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The Nation's Pulse
The Singer Is Dead
Whitney Houston was the real thing.
Explaining to the uninitiated in the future how incredible a voice Whitney Houston had may merely require noting that she never had to dress up as a French whore to get the watchers of her videos to listen to her songs. Donning a meat garment to grab an audience’s attention wasn’t her style. Fame arrived without resorting to primping as a pig-tailed Catholic schoolgirl. All Whitney Houston had to do was sing, which is strangely no longer a prerequisite for becoming a singer.
Whitney Houston died on Saturday at 48. She was apparently found in the bathtub of her hotel room alongside a trove of pharmaceuticals, among them Lorazepam, Valium, and Xanax. Unlike their peers in sports, musicians prefer performance inhibiting drugs to performance enhancing ones. Houston’s long decline of bizarre behavior and haggard appearance followed by death is a replay of the dying days of Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, Amy Winehouse, and so many other megastars. They all violated the show business rule of leaving the audience wanting more rather than less. Nobody preferred fat, sweaty, slurry Elvis, and nobody liked seeing the glassy-eyed, disheveled Whitney. We want our kings kingly and our divas divine.
Her death may have been a music-industry cliché. Her career was anything but. Houston recorded eleven number one singles. Foremost among these was the monster hit “I Will Always Love You,” which spent a record fourteen weeks atop the charts. She set a record by placing seven consecutive songs atop Billboard’s chart. Her eponymous first album was then the bestselling debut by a female artist.
Her musical alchemy transformed the songs of others into her cultural property. Great covers, such as The Beatles’ “You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me” or Van Halen’s “(Oh) Pretty Woman,” add something to but rarely eclipse the original. Does anybody today even identify “I Will Always Love You” as a Dolly Parton number or remember that “The Greatest Love of All” originally predated Houston in a film made about Muhammad Ali’s life? Even “The Star Spangled Banner” became a Whitney song, with her rendition at the 1991 Super Bowl becoming the benchmark performance by which to judge all others. That she could turn the national anthem, an obligatory number set to a recycled tune, into a top-40 hit attests to the power of her voice.
Houston’s death on the eve of the Grammys, where she picked up six awards over her career, was seen as symbolism of some sort. “It’s her favorite night of the year,” Clive Davis said of his annual pre-show industry party on Saturday night, so “who knows by the end of the evening” if she would perform. But she would be dead before the evening had started.
But the real symbolism wasn’t dying on the eve of the Grammys but doing so at the close of a week that began with the buzz over Madonna’s Super Bowl halftime show. Rosie O’Donnell tweeted, “Madonna=perfection.” Ryan Seacrest fawned that “she nailed it.” But the most perceptive reaction came from (Who else?) Paris Hilton, who declared: “That was one of the best halftime shows I’ve ever seen.” When you see music, it’s not really music.
Complete with a tight-rope walker, Roman/Egyptian/Viking costumes, and gymnast dancers who rivaled the athleticism of the players on the field, the Super Bowl performance certainly was a spectacle. But spectacles are for the eyes, which tricked our ears. The lip-synched extravaganza was a metaphor for the music industry, particularly as it pertains to female songstresses. The visual makes the aural insignificant. Piped-in music and Autotune make the gauge of a performance how well the performer distracts the audience from the fact that they’re not listening to live music. That nobody seems to have noticed that Madonna faked her vocals makes her an amazing performer of some sort.
The music industry follows the Madonna rather than the Whitney model in manufacturing pop princesses. Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, and Nikki Minaj do image over audio. Adele and Kelly Clarkson, like Houston, experience success without sluttishness. But they are the exceptions that prove the rule.
Whitney Houston recalled a time when singers sang. Whatever the reality of her private hell, her stage persona projected grace, class, and a strength that emanated from her soul rather than from her cleavage. This wasn’t because she lacked physical beauty. She just knew that sex gimmicks would have diverted attention away from her voice, which is precisely why Madonna, Paula Abdul, and so many of Houston’s contemporaries used them.
The “singer” is dead. So, unfortunately, is this singer.
About the Author
Daniel J. Flynn is the author of Blue Collar Intellectuals: When the Enlightened and the Everyman Elevated America. He blogs at www.flynnfiles.com.
Richard Baker| 2.14.12 @ 6:28AM
Of course, sorry to hear of her death. But after Hendrix, Joplin, and all the other dead drug addicts, celebrity ain't what it used to be in the music world. Get rich, get high, and squander a fortune. And the band plays on.
Alan Brooks| 2.14.12 @ 12:19PM
Janis Joplin was a true heroin(e).
Alan Brooks| 2.14.12 @ 1:57PM
Say, maybe your libertarian allies will legalize hero-wine someday, and all dem Ladys can sing de blooze.
Mike Hawk| 2.14.12 @ 6:24PM
You are a sicko.
Alan Brooks| 2.14.12 @ 7:20PM
Makes two of us. C'mon, Mike "Hawk" isn't your real name, is it?
Alan Brooks| 2.14.12 @ 7:22PM
btw, aren't RESPONSIBLE people supposed to avoid abusing drugs and alcohol? and cigarettes?
Recardo Fumare| 2.14.12 @ 10:38PM
Janis made me cry Alan, and so did Whitney. I will miss them both.
Mike, you're a jerk, but hey, love and kisses anyway.
Robert Nowall | 2.14.12 @ 6:32AM
No offense meant, but...well, I've always thought that Whitney Houston's singing wasn't that great. I thought listening to her cut loose on, say, Dolly Parton's "I Will Always Love You" was the aural equivalent of being hit in the nose by a two-by-four. No subtlety, always full blast full out.
Don't go by me. I am also aware that her records sold in the tens of millions and that hundreds of millions enjoyed and found great and lasting value in listening to Whitney Houston sing. They will miss her...and that is a sad and terrible thing for anyone to have to go through. R. I. P.
jothepro| 2.14.12 @ 8:34AM
But Robert, what do YOU know about singing?
Mike Hawk| 2.14.12 @ 6:29PM
He knows what he hears and that what counts.
yuyu| 2.14.12 @ 9:58AM
Yes, Whitney had a great voice with splendid range. But I'm with you, Robert Nowall, on "I Will Always Love You."
It's a terrible song. The lyrics are no more than endless repitions of the title's words, sung with the most maudlin emotional intensity to a little sausage of a puny tune.
Dave | 2.14.12 @ 10:34AM
Aside from the occasional ignorance tapped-out in some of the poster comments, Whitney was indeed one of the most dynamic voices ever recorded in popular music. But rather than engaging in an endless "you, oh yeah?" debate, I want to focus on a comment Tony Bennett made on stage just after the announcement of Houston's death was announced. It's a comment that has been, mostly, buried by the mainstreamers, but deserves a second look.
Bennett said: "First it was Michael Jackson, then Amy Winehouse, and now the magnificent Whitney Houston. Let's legalize drugs, like Amsterdam It's a very sane city now."
I'm sure Tony will find some cheerleaders trumpeting that line of thinking. People like Ross Kaminsky, regular Spectator contributor, has posted similar thoughts. However, for the benefit of people like Mr. Bennett and Ross, I'd prefer to see more resources spent on Alzheimer's research.
I'm just sayin'.
Grzmlyk| 2.14.12 @ 3:28PM
Also, Amsterdam is dialing WAY back on its tolerance of drugs. Why? Because crime has the city in its grip. It's no longer a charming city, but, increasingly, a desolate, dangerous haven for thugs, prostitutes and junkies. This is progress?
There are no easy answers; I think Tony Bennett's comment was laughable - the fastest-growing segment of drug abuse today is legal prescription drugs. Yes, Tony, it's possible to abuse legal drugs, too.
On the other hand, the so-called "war on drugs" is an perennial failure and ought to be ended.
loulou| 2.14.12 @ 11:23AM
Agree. Parton did it better.
Buck Ofama| 2.14.12 @ 11:59AM
>No subtlety, always full blast full out.
Good observation, that the musically tone-deaf would not understand. Conversely, Patsy Cline had a basic ability to milk a song... de-emphasize the throw-away line, but emphasize the important ones.
Modern pop music knows little of this. Most it is played and sung "on 12" from start to finish, hence... monotonous.
Buck Ofama| 2.14.12 @ 12:02PM
And furthermore, I detest the current "standard" in black vocals wherein the singer overdoes every sustained note by attempting all manner of superfluous flailing up and down ad nasueum.
ANNOYINGLY MONOTONOUS.
