Brandon's Buzz

EDITOR’S NOTE: I originally published this post on October 1, 2009, to celebrate the release of Whitney Houston’s long-awaited comeback album
I Look to You, and in light of yesterday’s tragic news, I can think of no more appropriate eulogy or tribute — particularly from and on a website that was designed for just such a purpose — than to revel one more time, with all the gratitude my soul can hold, in some truly great music. Need proof positive that the simple act of opening your mouth and belting out a magnificent melody (with perfect pitch, natch) is enough to transform, to CHANGE, the whole damn world? Keep reading.

Sherry Ann and I have this thing between us that we lovingly call “The Whitney Houston Rule,” which came to exist in the winter of 1998 when Miss Whitney became positively livid with the Recording Academy — not because they failed to nominate her soundtrack for The Preacher’s Wife for any major Grammys, but because they nominated her in what she perceived to be the wrong categories.  See, Whitney considered Wife to be the gospel album she had long dreamed of making, and while it was indeed top-heavy with selections from the God-is-love songbook, it also contained a handful of viable radio singles, enough to keep the boys at Hot 97 happy, and so the Academy deemed that the album was only eligible for the R&B categories, a decision which so enraged Whitney that she proceeded to embark on a nationwide press tour announcing her immense dissatisfaction over the news and proclaiming that she would not be showing up to that year’s ceremony to accept any awards she might win.  (The single funniest moment of this madness was when she appeared on Entertainment Tonight and slapped a deluxe diva diatribe — “I’m sick of work bein’ done and people not recognizin’ it!!” — upside poor Bob Goen’s head.  To this day, over a decade later, whenever either Sherry Ann or myself wish to give voice to something which frustrates or annoys us, we always preface it by cooing, Whitney-style, “No, Bob…”; and, to this day, the audio of Whitney’s hilarious hissyfit can be found on my iPod, where it continues to stay in pretty heavy rotation.)

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Whitney Houston — “I Have Nothing”
(from The Bodyguard [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]) —

Whitney Houston — “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)”
(from Whitney) —

So sorry for the Buzz’s unplanned hiatus over the past couple of weeks; I have been dealing with a massive home improvement project that has consumed what has felt like every waking moment of the past number of days, and am just now getting my head back above water. I fully intended to spend last night writing up my annual Grammy predictions, but that all fell apart with the tragic announcement that the incredible Whitney Houston has passed on from this plane. I’m still a bit speechless and dumbstruck by the enormity of this news — and even though Sherry Ann used to endlessly mock me for my devotion to her stellar and staggering music, she very sweetly texted me last night to make sure I was okay. All I can say is that my love for this wondrous woman’s brilliant body of work is well-documented on this very website — indeed, I’ll be moving the playlist I wrote in honor of Whitney in 2009 to celebrate the release of her most recent studio album back to the front page later this afternoon, as a tribute (however meek) to the music that has served on the frontlines of the soundtrack of my entire life — and even though I am utterly devastated by the unbearable notion that we’ve likely already heard all we ever will from her (though you can bet that, starting first thing this morning, the Arista vaults will be combed from top to bottom for any and every b-side, outtake, and demo the gal ever laid down on tape), I find more than a little comfort in the fact that her work will stand for eternity, and that the best of those tremendous tunes will still be a source of delight and debate a century from now. (“I Wanna Dance With Somebody,” in particular, turns twenty-five years old this summer, and yet remains, in its own way, as perfect and as timeless a pop song as “Billie Jean,” as “Time After Time,” as “Faith,” as “Bye, Bye, Bye” or “Babylon.” The deceptively innocent passion seeping through the crystal-clear high notes, the ebullient joy springing forth from that iconic nervous chuckle… Christ, where do broken hearts go, indeed.) (As for those aforementioned Grammys, which figure to be the most suspense-free awards ceremony in recent memory, look for it to be a coronation night for Adele, who would appear to be the shoo-in to end all shoo-ins for Album, Record, and Song of the Year. As for Best New Artist, I smell a hot race between The Band Perry and Bon Iver, and since the latter also managed to break into most of the other major categories, my guess is that they’ll nose ahead in a photo finish.)