The really unfamous third of Dirty Money (Diddy being famous and Dawn being moderately famous) released a mixtape. It is SUPER extra-medium. So bored with this. Except this song. I’m usually not on board when a song slips into a new character halfway through the track—one half is always better than the other. But the beginning of this song is a banger and then Kalenna just smooVes it out a little for the last half. More stuff like this please, Ms. Harper, and less of that Everything Else You Made.
(Well, “Pain & Alcohol” is also good. But you really can’t hate a song built on lyrics like Cause I’m feelin like a white girl / on cocaine / Took three Vicodin / I feel strange / Pushin one hundred hittin curves in the rain /shouldn’t drive drunk with love on the brain )
I always forget how fun Just Whitney is to listen to. This track is pretty much the funkiest song in Whitney’s arsenal. So much of the album is just hainty and pure attitude.
After complaints from her black fans that Whitney sounded too “white”, too pop, too watered-down, Whitney turned to Babyface, LA Reid and a host of other R&B/New Jack Swing producers of the late 80s and early 90s to give her a more urban sound. The resulting album, I’m Your Baby Tonight, turned out to be her most consistent album yet and the lead single became her 8th Number 1 on the Hot 100.
For me personally, this song was the first one I learned how to play on piano and sing at the same time and I eventually used it for my piano placement test when I went off to boarding school. There’s just so much going on, so many great chords, lots of syncopation, and wonderful ad-libs. Whitney is so known for her ballads, songs like this slip through the cracks.
This is my last Whitney post after a week of dealing with the loss. I wanted to end on a positive note and this is my personal favorite Whitney Houston song.
Brandy & Monica “It All Belongs To Me” (Live on Jay Leno)
I love how much Brandy’s voice has grown and she really does get more beautiful with every year. They really ate this up last night. Now I just need a video and my February is all set.
There are far too many people who do not realize the significance of Whitney Houston and how she literally changed pop music forever. That’s neither exaggeration nor hyperbole.
This was, hands down, my favorite R&B song of the past year. I’m so glad she released it as a single. I sorta wish the video was sexier because the music definitely is. But. At least she got off that sound stage where she shot her other 3 videos and actually went somewhere.
It’s not sociopolitical or even all that important, but it’s just for fun. I was listening to Amy Winehouse today remembering how my mom & dad thought she was some 60’s black girl group they didn’t know about. It made me think of other white people who were perceived as black artists initially either by accident or through marketing from their record label. Some of these musicians are old enough that I always knew they were white, but not everybody did when they first arrived on the scene.
Listen to this track.
