Whitney; "the voice" no more

[B_Stronzo]

It's still "time off", regardless of the circumstances.



I think we've all seen this, and at one point could re-enact the interview word per word. :biggrin1:



Funny, but I could still hear her loud and clear over the chorus on her AMA performance. And there was one brief point where she was really off. But I can excuse a few imperfections in a performance... in fact, I expect them to happen. I'm just glad that she's back. She looks good and can still carry a tune better than the majority of women currently making hits in R&B and Pop. To be honest, I would have been more put off if Whitney sang live through the use of Auto Tune or lip synched like everyone else on the AMAs... that included Janet Jackson & Alicia Keys and I still like them as entertainers. She's making a noble effort to return.



The problem is, if anyone is expecting to hear the same Whitney that sang on The Bodyguard soundtrack then she will never be ready. Beyond the drug use (which only is part of the equation since some of our best songs came from those who had some kind of chemical dependency), she's older. If looking and sounding the way she does at 46 is wrong, then how is she supposed to look and sound?



You do realize that record came out in 1987, right? I wouldn't expect a 46 year old woman to ever sing a song in the same pitch and timbre as they did when they were twenty-five. I mean, if we had Cher sing "If I Could Turn Back Time" right now I'm sure we'd notice a vocal difference. While we're at it, let's get Bette Midler to sing "Wind Beneath My Wings" and expect her to hit every note exactly the same. Let's see if Mariah Carey can chirp those close to dog whistle notes on demand anymore?

In closing... <CHRIS CROCKER>LEAVE WHITNEY ALOOOOOOONE!!!!</CHRIS CROCKER>

:biggrin1: :biggrin1:

My hair's not nearly so peroxided I'll have you know! :biggrin1:

LOL!

I concede to a degree one way or another each point you make VinylBoy. It's about professionalism maybe.

But let's do a comparison... since you've addressed the gay diva phenomenon.

As gay divas (actually properly "dive" in the Italian plural) go La Streisand had a truly hideous and dreadful upbringing where Whitney did not. Barbra lived through the sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties and into this new century (with all the temptations out there drug-wise) consistently keeping herself in line and on-target.

I realize the two women are different people but both have/had reached iconic status. Striesand's new album (while gone the breathtaking vocal nuances of interpretation of her younger days) is solid and entirely durable. She does a version of Shirley Horn's Here's to Life on her latest album and it's rock solid. No back up singers needed there... just pure unabused talent.

Whitney's forty-six. Streisand's sixty-seven. The math's off.

While most would maintain Streisand's a supreme egotist Whitney (in my view) began to buy into her own celebrity. She gets kudos for giving it a shot. But that was ill-timed whatever it was. Beyond that I say she's wasted for all time one once-in-a-lifetime gift that was nearly in a class all by itself.

It's all about choices I guess... good ones and bad ones.

 

[D_Gunther Snotpole]

As someone who always felt that Whitney was more hype and bellowing than musical genius anyway...

I agree totally. She helped destroy the natural emotional scale of the American pop song.
That said, if that was something you had to do, she did it with rare talent and rarely equalled pipes.

I watched the X Factor clip with the jaded eye of someone not expecting much. From that prospective, she matched my expectations without exceeding any of them: it wasn't good but it sure wasn't horrible.

My feelings exactly.

I noticed is how incredibly self-conscious she was. Performers need to find their zone and lose themselves inside of it if they're gonna be any good, and she obviously never did.

Yup.
She didn't find that zone, a fact that became even more obvious in the interview.
So she was always at some distance from what she was doing.
Fatal.

I really think that her lack of breath control, pitchy, off-key singing and lackluster stage presence came from a place of morbid self-consciousness (most probably fear) and complete distraction. She seemed to have been poorly rehearsed if she bothered to rehearse at all.

I would agree, but I'd cut it roughly in half.
I didn't find her quite as bad nor quite as fearful.
But the old Whitney wasn't up there.

I do think, though, that it's premature to start writing the career obituaries.
She was like a balloon with inadequate inflation.
It won't ascend ... and neither would she.
But getting that uber-inflation back, I'm guessing, has a lot more to do with her mind that any physical factor.
I'm guessing, but I think we may well hear clearer echoes of the younger Whitney before very long.

 

[jason_els]

The problem is, if anyone is expecting to hear the same Whitney that sang on The Bodyguard soundtrack then she will never be ready. Beyond the drug use (which only is part of the equation since some of our best songs came from those who had some kind of chemical dependency), she's older. If looking and sounding the way she does at 46 is wrong, then how is she supposed to look and sound?

You do realize that record came out in 1987, right? I wouldn't expect a 46 year old woman to ever sing a song in the same pitch and timbre as they did when they were twenty-five. I mean, if we had Cher sing "If I Could Turn Back Time" right now I'm sure we'd notice a vocal difference. While we're at it, let's get Bette Midler to sing "Wind Beneath My Wings" and expect her to hit every note exactly the same. Let's see if Mariah Carey can chirp those close to dog whistle notes on demand anymore?

