an explanation for what’s lacking. There’s no need for an apology here.” Jim Fusilli of the Wall Street Journal Blogs says.
Rolling Stone is not just as scathing, even if it too admits that the world (or critics at least) expected more from an artist who literally made history with each album she released throughout the years. “It is a modern soul record, a collection of sleek, often spunky love songs that aim at something more immediate and tangible than nostalgia or catharsis: Houston wants back in the diva stakes. At 46, Houston is not the singer she once was. Time and hard living have shaved some notes off that amazing range; the clear, bright voice that dominated radio has given way to a huskier tone — less powerful but more sultry.” Rolling Stone says.
Fans, on the other hand, make no concessions: Whitney Houston is back and, even if her voice is no longer what it once was (everybody grows old, they say), critics have no reason to judge. In the end, perhaps this is all that matters, the fans, no matter if some bold estimates claim that “I Look to You” will start slipping off the charts in the second week of release, which would be the biggest disappointment of our times, as it goes without saying.