Grzmlyk| 2.14.12 @ 2:15PM
Buck Ofama, I could not agree more. Those "runs," as I believe they're called, render songs unrecognizable. Frankly, I enjoyed her very early in her career and then lost interest when she became a superstar.
As Moe notes below, she spawned a million wrong-headed imitators who butcher songs, most notably when they sing the national anthem - a song that should be sung with respect and call attention to America.
Instead we invariably get a bunch of overdramatic, mawkish variations on the tune with endless pointless runs that scream, "look at ME!" - which is what the music industry is all about these days. Funny, you'd think it'd be "listen to me." But real talent matters less than spectacle, which is just one more indicator that our culture has rotted right through.
It may be true that Whitney Houston didn't go the slut route. For that she is to be commended. But the legacies of Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughan, Judy Garland, Eydie Gorme and countless other superior female singers remain safe, in my opinion.
Besides, Houston was was hell-bent on staying just as fucked up as she could possibly be. She went from being a breath of fresh gospel air to being another worn-out, washed-up, wrung-out hack.
I have to say, I have very, very limited sympathy for people who spend two decades trying to kill themselves, sqandering $100 million on drugs in the process and then finally get their wish.
My question upon hearing about her death on Saturday wasn't "Wow, Whitney Houston is Dead?" It was, "Wow, Whitney Houston was still alive?"
Bob Grant| 2.14.12 @ 7:47PM
The reason they do that is because they can't hold the note. It's vocal makeup...Botox for the vocal cords, if you will.
I will give Whitney her due. She could hold a note like the great classic singers. She also, however, tended to bellow more than my tastes allow.
Of course this is coming from someone who's embarrassed to sing in the shower alone. I do recognize and appreciate a good voice when I hear one.
TKRC| 2.15.12 @ 5:27AM
yes, it's warbling, not singing and i despise it as well. a whole generation of "singers" think that's how to sing. it's not. truly talented singers can hit their notes and hold their notes... they do not need to warble their way through songs. and don't forget, Whitney Houston started the trend of rendering the National Anthem unrecognizable to those of us who predate her career. i didn't personally have anything against the woman, but i certainly don't mourn her passing any more than any other person in the world who died that day.
kate| 2.15.12 @ 2:49PM
She simply had such a perfect voice that there is nobody to compare her to. Perfection. If you know music, you know that.
The Old Coach| 2.16.12 @ 1:26PM
Perfect for what? Driving starlings off your lawn? Previous posters have it nailed - she could not hit a not without slurring her way to it. Listen to the good operatic sopranos. They can land true on a note without accompaniment. I am blessed (?) with perfect pitch, so I do know the difference. Maybe it's because the hoi polloi can't tell a C-sharp from a heroin needle 'splains why she was so popular?
Tina B| 2.14.12 @ 3:05PM
ahhh, Patsy Cline, what a voice.
The Old Coach| 2.16.12 @ 1:20PM
Fingernails on a blackboard. One of the few "artists" who could make me race to the radio to shut it off. Screeching didn't begin to describe her.
Moe Blotz| 2.14.12 @ 6:41AM
With better training the late Mz. Houston could have developed that extraordinary voice to its full potential. The sound of her flat soprano made me cringe whenever I heard her soaring wail that was more like a scream. Whitney Houston also deserves credit for spawning a spate of imitators who now butcher our national anthem by performing it before sporting events so that no one can sing along.
Appleby| 2.14.12 @ 6:41AM
I agree; Whitney Houston's voice was mainly just loud. And yet again a "celebrity" is found dead in squalid circumstances, having taken her talen and flushed it down the commode.
Richard Pryor once said that cocaine was nature's way of telling you that you make too much money. Think of the good she could have done with the money that instead she chose to snuffle up her nose.
Today, I hope, she opens her eyes in Heaven. It won't be what she's used to.
Sir John A.| 2.14.12 @ 7:58AM
At least Richard Pryor did some good with his money, providing the seeds for the Ignited Negro College Fund.
Michael Crites| 2.14.12 @ 11:37AM
:-D
Buck Ofama| 2.14.12 @ 12:03PM
>Ignited Negro College Fund.
wonderful! ovomit should go back to college.
beebop2| 2.14.12 @ 6:11PM
ohmygod I needed that major league.
Recardo Fumare| 2.14.12 @ 10:51PM
Oh hell and Obama You to death,
I just laughed milk up my nose.
Faro | 2.14.12 @ 6:30PM
Appleby: Whitney Houston is in Hell.
Pretending otherwise? Why? God makes it very plain in the Bible how one gets to Heaven.
Stop with the nonsensical thinking, fake sympathies.
Dr. X| 2.14.12 @ 6:49AM
Dead, huh? Good. She'll get no sympathy from me. I have no sympathy for multimillionaires who get rich singing other peoples' music and spend their lives high on drugs and die young. Screw 'em. I live in the real world, not the bubble.
What's even worse is the idiots in our pagan culture who treat such people as if they were gods and goddesses. "Kings" and "divine"? Frankly I'm uncomfortable making those attributions to people in a constitutional republic founded by equals.
Sid Vicious, Elvis, John Bonham, Michael Jackson, Jimi Hendrix... the list goes on and on, and still our culture worships these people. Not me. I think they are scum, and that their success is a sure sign of cultural decay. We have engaged in the wholesale negrification of our once-sophisticated culture over the last 50 years. Elevating our former slaves and their music to the status of demigods is a sure sign we've become slaves ourselves.
Jenny| 2.14.12 @ 7:08AM
You can add Heath Ledger to that list. A tragedy is when somebody gets killed by a drunk driver. These people are self-centered selfish suicide cases nothing more or less.
Julian| 2.14.12 @ 11:50AM
Actually, the Greek understanding of tragedy took into account the "fatal flaw" of the human being whose actions brought him/her down. A car accident is not a tragedy in the classic sense; it is, as the word says, an accident.
Bob Grant| 2.14.12 @ 1:01PM
Actually, both of you are right...and wrong.
A car accident is a misfortune, a kind of tragedy.
Whitney Houston's apparent demise would indeed be a classic tragedy.
Another classic tragedy would be what's happening with Greece's economic situation: A Greek Tragedy in every sense.
Beer f.m.h.| 2.14.12 @ 7:24AM
Did you get permission from the P.C. police before you wrote that "wholesale negrification" sentence? Something tells me that is going to torque someone off before the end of the day...
Mac Jehoff| 2.14.12 @ 8:03AM
The sentence about elevating former slaves is more objectionable. Dr. X may never have heard that all black people in this country are not descended from the enslaved people brought here from Africa. Colonial America had large communities of free blacks long before 1775 .
Beer f.m.h.| 2.14.12 @ 9:25AM
Agreed - and count me among the torqued off.
When I think back about all the absolute class acts we've enjoyed in the past 50 years - you know, names like Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross, Tina Turner and many, many more, well, please, God, may I have another 50 years of wholesale negrification?
Dr. X| 2.14.12 @ 1:24PM
If you're so enchanted with negrified cultures, then I'd like to invite you to move to Zimbabwe, Uganda, Somalia, Liberia, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, or Haiti for the rest of your life and never come back to the U.S. Write us a postcard in ten years and tell us how you like it.
Or you could simply move to Detroit. It played a big part in "negrifying" our culture through the "Motown Sound" in the 1960s.
But today it isn't much different from the places listed above, is it?
Beer f.m.h.| 2.14.12 @ 3:03PM
I'm not enchanted by these primitive civilizations any more that you are and I'm just as mortified by the downward spiral of the black underclass in the US as anyone. But there have been many talented black people who have made significant positive contributions to culture in the preforming arts and I don't understand why that should be hard for anyone to acknowledge.
Dr. X| 2.14.12 @ 3:52PM
Talented? You mean, like Michael Jackson, who became a multimillionaire for singing an effeminate falsetto voice, dressing in sunglasses and sequins, and stroking his crotch with a white glove? Or Jimi Hendrix, who became famous for singing "I'm gonna shoot my old lady?" or 50 Cent or Snoop Dogg? You call that "talent"?
These people aren't Mozart. They aren't Wagner. They aren't Beethoven, who was able compose symphony orchestra scores after going deaf.
These are the descendants of jungle savages who spent several millenia painting their bodies and dancing around the tribal campfire to the beat of jungle drums in pagan fertility orgies in Africa. It's in their DNA. The fact that we call this "talent" reflects not the uplifting of the Negro to civilized status, but rather, the descent of the white man to the level of the savage.
Wynton Marsalis, I'll grant you -- he's talented. Miles Davis, yeah -- but he spent a good portion of his life playing that bebop shot up on heroin.
I'm not arguing that every SINGLE black individual is talentless or inferior. But many if not most are. I AM arguing that collectively, in a macro-social sense, white culture is absolutely 100% superior.
Jeamar| 2.14.12 @ 4:14PM
Dr. X: Just curious but in what field is your "doctorate?"
Drunken Sailor| 2.14.12 @ 4:37PM
Ummmm, would that count for Elvis as well since he ripped of the black culture for his music? Don't get me wrong, Love Elvis but I'm with "Beer for my horse" on this one. You can't look at Jazz or the blues without looking at the contributions of the black culture.
Dr. X| 2.14.12 @ 5:09PM
Yes, ABSOLUTELY it includes Elvis. In fact he's Public Enemy #1 for mainstreaming black music. (Oh, BTW... didn't he also die at a young age addled by drugs, after a failed marriage, despite his millions? Didn't his daughter marry that sicko Jackson??? Just sayin.')
Elvis opened the floodgates. You remember those old Southern preachers back in the '50s who used to smash rock 'n roll records and denounce it as jungle music and Satan music? THEY WERE 100% CORRECT.
It took 13 years to go from "innocent mama's boy" Elvis to Altamont, and only 20 years until Sid Vicious murdered his girlfriend in a heroin-induced rage, and for Iggy Pop to roll naked in broken glass onstage. It's ALL pure savagery.
If you've ever read the Republic of Plato, you'll recall the passage where Socrates proposes that inane and deviant poetry and music should be banned from the ideal society. You can only imagine what he'd say if he ever listened to Snoop Dogg's "Doggy Style" (how's that for "classy" and "talented"?) CD.
Seek| 2.15.12 @ 2:54PM
You are, quite simply, a moron. And as far as native sons of Tupelo, Miss. go, I'm sure you would find Donald Wildmon more preferable than Elvis Presley.
Beer f.m.h.| 2.14.12 @ 4:45PM
Sorry, X, but I don't think you and I can agree on this one - and I really think you are metaphorically painting with too broad a brush.
This I will tell you: If you never got a lump in your throat listening to Ray Charles - who was born to a poor Southern family at the height of the Jim Crow era, and blind since the age of five - sing his redition of "America the Beautiful" - then you just aren't capable of understanding where I am coming from here.
Think about that and have a good day. I'll see you on the blog tomorrow.
Azkal| 2.14.12 @ 6:48PM
Beer F.M.H., I don't think any one is saying that these individuals do not have some talents and could not have made great contributions.
One great song? Okay, two great songs!? Three! Four! Even when someone has 12 "great" songs, books, plays, movies, pieces of artwork.....
....all that may be good.
But ---
A life is lived in the every day. When no one is looking. When there are no stage lights.
I think so often we are troubled, saddened and ultimately numbed and putt off to the point of ignoring completely (for our own sanity) because the day-to-day living of these people is anything but wholesome, intelligent, uplifting.
The way they live and comport themselves is so often a betrayal to the God who has given them the talents, the opportunities, the privileges.
Do they realize that their gifts and opportunities come from God alone? Do they then seek to honor that God through not just doing their recordings but how they live, day to day?
That is why we cannot salute them.
One song? Sure. It can really move you, speak to one's heart. Just like one incredible baseball home run when the chips are down and the game ought to be over and lost or an incredible TD throw that electrifies or a politician's speech like the one that JFK gave that is still immortalized today.
But then ---
Then you go to learn more about this person's life. You read about them. And after 20 or 30 pages you have to put it down. Cannot go on. Sure, nobody is close to perfect -- none of us.
As a very timely, recent example: Read about JFK and the 19 year old college sophomore at Wheaton in Massachusetts. How many sins did these acts of selfish hedonism magnify and spawn?
Do you understand?
What we have in the Entertainment World, these are so often (thankfully, there are a few glorious exceptions) not lives to be offering any spotlight. Rather just disdain.
The Old Coach| 2.16.12 @ 1:32PM
Mark Levin used to use that for his Friday signoff song, didn't he? I used to race to the radio to shut that one off, too.
Curtis Rasmussen| 2.14.12 @ 6:41PM
DR. X
You're starting to sound like that lefty troll idiot fckewe starting at paragraph 3. Blacks have been part of this culture for 100's of years, only in the last 50 to 80 years has the leftist entitlement mentality infected it to the point where wealth and upward mobility have been reversed.
The signs of a corrupted society start when the upwardly mobile imitate the street hustler as if being scum is something to admire. That includes popular music. Which came first? I say the corruption came first (such as FDR's socialist new deal) and the music followed.
Stopping this slow motion train wreck is easy. Finding electable conservative politicians of conviction is the problem, especially with record numbers of Americans of all stripes on the dole and in the lefties pockets, a self-feeding spiral to poverty and ignorance.
BTW, I could not stand Whitney singing the scales. Drove me nuts. There's also lots of auto-tuning, synthesizers, and runs on my kid's Ipod. Can't stand listening to it.
Dr. X| 2.14.12 @ 7:02PM
"The signs of a corrupted society start when the upwardly mobile imitate the street hustler as if being scum is something to admire. That includes popular music. "
I agree with this 100%. White elites are to blame for exalting the lowest of the low.
"Stopping this slow motion train wreck is easy."
I STRONGLY disagree here. Frankly I think we're committing cultural hari-kiri and short of a conservative Francoist-style military coup (which ain't gonna happen) I don't have any hope for this country.
mcr| 2.14.12 @ 7:26PM
Don't forget Whitney's cousin, Dionne Warwick.
mcr| 2.14.12 @ 7:27PM
Whoops, my above comment is in the wrong place sorry!
Bob Grant| 2.14.12 @ 9:24AM
X,
I'll give you this: your comment was extremely thought provoking; most of it dead on. I'll leave it at that.
Nonetheless, thank you .
richard blaine| 2.14.12 @ 1:05PM
X , Thank you
PolishKnight| 2.14.12 @ 9:55AM
Elvis was a kind hearted, patriotic, religious man who, even in the final days of his performance, could pack the house. He truly did leave his audience "wanting more."
Buck Ofama| 2.14.12 @ 11:57AM
>What's even worse is the idiots in our pagan culture who treat such people as if they were gods and goddesses.
That is how we got stuck with this communist rat pile of shit, OVOMIT.
The Old Coach| 2.16.12 @ 1:37PM
Right Arm, Buck! I recently was handed a biography of Allen Ginsberg by a friend. He handled to book like it was a Holy Bible. Read about half of it and gave it back. That was exactly my comment - how do educated people manage to rationalize lionizing such people?
SUBVET| 2.14.12 @ 12:25PM
DOC........just to add to your post regarding "IDOLS" the Bible warns us mortals about it. Just a fact of what I saw yesterday and it tells me just how far we have come in our morals.
I have a client at the Van Nuys airport in CA. I had a site inspection at 4 pm and my party was late and she apoligized "I was at the west side waiting for them to load Whitney into the plane for NY". All of the side streets were packed with on lookers just to see the plane take off. I thought my God what have we become.
Fast forward to 10 pm CA time Fox had the touch down in NY live on TV.
Meanwhile our freedoms and liberties are being striped away on a daily basis. I sure hope the sheep wake up in time.
Bob Grant| 2.14.12 @ 1:11PM
Indeed,
I was watching Greta on FOX as Karl Rove was explaining obummer's budget proposal. After 2 minutes of detailed explanation and right before the very important point he was trying to make, Greta abruptly interrupts with "hold, hold on Karl for a Breaking News Story..." after which the FOX Breaking News graphic pops up. I thought maybe Israel had just begun it's bombing campaign against Iran or something when a grainy shot in the dark of Whitney's plane taxing to a private terminal.
Karl Rove's point was lost entirely. I contemplated throwing my remote at the TV.
Another example of how our country is fast approaching FUBAR.
TKRC| 2.15.12 @ 5:34AM
it's the feminization of "news". they now pander to a female audience and female audiences like gossip about hollyweirdos and pop culture. it's sickening that the death of these fools is treated like important news. merely 100 years ago, actors were rightfully considered no better than prostitutes. now, we live in a media culture that only celebrates itself, we have actors like Johnny Depp earning upwards of $100M a year just for dressing up and speaking words somebody else wrote for them while smiling for the camera. it's truly sick when you think about how twisted our values have become since the advent of television.
rnd| 2.16.12 @ 1:51AM
Gentlemen, fully concur.
Effemo androgynous speedo/Hanes wearin' tatooed narcissistic 24/7 personal PR goons like David Beckham are today's idolized "men."