In closing... <CHRIS CROCKER>LEAVE WHITNEY ALOOOOOOONE!!!!</CHRIS CROCKER>

:biggrin1: :biggrin1:

She wasn't ready, if she ever will or can be. It's noble of you to defend the lady. I hope she proves worth the effort.

 

[SpoiledPrincess]

I never liked Whitney's songs but I do acknowledge she had one of the all round best voices ever. I think a lot of her voice problems at the moment are ones of confidence, she was one of the biggest stars in the world, to go back on that stage and face failure must be terrifying.

Here's a clip of her in concert last year

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbqifAJVR9I&feature=related

overall its a terrible performance but she does occasionally almost sound like whitney (fast forward to 3.58), she's come a long way in the year since this concert, let's see what she's like in another year.

Her age shouldn't come into it, for female opera singers their forties are the years when their voice should be at the heights of its power and richness.

 

[Bbucko]

I agree totally. She helped destroy the natural emotional scale of the American pop song.
That said, if that was something you had to do, she did it with rare talent and rarely equalled pipes.

She perfected that emotive, wailing Gospel style to a degree that even Aretha never attempted and that Christina Aguilera continues today. It's also an affectation that no American Idol contestant can seem to live without. Even Mariah Carey seems to have toned it down (not that you can compare talents between Mariah and Whitney: all honors are Mariah's).

She didn't find that zone, a fact that became even more obvious in the interview.
So she was always at some distance from what she was doing.
Fatal.
I would agree, but I'd cut it roughly in half.
I didn't find her quite as bad nor quite as fearful.
But the old Whitney wasn't up there.

I've only seen the snippet from the clip that was linked in this thread, though the parts of the interview shown there reveal a scattered and unfocused entertainer who was clearly uncomfortable: again, not in the zone at all.

I tried to not exaggerate the degree of decay as it's presented in the OP, but was probably still overly-critical. Perhaps it's my long-standing antipathy with Whitney as an artist generally. I can't say that I ever bought into the whole "diva" mythologizing about her in the first place. To me she's always been an affected, pretentious foghorn more than a serious entertainer, but I know that that's not an opinion shared by many on this board.

I do think, though, that it's premature to start writing the career obituaries.
She was like a balloon with inadequate inflation.
It won't ascend ... and neither would she.
But getting that uber-inflation back, I'm guessing, has a lot more to do with her mind that any physical factor.
I'm guessing, but I think we may well hear clearer echoes of the younger Whitney before very long.

I doubt that she's capable of the introspection and self-analysis required to make such a jump, but personally I think she could still have a career singing bluesy torch numbers in a muted, jazzy style (think Latifah at her most restrained).

I just don't see going that route. She could also try her hand at some light comedic acting, but that's not very likely, either.

 

[deleted15807]

I feel sorry for her because she set the bar so high in her youth it was almost inevitable that the comparisons would come. And given the natural passage of time and the lifestyle she lead the bar was bound not to be meet. I am certain Mariah will soon drop the high notes. Every pop soprano does. Gone With The Wind. BUT she still sounds way better than Britney.

Can she really top this 20 years later?

 

[Novaboy]

I never liked Whitney's songs but I do acknowledge she had one of the all round best voices ever. I think a lot of her voice problems at the moment are ones of confidence, she was one of the biggest stars in the world, to go back on that stage and face failure must be terrifying.

Here's a clip of her in concert last year

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbqifAJVR9I&feature=related

overall its a terrible performance but she does occasionally almost sound like whitney (fast forward to 3.58), she's come a long way in the year since this concert, let's see what she's like in another year.

Her age shouldn't come into it, for female opera singers their forties are the years when their voice should be at the heights of its power and richness.

That was indeed a sad performance. I can't imagine why she would do that. Even if the crowd really wanted to hear that song (though god knows why!) Better to leave them wanting more than than to perform so poorly.

I agree about the age thing. Streisand still sounds great at 67. She's lost some range but the control and tone are definately still there.

 

[D_Gunther Snotpole]

I doubt that she's capable of the introspection and self-analysis required to make such a jump...

I don't know if it needs much introspection and self-analysis.
(Maybe it does.)
What she did before was a collecting of her being so that all her forces at a particular moment were exerted to a particular musical and expressive end.
This feels almost automatic and effortless when it happens, and it's a totally obvious, unmistakable moment to the practitioner.
This is the zone, a place in which she used to have homesteading rights.
All she has to do is arrive there a few times, get its 'feel' again (as much as it has a feel ... more some kind of a signature disposition of attention), and then rediscover how to reliably access it.
Her whole earlier career shows that she's hugely patterned for it.

