Word: albums
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Just about everybody has bought the smile and the sound. Whitney Houston, her first album, has sold more than 13 million copies worldwide to become the best-selling debut in history, garnering the singer a Grammy and seven American Music Awards. And now, as she kicks off a summer-long tour of 45 concerts, she has done it again. Her new collection, Whitney, made pop-music history as the first album by a female singer to debut at No. 1 on Billboard's pop chart. The album's first single, I Wanna Dance with Somebody, scampered...
Grandma better get ready to boogie. From the very first cascading wooooo! on I Wanna Dance, the new album showcases a Whitney Houston who sings bolder, blacker, badder. This Whitney doesn't just want to dance with somebody, she wants "to feel the heat with somebody," and the vocal scorches. The rest of the album -- a mixture of party songs and love songs -- displays its star's subtler readings, greater vocal nuance, more dynamism and control. On the jazzy ballad Just the Lonely Talking, she eases into an adventurous scat duet with an alto sax. But she can still sing...
...Chess, which she sings with her mother Cissy. In the song, a grandmaster's wife and mistress muse about being unable to fulfill his needs for fantasy and security; in this version, mother and daughter sing about a husband-father, and it makes for an electrifying duet. Throughout the album, the range and vocal glamour displayed offer testimony that Cissy's girl has grown up. Whitney marks graduation day for the prom queen of soul...
Houston's triumph is all the more impressive for the odds it bucked. Two years ago, she was an unknown, a background vocalist in a cheerleader's body. Moreover, of her first album's ten cuts, six were ballads. This chanteuse had to fight for air play with hard rockers. The young lady had to stand uncowed in the locker room of macho rock. The soul strutter had to seduce a music audience that anointed few black artists with superstardom...
Exposure on MTV can still have substantial impact. The success of such currently hot groups as Bon Jovi and Poison is largely traceable to the saturation airplay given their videos on MTV. One popular band, Journey, last year opted not to produce a video to go with its new album. But when sales lagged, the group released one belatedly, and business promptly picked up. "There's no doubt that its impact has leveled off," says Gil Friesen, president of A&M Records. "But if MTV weren't to survive, someone else would come along and reinvent...