???????????????????????????????????????????
A man?
We're sunk.
I cringe every time I see him holding up another of his children. (Same, same for when Michael Jackson had children)
BTW: Poor little old (deserving of our pity!!!) Demi Moore......pushed off the headlines by Whitney.....
"THIS IS A FOX NEWS ALERT!!!!!"
Seek| 2.14.12 @ 12:31PM
In the end, for Ms. Houston as for all other musicians, there is the music. The private failures, such as they are, won't be remembered nearly as what the artist left behind. Smug haters of anything smacking of the "counterculture," on the other hand, won't be remembered either for failure or success. They simply won't be remembered. Join the club.
Bob Grant| 2.14.12 @ 1:15PM
Get off your high horse clown. People here are only expressing their rightful opinions. Agree or disagree but take your "HATER" rhetoric and shove it up your ...
Seek| 2.14.12 @ 2:41PM
Up yours, too.
The Old Coach| 2.16.12 @ 1:42PM
Music? What music? Houston was incapable of music. Her recordings were massively manipulated to correct her tin ear. That massacring of the national anthem was at true picture of her lack of talent. As a singer, she was no more authentic than Obama's teleprompted speeches.
THKrupp| 2.14.12 @ 3:16PM
Black culture is just poor blacks imitating poor whites.
Tina B| 2.14.12 @ 3:50PM
Just to add to the list above, Richard Manuel, one of the founding members of The Band (circa 1960-Martin Scorcese's The Last Waltz) overdosed on something, alcohol and/or pain meds. in a hotel near where I lived, in Winter Park, Florida, in 1984. It was the "Eve" of a "comeback" tour, albeit without Robbie Robertson, lead guitar/singer/songwriter of the uber rock band from the early 60s who frequently backed up Bob Dylan.
The number of megastars who tried to stage comebacks and died on drugs on the "eves" of huge tours or appearances/concerts, is a virtual heartbreak for music lovers.
Here's my take on it as a madly in love with Jesus Christian: He calls many of them home, for His own reasons, before they fall any harder, and maybe just as they are trying to surface from the deep, because He knows, better than they do, what the right time to go home is.
Some of us know what it feels like to overstay at a party, an evening when we wish we might have left sooner. While we were still wanted, still desired. We really want to leave them wanting more, more of us, our talent, humor, beauty, whatever.
Whitney left in God's time (nothing gets past Him) and she definitely left us wanting more. She is no demigod, and no longer even a supestar. But I believe that by the grace of a merciful God, who remembers his wonderfully talented little girl singing in a Baptist choir praising His name, and telling of His glory, she is now smiling that fabulous smile at Him, and singing for Him, and always will be.
mm| 2.14.12 @ 11:10PM
Tina B., please stop referring to yourself as a Christian on these pages.
Your understanding of how God offers us salvation is not Christian teaching.
Why do you engage in fanciful thinking of W. Houston in Heaven now smiling at God? Just where do you derive that from the Bible, from Scripture?
The Gospel of Jesus Christ makes it very clear how one can know and be secure in one's salvation.
There is nothing in W. Houston's life that would affirm a life
Little girls sing in church choirs for lots of reasons. It can just be that the Kool Aid and snacks afterward are great and this is where her three best school friends also go three times each week. Or the robes are cool.
Lots of people are in church singing hymns and they are not born again -- as Jesus described to Nicodemus.
You might want to think again about identifying yourself here as a Christian. After all, a true Ambassador for Jesus is NOT going to lead others astray with a false teaching or false Gospel.
You have very clouded thinking.
Brian Mc| 2.14.12 @ 7:01AM
One word comes to mind while reading: tragic. Before the drugs, Houston had a certain exuberance and joy in her eye that was catching. As far as the other point, who performed in the first Super Bowl halftime? I would sit with eyes glued to the flatscreen if the SB halftime featured the National Collegiate Showband...or, even a Division II marching band.
Buck Ofama| 2.14.12 @ 11:56AM
>One word comes to mind while reading: tragic.
Wrong word.
Replace "tragic" with "irresponsible dope fiend washed up ex-recording artist".
sipbourbon| 2.14.12 @ 4:15PM
Arizona and Grambling marching bands, Al Hirt, and a high school drill team.
Teaghan| 2.14.12 @ 7:01AM
Her voice, rooted in gospel was to me, wonderful. She was beautiful, could sing but her demons got the best of her. Heartbreaking. R.I.P. Whitney.
PattyMor| 2.14.12 @ 7:14AM
Whitney had it all: looks, fame, money, and fans.
But apparently it was not enough for her. It just proves the point, money alone does not make you happy.
Fredx| 2.14.12 @ 9:38AM
I'd still like to try.
fmm| 2.14.12 @ 11:59AM
She obviously did not have it all, because those things you mention were obviously not important enough to sustain her. I wonder if some moments of reflection may identify something which would have mattered enough to change the outcome.
SUBVET| 2.14.12 @ 1:58PM
Maybe she lost her FAITH.............
Tim the Enchanter| 2.14.12 @ 7:24AM
Small correction to the article. Van Halen may have covered "(Oh) Pretty Woman", but Roy Orbison wrote it. I greatly prefer Orbison's version to David Lee Roth's 'vacuum cleaner with a ripped bag' version.
Bob Grant| 2.14.12 @ 9:43AM
'vacuum cleaner with a ripped bag' ...Heh.
bugless| 2.14.12 @ 10:24PM
I think his point was that The Beatles and Van Halen do not overshadow the originals they covered. I'd agree on "(Oh) Pretty Woman" but disagree on "You've Really Got a Hold On Me".
And I really disagree on his assessment of her version of "The Greatest Love of All", which I believe is pedestrian compared to the original by George Benson. I think people do in fact remember that GB recorded it once upon a time.
janet| 2.14.12 @ 7:32AM
I'm with Dr. X on this. I cannot stand how our culture glorifies these suicidal addicts and their lifestyle. Whitney had a beautiful voice but will be remembered mainly because of how she wasted her life. Just a matter of time before her daughter goes down the same path. Just as a side note, I cannot believe what a slob she was -- drug stupor or not. Showing pictures of her rooms made me cringe.
PolishKnight| 2.14.12 @ 10:06AM
Janet, throughout human history cultures have glorified suicidal addicts and their lifestyles. What do you think the Oracle of Delphi was? Benjamin Franklin? The Rat Pack? Edgar Allen Poe, one of America's finest writers, died after being beaten up drunk outside of a bar. The list goes on and on. It's surely not a coincidence. Normal 9 to 5 Joe and Jane Six Packs usually are not that interesting or willing to defy, or alter, current social thinking.
The fact you can't "understand" them illustrates my point. You simply aren't on their mental plane which is ok. Benjamin Franklin was an awful father. The world needs normal parents more than it needs gifted, but troubled artists.
The problem in modern times is that young famous leftists are often not very talented. Lady Gaga's stuff is on par with The Spice Girls. Brad Pitt is a copy of Robert Redford and not a very good one. This is why they engage in such silly publicity stunts such as meat dresses and adopting a dozen kids. To EMULATE the greats such as Elvis or Sinatra or Poe.
Nemo| 2.14.12 @ 7:34AM
Rubbish. She was a worthless decadent. The worship of such people is exactly what our country doesn't need at present. We need real heroes and heroines. At the very least, we need artists who can create genuine beauty, but more we need people who are exemplars of bravery and nobility.
Seek| 2.14.12 @ 12:34PM
Go write your own music, then.
Beer f.m.h.| 2.14.12 @ 7:36AM
I grieved when Karen Carpenter died in 1983. She died after a long battle with anorexia, not from bad personal choices enabled by fame and wealth.
Ms. Houston's passing, while tragic, is yet one more reminder that some lifestyes work, others just get you an early trip to the morgue...
Moe Blotz| 2.14.12 @ 8:07AM
Cass Elliot passed away about the same time. If only she had shared her sandwich with Mz.Carpenter, perhaps both would have been around a little longer.
KyMouse| 2.14.12 @ 2:52PM
Moe, Cass Elliot died of a heart attack in her sleep. The coroner found no food in her trachea; the sandwich myth seems to have come from the fact that there was a partially eaten sandwich in the room.
She had lost a great deal of weight -- reportedly, 80 pounds -- during the months before her death, so some people speculate that her weight-loss regimen may have weakened her heart.
