Robert Christgau Did Not Feel That Whitney Almost, If Ever, Had It All

It's 1985 and I have released my
debut album. I'm Whitney Houston, bitch.

With the recent death of Whitney Houston, I've been inspired to add yet another feature to this Robert Christgau blog, which I haven't named but will loosely call "What Did Robert Christgau Think of an Artist Who Is in the News Today Because He or She Died or Was Arrested or Was Otherwise in the News for Reasons Varied?"

Let's first consider that Robert Christgau has no problem with pop music, or music that moves in the ten of millions of units. (No snob, that Bob.) He reviewed Lady Gaga very favorably and did award a Madonna collection, an album I'll eventually visit, the coveted A+.

Two years later, everyone knows who
I am. So now it's just Whitney, bitch.

But you can argue that Ms. Germanotta and Ms. Ciccone are also "artists," while Ms. Houston is simply a "singer" — a singer that could belt out five octaves and go on runs that went forever, but still just a singer.

This might explain why Robert Christgau gave each of the Whitney Houston albums that he graded, the eponymous 1985 debut Whitney Houston and her half-as-eponymous(?) follow-up, 1987's Whitney, a C and a C+, respectively. His reviews are (as usual) short, but here's what the two reviews have in common:

• The review for the first album mentions "schlock"; the second, "megaschlock" ("odious megaschlock," even)
• Both mention Jemaine Jackson, the second time as an insult
• