Prepare for an imaginary fourth quarter "showdown" between Whitney Houston and that other troubled "Itney" in 2008. I swear, the fact that so many music sites are even uttering their names in the same sentence with regards to music makes me want to cancel my Internet. But this isn't about people inventing competition where there is none. This is about the geniuses behind Whitney's new album and their refusal to just let the woman release an album without hyping it's likely producers.
Last week, I bemoaned the prospect of Michael Jackson enlisting the ubiquitous likes of Akon and Will.I.Am for his next project. According to several reports (Google them, there's a-plenty), Whitney's doing the same thing. Also rumored to be working on the project? R. Kelly. Sure, these guys are all talented in their own right, I suppose. But it seems more and more like labels are going to them for the caché and not much else. If Whitney was a new artist, or an artist without obvious talent, this would be fine. But the people that are likely to buy a Whitney Houston album are buying it for Whitney Houston, and frankly I do not want to hear our Whitney digitized "Migrate"-style just because someone forgot what R&B was supposed to sound like.
Yes. I went there.
Music has changed so much, and I don't necessarily need her to reach back to Babyface and Diane Warren (which she might), but just imagining her working with those other guys sounds like a complete trainwreck. Can we get some Gordon Chambers up on there? I'm just saying.