Brian Eno| 2.14.12 @ 7:54AM
Powerful voice. Great entertainer. Beautiful woman. RIP.
wodiej| 2.14.12 @ 8:03AM
This is a tragedy and the hateful, judgmental comments left by posters here is why the country is in the mess it's in. Intolerance, unforgiving and a self righteous attitude. "There but for the grace of God go I." Shame on all of you. I wonder if you would have the same judgment of someone you loved?
If people showed more love instead of judging everyone else, the world would be a better place and perhaps Ms. Houston would be alive today. No one knows the hell she endured growing up which molds everyone. She took a wrong turn-who in their lives hasn't? Disgusting.
Dr. X| 2.14.12 @ 8:39AM
Wrong! "There but for the grace of God go I" does NOT apply to me. I have never taken drugs. I have never gambled myself into debt. I have never been divorced and cheated. I have never assaulted anybody. I raised my own kid to be quite successful. I educated myself. I did this through my OWN efforts, through self-sacrifice, and through keeping my nose clean and my butt puckered.
If Whitney Houston got hit by a car through no fault of her own I'd say "there but for the Grace of God go I." (I was hit from behind by some bimbo on her cell phone last year, totalling out the first new car I ever owned, which I did not buy until I was over 40.)
Screw Whitney Houston. I have nothing in common with her whatsoever. I have no pity for multimillionaires who blow it all up their noses and die needlessly.
Bob Grant| 2.14.12 @ 9:27AM
Again, very thought provoking.
Thank you.
Thunderbottom| 2.14.12 @ 9:53AM
A better example of "there but for the grace of God go I" would be the late singer, Minnie Riperton. Possessing a five-and-a-half octave range, she achieved pop success before dying of breast cancer at the age of 31 in 1979 (she didn't disclose her condition until she was diagnosed as "terminal"). One doesn't hear much about her nowadays. Ms. Houston's squandered fame and early death as a result of tragic personal excess will place her in the pantheon of pop culture stars who died under similar circumstances: Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Elvis, Sid Vicious, and Amy Winehouse, among others.
Hahnna| 2.16.12 @ 10:41PM
Dr. X: Obviously--you have never sinned, and so let it begin....Let the rocks fly. I wonder....Who showed you no Mercy?
Bob Grant| 2.14.12 @ 9:36AM
Powerful words bud, or budess:
Could you provide meat to your accusations?
Intolerance: Where? and if so, what's wrong with a little intolerance? Maybe the problem with our country is there's not enough CONSTRUCTIVE intolerance?
Buck Ofama| 2.14.12 @ 11:52AM
>This is a tragedy and the hateful, judgmental comments left by posters here is why the country is in the mess it's in.
No, dumb ass. The country is in a mess because of irresponsible self-serving politicians, of which "president" Oblowme is king.
Larry Spencer | 2.14.12 @ 8:34AM
(Oh) Pretty Woman was originally done by Roy Orbison, FYI!!
Fredstat| 2.14.12 @ 9:15AM
And too, I think, the Beatles "you really got a hold on me" was a cover.
Ted| 2.14.12 @ 8:35AM
Van Halen's "(Oh) Pretty Woman"?
Hey, Roy Orbison (with Rick Dees) wrote and recorded the original; Van Halen did a (good) cover.
Norman Conquest| 2.14.12 @ 8:36AM
The woman didn't sing, she bellowed.
Bill| 2.14.12 @ 9:20AM
Whitney Houston was no musician, she was a whore, and who cares?
I'll cry if something happens to Lady Gaga. You bet!
James| 2.14.12 @ 9:23AM
I'm tired of hearing about this addict. can anyone tell me the names of the soldiers that lost their lives last week!
Buck Ofama| 2.14.12 @ 11:51AM
I'm sure that the glorious excuse for a president, Ovomit, canNOT tell you the names of the soldiers.
sipbourbon| 2.14.12 @ 4:20PM
I'll bet he could, because there was a total of one.
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 2.14.12 @ 9:36AM
Sacrificed at the altar of secular humanism.
Seek| 2.14.12 @ 12:37PM
Secular humanism, my foot. Whitney Houston grew up singing in church. A black church has been the starting point of everyone from Aretha Franklin (Houston's godmother, by the way) to James Brown. Can't beat that for voice training.
Bill| 2.14.12 @ 9:38AM
Yeah, she had a great voice. Too bad she cut short both her career and her life with drugs. Oh well, another one bites the dust.
Ned the Red| 2.14.12 @ 9:52AM
She could have dumped we anytime, anywhere, just as long as she sang me that song. It makka me wanna cry.
Fredx| 2.14.12 @ 9:58AM
Great article. It's all in the melisma, which Whitney used sparingly and effectively. Today's singers insist on squeezing a dozen notes into one syllable, resulting not in singing, but shrieking. R.I.P. Whitney.
Derek Leaberry| 2.14.12 @ 9:59AM
The sub-head of the column reads The Nation's Pulse and, indeed, the career and death of Whitney Houston paints a sad picture of a country in cultural decline. Yes, Miss Houston had a powerful voice. Yet her songs and those of her contemporaries emoted rather than told compelling stories. Then again, a lack of maturity is a serious deficiency in the modern songwriting community. In America, for at least forty years, songwriting has been dull and insipid, a dumbed-down affair appealing to those at the emotional level of teen-aged girls. Miss Houston also over-sang her songs. She lacked the subtlety of Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Tony Bennett, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Dean Martin, Linda Ronstadt and even Tom Jones.
Yet modern songwriting fits the modern America. The new America is feminine and so are the songs. The new America is soft and so the songs are fluffy and wimpy. The new America likes to emote rather than be reserved and self-contained. Can anyone wonder why the country is in a death spiral? Great countries can not be soft, fluffy, wimpy, overly-feminine and emotional.
The author reveals his own surrender to the modern culture by pointing out some "private hell" that Whitney Houston lived in. Worth tens of millions of dollars and having access to luxuries that most people can only dream of, it is hard to feel sorry her. Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson also lived "private hells" largely of their own making and died thirty years ahead of schedule. Presley, Jackson and Miss Houston died due to their won worthless behaviors and are deserving of no sympathy for killing themselves.
Fredx| 2.14.12 @ 10:12AM
No one's asking you to feel sorry for Whitney, and Elvis and Michael do just fine without your sympathy. But I hope you feel better after getting all that off your chest.
LanyB| 2.14.12 @ 10:50AM
If there is any talent in the music industry today, it is buried beneath artifice and gimmicks. Almost fifty years go my mother my mother admitted to me that The Beatles music was wonderful. How many of us who grew up in the sixties and seventies can say the same to their kids today about the trash that emanates from the radio/IPod, etc.?
Bob Grant| 2.14.12 @ 11:15AM
The documentary The Compleat Beatles illustrates the painstaking effort it took to develop a sound and evolve into a band, and hopefully, grow an audience. A great rock documentary.
Today, all you need is a certain "Look" and "attitude" and an ability to turn your cuteness on and off at the right moments so the likes of Simon Cowell, Randy Jackson, or Piers Morgan will be duly impressed.
The music industry today is a cesspool and the product it unleashes on consumers is nails to a chalkboard to any discriminating listener.
But, then again, we are living in a post-judgmental society so if one is not a cheerleader 24/7, one is a hater and intolerant. Maybe I'll give Katy Perry a second listen.
Grzmlyk| 2.14.12 @ 3:14PM
If Katy Perry were flat-chested, today she'd be working at the check-out counter at Safeway.
That's her talent.
Mr.Luxery| 2.14.12 @ 11:23AM
The original coyote howling, ghetto yodeler of the National Anthem has inevitably died from drug overdose,... and broke.
AhhheEeahhhh Eeeahhhh wiIii'iill alwaAa'aAays luhhh yeEew... glurgle glugg... blub.
Dave Williams| 2.14.12 @ 11:24AM
It is tragic when any musician dies, especially when nobody is to blame except that person him/herself. But in terms of actual loss, Whitney's death is several orders of magnitude below what happened when Stevie Ray Vaughn got on that helicopter....
Tina B| 2.14.12 @ 4:21PM
Amen to that, Brother Dave.
Dave Williams| 2.14.12 @ 11:24AM
It is tragic when any musician dies, especially when nobody is to blame except that person him/herself. But in terms of actual loss, Whitney's death is several orders of magnitude below what happened when Stevie Ray Vaughn got on that helicopter....
Drek| 2.14.12 @ 11:25AM
What's all this talk about Whitney's death?
Rest assured by this time two months hence, she'll be registered to vote in multiple battleground states...............
Bob Grant| 2.14.12 @ 11:28AM
You just made my day. Heh, heh!