I feel sorry for her because she set the bar so high in her youth it was almost inevitable that the comparisons would come. And given the natural passage of time and the lifestyle she lead the bar was bound not to be meet. I am certain Mariah will soon drop the high notes. Every pop soprano does. Gone With The Wind. BUT she still sounds way better than Britney.

Sure, there's bound to be some loss of upper range and some roughness, but not so much at 46.
In sheer vocal (i.e., physical) terms, she should be able to almost meet the bar ... and the shortfall you could find significant or not, depending on your own interests and taste.
Meanwhile, she could have achieved immense interpretative ripening.
But not if she's not able to sing out from her core, with all her being participating.
And that's mainly what she can't do at this point, on the evidence of those vids from Dancing with the Stars and X-Factor.

Can she really top this 20 years later?

In terms of pure pipes, probably not ... but she could in principle, interpretively.
Interesting that you chose to link One Moment in Time, because that's what she can't find just now, as an interpreter.

 

[b.c.]

I feel sorry for her because she set the bar so high in her youth it was almost inevitable that the comparisons would come. And given the natural passage of time and the lifestyle she lead the bar was bound not to be meet. I am certain Mariah will soon drop the high notes. Every pop soprano does. Gone With The Wind. BUT she still sounds way better than Britney.

Can she really top this 20 years later?

I tend to agree with you. I can think of a few "comeback kids" half her age who sound like shit on stage now (that's the ones who actually sing their material). I for one am happy to see her make the attempt and am among those pulling for her.

 

[HellsKitchenmanNYC]

Personally after all that WH's been thru I think we should be glad she's even still able to make records and get out of bed. I have friends that have seen her and Bobby Brown at malls in Jersey and were like wha?.............
On the AMA's I thot she was good. Not over the top great but yeah better than good. Unlucky for her she doesn't have the Janis Joplin gene that actually makes you blow the room away when you're drunk and or both high.
Rehab takes awhile and it hasn't been that long since she supposedly has so give her some time and she might really sound even beter than today.

 

[SpoiledPrincess]

No one seems to have linked her singing at the AMAs, so here we go

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hy2IyvMvDg really don't see how anyone can say that was crap.

Thanks for that Jason, I didn't even know about the url in the sidebar.

But now it looks like I can see into the future as I'm answering you before your post ;-)

 

[jason_els]

No one seems to have linked her singing at the AMAs, so here we go


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hy2IyvMvDgI really don't see how anyone can say that was crap.

Sorry SP, that link is borked. Try grabbing the URL from the sidebar on the right.

 

[D_Gunther Snotpole]

No one seems to have linked her singing at the AMAs, so here we go
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hy2IyvMvDg
I really don't see how anyone can say that was crap.

I don't either.
But it didn't have the old 'life' that she could bring to bear.

 

[HellsKitchenmanNYC]

I don't either.
But it didn't have the old 'life' that she could bring to bear.

Hmmm please see my last post. Hopefully in a year from now WH will be closer to norma!

 

[D_Gunther Snotpole]

Hmmm please see my last post. Hopefully in a year from now WH will be closer to norma!

I think it could happen sooner.
Not sayin it will, mind ...

 

[HellsKitchenmanNYC]

I think it could happen sooner.
Not sayin it will, mind ...

I hear ya...noted and put in blog...lol

 

[deleted15807]

In terms of pure pipes, probably not ... but she could in principle, interpretively.

I just don't think so. I remember the mid 1970's when the Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin began dropping the notes and slowing down her former huge hits. It was quite sobering to think that voice was now gone. The snap, the power, the sass was gone. No matter how they interpret it, it's still a 'downgrade' on the original. And there's no way around that.

Pat Benatar another 80's favorite still sounds good but she's dropping the keys to better fit her present day voice.

 

[gjorg]

She said "they can't take away my dignity" well they did. Plus pumped her so full of sugar as to not look like a crack head that she looked pregnant!

 

[D_Gunther Snotpole]

No matter how they interpret it, it's still a 'downgrade' on the original. And there's no way around that.

Well, I acknowledged that.
But the degree of 'downgrade' varies hugely from singer to singer.
It's possible that the extraordinarily loud belters like Whitney and Maria and others would be subject to more age-related deterioration than other singers.
They over-sing, and that's not good for the voice.
But the degree of 'downgrade' would still vary a great deal from singer to singer.
And the degree to which ripened interpretive capacity might compensate would be a matter of opinion in each case.

 

[HellsKitchenmanNYC]

I just don't think so. I remember the mid 1970's when the Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin began dropping the notes and slowing down her former huge hits. It was quite sobering to think that voice was now gone. The snap, the power, the sass was gone. No matter how they interpret it, it's still a 'downgrade' on the original. And there's no way around that.

I saw Aretha not too long ago. It was so sad. She's sooooo fat that she can barely move. It's sad really that she can't put down the cheeseburgers.