Stan Mikita| 2.14.12 @ 11:33AM
Yet Elton John still lives.
Grzmlyk| 2.14.12 @ 3:13PM
And he's already re-worked "Candle in the Wind" for Whitney, no doubt.
Sigh. Another former artist who is now a bloated, bloviating self-parody.
Doctor Right| 2.14.12 @ 11:44AM
Sorry, but I have other things to worry about at the present time.
I can't waste energy mourning for another dead, druggie pop-star who couldn't handle her bajillions of dollars.
Give me $20 million and watch me be a model citizen living a happy, clean lifestyle.
Oh, I forgot...well-adjusted people don't make good headlines for super-market tabloids.
Buck Ofama| 2.14.12 @ 11:50AM
boo hoo, sniff, snivel, sob. just another drug addicted faded singer. dime a dozen. big deal. sad for her and her fambly, but really, who cares?
Seek| 2.14.12 @ 12:40PM
A lot of people care, actually. That's why her records went platinum -- and yours didn't.
Rednecks in a fit of sarcasm. Good grief. Where is Mencken now that we really need him?
Bob Grant| 2.14.12 @ 12:49PM
What's redneck about not showing the "proper" sympathy for a troubled singer?
Bill X| 2.14.12 @ 12:59PM
She was reportedly on drugs for years. Another example of someone with a lot of talent who wasted it and died young.
Robert Mandraccia | 2.14.12 @ 1:33PM
Well spoken Mr Flynn. I too, who appreciate a singers talent(loved the late Kenny Rankin in particular) find it disgusting that these "singers" have to dress up their performances with "enablers" . Lets hear them do an a capella number!!
Dick Nome| 2.14.12 @ 1:40PM
I am indifferent as to who this person is. First time I really heard of her was when she appeared on a NY stage and the crowd was stunned by the emaciated appearance and then came subsequent stories of her drug sodden state and abusive relationship with her ‘husband’. Self abuse seemed to be a big part of it. I have no connection to her earlier years and can’t honestly say I’ve ever heard her ‘sing’. What I want to know is why these celeb stars are so venerated in their drug addled state and screwed up lives. It is sad that their demise is under such sad circumstances, but it is largely self induced. Houston follows the likes of Kurt ‘Cocaine”, Michael Jackson, assorted Hiphop clowns and other basket cases. Houston has a kid who is already a wreck and needs some serious help. These glitterati are held up as something our kids need to admire. No thanks. There are a few more such dysfunctional cases coming along and we know who they are. I can’t get very sympathetic to any of them. I'll save my sympathy for our troops.
Call me any names you want, I don't give rats rearend.
rnd| 2.14.12 @ 6:28PM
Dick Nome, you are correct. No need to apologize. Your words should be splashed across every newspaper in the country, they should be the opening monologue in every news broadcast.
These "stars" are more like warts and fungus. And the scum in the entertainment industry (The Entertainment Industrial Complex) who make them, use them flaunt them, ride them, and then abandon them are candidates -- all -- for Hell.
The life well lived. The life well lived ignores all of this.
Kurt Miller| 2.14.12 @ 1:47PM
Reading the comments here I remember several passages from a book I once read...mercy triumphs over judgment...with the measure you use so it will be measured out to you. Yes, Whitney Houston made her own choices and now she is paying the price for those choices. But it is churlish to mock the dead, and pitiless to scorn another human being for being human. For my part I wait upon the Grace that I know will reach her some day, the Grace that - yes - has kept me from falling into the pit where Ms. Houston perished by her own hand. And until then, I will remember her beauty and most of all I will remember a voice that was as close to perfection as can be found on this side of The Great River.
Bob Grant| 2.14.12 @ 2:05PM
Your sentiments are beautiful, and yes, she had a great voice but aren't you quick to condemn those comments you deem as "judgmental"?
I interpret them as people simply voicing their opinion about the tragic death of a pop-culture icon. The comments here, in my opinion, stress the point that her recent life, and death, should serve as an object lesson to those headed down the same path.
Sure, some comments might seem a little insensitive but certainly not racist, judgmental, mean spirited, or too terribly judgmental; maybe toward people who placed her on some pedestal but certainly not to her personally.
Kurt Miller| 2.14.12 @ 3:47PM
Thank you for your kindness, Bob. Perhaps it is just a difference in what we choose to see. I saw the gift that she was given and feel keenly its loss, knowing at the same time that we each end up where we have been heading in our lives and that we each will reap what we have sown. I extend sympathy to her knowing, in part, how great was her fall and how heavy the price she must now pay. But always in hope, that Blessed Hope, that we will someday all sing together in Our Father's House, in green fields and under the bluest of skies. If my words came across as judgmental I do apologize.
Tina B| 2.14.12 @ 4:22PM
Nicely done, Mr. Miller.
Kurt Miller| 2.16.12 @ 3:33AM
Thank you, Tina. Sometimes I do think I am kidding myself about all this, but then, out of the blue, I remember. I am working at having a better memory...
No man comes to the Father....| 2.14.12 @ 7:02PM
Mr. Miller, your sentiments might be nice. But they hardly smack of a grasp of reality.
If you believe what the Bible says, then, well, sadly -- but more likely -- Ms. Houston is in Hell.
That has been her own choosing for about the last 20 - 25 years.
We reap what we sow.
Sure we all need Grace. Only Grace saves us. But Grace cannot save when it is ignored, mocked, and tramped on by one who already knows the Truth.
She's in Hell.
There are real consequences in in this life. For her, for you, for me, for all of us.
Please don't go spinning fairy tales about eternity and lacing it up as Faith.
Kurt Miller| 2.14.12 @ 8:13PM
Brother, only God knows the hearts of men. Neither you nor I will ever know the condition of Ms. Houston's heart. However, from what we know of her life we can choose to pass judgment on her fitness for forgiveness. You choose to condemn her eternally. I choose to believe that the Love of God is greater than all the sins of mankind combined, and that maybe, someday, she will find Grace. I stand by my judgment, and fully respect yours, while choosing to disagree with it.
No man comes to the Father....| 2.14.12 @ 11:35PM
Nobody is condemning her -- eternally. She did this to herself, all by herself.
Watch about two dozen of her last public statements, interviews, public appearances, etc. and listen to the words.
Do you hear words spoken from a heart that belongs to Jesus?
Guys like you love to talk of God's love. Do you ever spend any time thinking about God's wrath? "For the wages of sin is death." Rather clear wording, no?
Please reference the verse I refer to in the name line. Think about it. It is rather limiting. It is an objective statement.
The purpose of this discussion is to SOBERLY wake up the few that will hear.
James tells us that faith without works is dead.
Jesus says "I am the Vine, you are the branches" and talks that those "in Him" will bear MUCH fruit.
I don't see any fruit. Do you?
People condemn themselves eternally all by themselves.
That is sad, but it is objective truth.
You are a false Christian if you are publicly making statements that indicate there is hope for someone who lived a hedonistic, self-focused, debauched life. Don't dilute the Gospel.
Or do you want to have someone's soul (someone who is still living, listening and following you) this someone's soul on your conscience?
Kurt Miller| 2.15.12 @ 2:32AM
Then I am a 'false Christian', brother, because my Bible tells me that 'God is love' and not 'God is wrath', because my Bible tells of the Good Shepherd who left all the other sheep behind so He could find the one sheep that was lost, because my Bible tells me that the Love of God is greater than all of our sins, and yes, I believe that His love is more powerful even than death. In life or in death, none of us is out of reach of the Love of God. Regardless of what people say or do, I do not presume to judge the hearts of others, nor do I judge even my own. I leave that to more capable hands, counting on Mercy, waiting for Grace...
jstwndring| 2.15.12 @ 3:25AM
"You are a false Christian if you are publicly making statements that indicate there is hope for someone who lived a hedonistic, self-focused, debauched life."
Ah, but, there is hope, or, else no-one would get in. The fact of the matter is that you did not know her personally. You were not there when she passed, and you have no idea what she believed, or, what she may have said at the end. Someone indicated that she grew up in the church. While that does not prove she was a Christian, it may indicate that she heard the truth. And, if she heard the truth, she may have called on Christ in the last moments of her life. I don't know if she did, but, neither do you. In all probability, you are right, but, ultimately, you cannot possibly know. Don't be so quick to assume. You are probably going to be surprised by some of the people you see up there--and, by some of the people you don't.
somnolence| 2.14.12 @ 2:38PM
Her death was in near proximity to that of Etta James, also honored at the Grammys. Etta truly WAS a survivor, kicking heroin addiction many years ago, and living into her seventies. She also branched out from R&B diva in her early recording career to a blues and jazz sultress, with many classic albums of standards done her way from the mid 1990's on. Let's hope Beyonce' has the endurance that Etta did. Whitney's greatest selling song "I Will Always Love You" was penned by Dolly Parton, another survivor in a different manner, and far from being a "dumb blonde".
Trish| 2.14.12 @ 4:09PM
Whitney Houston's death illustrates the dark underbelly of the entertainment industry. It makes a God out of the superstar. The entertainer knows that they have clay feet but they become addicted to the worship of the mass audience. Off stage life is too pedestrian and therefore the high has to be maintained via chemicals. Its tragic really and so few escape the meat grinder that is the pretend world of showbiz.
beebop2| 2.14.12 @ 6:14PM
Heard lots of conjecture on "what could have saved" her. A 48 year old woman who can't take a bath without someone babysitting her cannot be saved.
trundle| 2.16.12 @ 2:04AM
Probably the best two lines typed here on this page. Thanks, beebop2.
48 year olds who blew away millions and left their only child/teen a basket case.
No sympathy.
She was handed the keys to the Kingdom and she threw it away on hedonism.
Aaronius| 2.14.12 @ 6:27PM
It's interesting that you use Madonna as a point of comparison here. While I'm also annoyed that she chose to mime vocals for 2/3rds of her performance, it was polished, professional pop perfection, and it demonstrated a different model for people than Whitney did. Madonna is essentially a self-created star: her intense work ethic and drive, paired to obvious media savvy and a flair for theatrics. Whether you like the music or the voice or not, you have to respect the work ethic of this remarkable performer. Whitney, with her amazing voice, with her strong and connected musical family , with her model looks, was essentially born with all the advantage, perhaps with the exception of being black in racist America. So while Madonna may have inspired the current crop of 'non-singers' into the music world, she also inspired many of us in the boring real world to work hard, to follow our own path, and to reap the rewards of that independence and work ethos. She also won't be found dead in her own bath, unless she's killed by someone or she's 120 and her insanely fit body finally gives out. I'm saddened by the death of Whitney, but I'm invigorated by the continued success of Madonna, who has earned every last wrinkle to be Botoxed out of her face. This is a woman with a dance background who defined 80s pop music, who pioneered the current sound of dance music with her electronica/techno experiments in the late 1990s, who now knows how to play a guitar, and whose children clearly have a strong mother guiding them through life. Who would you rather have around inspiring the kiddies? I'd rather have someone who might be pushing buttons regarding sex and religion that make us uncomfortable...who nonetheless worked for every success, for every award, for every million, than someone born into advantage demonstrate how to piss it away. We all have it in us to be Madonna, at least from a work standpoint. Thankfully, a Whitney only comes around once a generation to remind us that superb talent doesn't always equate to superb lifestyle skills.
Bob Grant| 2.14.12 @ 7:38PM
Yes, racist Americans like Samuel L. Jackson, Harry Belafonte, or Al Sharpton can bring everyone down, of all colors.
Gary| 2.14.12 @ 9:38PM
So sorry, but Madonna, despite her great work ethic, blah, blah, does not hold a candle, as a singer, to talent like Whitney Houston. Madonna is a showman, with all the bells and whistles and bizarre sexual imagery seemingly craved by today's audiences. She is good at it, fine, but some of us do prefer true musical talent which is a great gift. As a possessor of average musical talent, good only for my own enjoyment, I appreciate true and great musical talent when I see it. Houston had it, Madonna doesn't and Houston did. You almost seem to infer that somehow that talent killed her as opposed to Madonna who would never die in that manner. Balderdash! She died from tragic prescription drug misuse which thousands of Americans die from every year, most of whom I daresay didn't possess Houston's talent. I know, I lost a daughter that way at age 28.
Aaronius| 2.15.12 @ 1:42PM
In no way am I inferring that Whitney's talent killed her. What I am saying is that the author of this article is implying that the Whitney way, which is to have an amazing voice without the added distractions of sexual imagery added to the mix, is the 'right' way to be. My retort is that by focusing on The Voice, and by focusing on the surface image Whitney Houston presented to the world, we're somehow negating how utterly wrong of a model Whitney was and is for people. Did Whitney have a true and great musical talent? Obviously. Did that talent, paired with stunning looks and a vocalized strong belief in Jesus perhaps cause us all to not see the druggie in front of all of us for many years? Obviously, as the woman was sweating like a whore in church at performances since the early 1990s (I distinctly recall watching a televised HBO concert of hers where I wondered why she was the only one getting sweaty, oily and gross...drugs, baby, drugs.) I'm questioning the validity of the author's argument, which appears to be that the music industry should focus on 'real' singers that aren't 'slutty.' This entirely negates a whole slew of people who can merely carry a tune who found success in pop music (go to the damned opera if you want a world of 'real' singers,) and it makes it appear that the Madonna model is somehow wrong. It's not. Leaving the drug death aside, Madonna's work ethic, tenacity, drive and determination has kept her at or near the top of the charts for 30 years now. To paraphrase your response, I appreciate true and great hard work and determination when I see it. Madonna has it, Whitney didn't. I will also say this: while I'm not implying that talent killed Whitney, I am implying that Whitney, born into musical royalty with that voice, that face, that body, never remotely had to work as hard and as fiercely as Madonna did to be big. And thus, when the times got rough, and the times required tenacity, determination and hard work, Whitney didn't have the chops. It just seems as if this article was written so that the author could shoe horn a negative opinion of Madonna into it, and basically that's absurd, since Madonna had nothing to do with Whitney's death. Moreover, I've overcome my own struggles with addiction. I understand that it requires work, tenacity, and diligence. And I'm just an average bloke. I sobered up entirely on my own, with no money and no rehab. I didn't have the money and the two decades of time to get it together, so I did it on the fly, as I was walking forward. I came out the other end a much stronger and better person for having made the effort. That's why I really don't feel sorry for Whitney. I don't think she really had the moment where she really, truly decided to sober up. I think she had a brief flash of sobriety, which revealed her voice to be shot to hell, never to return. I think the tenacity and hard work required of her to maintain that sobriety and to find a new normal in her now, voice-less life, was "too much" for her. And in my mind, to have that much advantage and to still find the effort "too much" is to surrender your life long before you drown in a bathroom. Finally, this is a little personal for me. During my year of on-the-fly, self-adminstered detox, Madonna really got me through that. Why? Because it was 1998, and she came back to relevance with her musically brilliant Ray of Light album...and if she can go from pop tart to Evita to electronica, soley on the strength of her determination, then I can quit acid, X, speed and coke. I CHOSE to live, and work hard each and every damned day to CONTINUE to live. Whitney never made that choice, I think. She chose to EXIST, when...as an addict, she needed to choose more than mere existence. Life as an addict is a fight. You fight to live. You fight to overcome. You fight against relapse. And you fight for the day when your addictions are tempered and controlled by time and distance. Whitney had every chance to do this in her life, and every advantage to do so in her life. She CHOSE not to. So, big whoop that she had The Voice, The Look, The Money.
mullahmoolah| 2.14.12 @ 6:42PM
i am happy and hope she died slow and painfully
mullahmoolah| 2.14.12 @ 6:44PM
death for you means da da da death for me
when i see your decaying bloated carcas floating face up by the tree
your death was soooo goood i mean it really inspires me
death was so good you decaying there beside me
da da da da da
death i so good death is sssssoooo gooood
shes stiff as wood
death is so good
oh yea yae
Gary| 2.14.12 @ 9:23PM
What rock did you crawl out from under?
kerr| 2.14.12 @ 8:12PM
This article was kind of all over the place Daniel. I am not really sure what your point was? Everyone should remember that no person can have everything. Whitney had the voice but she could not dance or write songs and Madonna can't really sing but she wrote some of the greatest pop songs in history and could put a show on like no one else can. Why do people have to criticize what others lack instead of just appreciating their gifts. And it seems to loom even larger with women. Madonna is criticized for putting too much emphasis on staying young and being in shape and healthy and Whitney was criticized for not upholding her looks as a superstar and not taking care of herself. I loved Whitney for her incredible voice that was like no other and I love Madonna because it took her to show the entire world what a super bowl half time show should look like.
Gary| 2.14.12 @ 9:52PM
At age 66 I guess I'm jaded and the half time show failed to stir my aged blood. True singing by a woman, coupled with subtle sex appeal still does, however, so I am still alive I venture. Maybe after seeing a lifetime of gimmicks that come and go one learns to look past them and value and enjoy hearing the human voice at its' best, a true miracle of creation.
Marcus Derul| 2.14.12 @ 8:29PM
I personally would rather watch Madonna lip-synch than watch Whitney Houston sing live any day. Who cares if she is not singing live...look what she IS doing that nobody else can do. I am huge football fan and every year's half time show is more of a joke than the year before. And now here come Madonna with the greatest show on earth and all people could say is "she lip-synched!" We all know it's her voice.. it's not like Milli Vanilli or something. The woman is doing back-flips and flying across the stadium like an acrobat I would think it would be hard to sing live as well. That said, I am very saddened by Whitney Houston's death and my heart goes out to her family.
Bob Grant| 2.14.12 @ 9:01PM
Uh, back-flips and flying across the stadium like an acrobat?
exaggerate much?
Gary| 2.14.12 @ 9:41PM
Why lip sync at all? Just play the music and dance, don't pretend to do both when you can't at the same time.
Gary| 2.14.12 @ 9:21PM
Amen to your comments. While I did not follow her music closely, I saw she had a truly wonderful gift, a great voice and a talent for displaying it. It is a lost art with all the gimmickry used today. I confess I an an Elvis fan and with all the early hip gyrations and jump suits, the man had a great voice when he was on. Without it all the gimmicks would not have sustained his career. It is sad that he and true singers like Houston died so young when they could have sang for decades more. Most female singers today, as you say, seem to rely on what amounts to soft core porn to "entertain." A good voice and subtle sex appeal is infinitely more appealing.
mm| 2.14.12 @ 11:21PM
There is nothing soft core about the porn at all. It is full blown. Same for the men. Where've you been? MTV introduced all of this to us in the middle 1980's and it has been non stop Hell-bent (literally) ever since.
This is deviants doing perversion and you talk about it as if it is just a variation of a crew cut in a men's barber shop.
Clue to you dude and all the others here who are so in love with their Top 40 and cinema big screen heartthrobs:
This is why the Great Flood occurred.
TimBuk3| 2.14.12 @ 9:36PM
Agreed. Madonna is the greatest show on earth.
Gary| 2.14.12 @ 9:46PM
Pray tell, she's a circus? I have seen circuses and they beat Madonna like drum. Your apparent enchantment with Madonna appears to have clouded your judgment, but I guess it's all a matter of taste or its' lack.
POST American| 2.14.12 @ 10:52PM
"You are 16,800X MORE likely
to be KILLED by Big Pharma
--than by a terrorist ---yet we
are NOT allowed to investigate,
much less bring to court and sue
them when their injections cripple
or kill our family. These companies,
one and ALLLL were founded, and
are run to this day by full-blown,
lock-step EUGENISTS."
-ALEX JONES
(two days ago)
TRUE
SO ---Keep a goin' kiddies
-----------Just keep on goin'
And enjoy those GMO corn chips
---and that Bisphenol A saturated beer
wherever and whenever
---------------------------Just keep on goin'
Pete | 2.15.12 @ 12:20AM
Gimme Lucinda Williams anyday. Real. Organic. Soulful. I need to get goosebumps and pull the car over to the side of the road so I can listen in safety.
Bill| 2.15.12 @ 10:49AM
"Sylvia was working as a waitress in Beaumont
She said 'I'm movin' away, I'm gonna get what I want
'I'm tired of these small-town boys, they don't move fast enough
'I'm gonna find me one who wears a leather jacket
and likes livin' rough."
The GREAT Lucinda Williams, now THERE'S a voice!
Coner| 2.15.12 @ 12:42AM
Madonna had the best half time show in history.
Duller than a Brick, eh?| 2.16.12 @ 1:26AM
If you really think this:
You obviously have one demented mind. No wonder we have such a lousy country.
Brian Richard Allen | 2.16.12 @ 2:38PM
.... No wonder we have such a lousy country ....
You do?
Where are you writing from?
Mexico?
BackToBasics| 2.15.12 @ 1:35AM
Whitney Houston's had a nice voice but not soulish in my opinion; at least not for me. The loud singing never covers a lack in that area. But she didn't have an angry voice like so many singers do today.
Regarding Madonna, from the article - "Complete with a tight-rope walker, Roman/Egyptian/Viking costumes, and gymnast dancers...."
Talk about symbolism; the halftime show also included about 50 white male slaves pulling Queen Madonna into the field. After After showing the subjugation of white men, she later proceeds to get on her knees before the black male singer and says that his words were like a prayer to her. Seemed like a combination of a plea and a statement of, "Don't hurt us, the white men are subjugated, we are no threat to people of color." So voila, World Peace.
Byron keith| 2.15.12 @ 1:45AM
Whitney Houston had the most perfect voice since Karen Carpenter. If you liked the big, bold sound, she could deliver. But, for my taste, Carpenter could get across more emotion with a whisper than Houston could at full throttle.
playinthesurf| 2.15.12 @ 1:55PM
Madonna became a success BEFORE Whitney Houston. So if she is not a singer, then "singers" were actually "dead" BEFORE Whitney showed up on the scene. I wonder why people feel the need to put other people down to memorialize someone else. Should I have been happier if Madonna dropped dead instead because Whitney Houston was once a better singer than her? And I thought Madonna sounded great at the Superbowl - an event that is both watched AND heard.
Brian Richard Allen | 2.16.12 @ 2:35PM
.... Miss Houston's death is a replay of the deaths of Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, Amy Winehouse and other megastars....
Please.
It's true that Mr Jackson was a 15-minute child prodigy and that Ms Winehouse also strung out her her fifteen minutes into several awful bloody years -- but if either Miss Houston and Mr Presley is the measure of a megastar, neither Mr Jackson nor Ms Whitehouse makes it onto the same scale.
marshcope| 2.16.12 @ 11:33PM
Hank Williams. Charlie Parker. Eugene Fodor-the one-time kid violin prodigy who died last year after a long time heroin addiction. Youtube has several songs by the great French diva Frehel, who was old and fat and ugly and drugged out and died alone in a flat in Paris in '51, but she had a way with a song that was astounding. And there was that that very strange-voiced American girl singer Lee Morse in the 20s and 30s who was done in by booze, but could do amazing things with a pop song.
marshcope| 2.16.12 @ 11:50PM
Sorry about typing "girl singer." "Chanteuse" would probably have been pc. And there is a least one video of Anita O'Day singing wearing long gloves to cover her needle marks, as Billy Holiday had to do.
Little Monster| 2.23.12 @ 9:57AM
Why do conservatives and libertarians feel the need to criticize and judge whenever there is a discussion of the arts? Whitney Houston had a wonderful gift, she was a talented singer, her death is very sad. Amy Whinehouse had a wonderful gift, she was a talented singer, her death was very sad. Michael Jackson had a wonderful gift, he was a talented singer, and his death was very sad.
Lady Gaga has a voice that resonates, and she can play several instruments. Britney Spears and Madonna are entertainers, you can love them or hate them.
For goodness sake, if you like music, if you appreciate artistic endeavors, you will like some things and not like others, I think they call that a matter of taste.
People are allowed to have bad taste! What does Lady Gaga have to do with the tragic death of another talented singer.
RIP, Whitney; paws up, Lady Gaga!
Buck Ofama| 2.24.12 @ 10:44AM
Sniff, sniff, snivel, sob, boo fvcking hoo... another faded singer bites too much crack. No one cares.
Buck Ofama| 2.24.12 @ 10:44AM
Sniff, sniff, snivel, sob, boo fvcking hoo... another faded singer bites too much crack. No one cares.
Little Monster| 2.24.12 @ 2:27PM
There are 174 comments about this piece, somebody obviously gives a "fvck", if you care so little, why keep posting? I'd imagine you do so because in this country, no matter how vile, stupid or ignorant an opinion, you have the right to express it. That is what makes our country great.
KEN LAU| 4.27.12 @ 11:13AM
Talking about cliches, the fact that the author needs to take a swipe at Madonna is another cliche.
Madonna should be admired, not villified for coming as far as she have gone with her seeming limited talents, AND SURVIVING in an industry where they are nice to you when you are dead and buried.
I guess it would make Mr. Flynn more comfortable if Madonna were more of a victim and fall into the same trap of self-destructive behavior that befell Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston.
It is also ironic that Mr. Flynn is talking about what is real and what is not and when Ms. Houston herself have commented that the personas she herself and Madonna projected on stage are just images.
Then again, if Mr. Flynn need to criticize Madonna because of her use of sexuality, he proved that his opinions cannot be taken seriously.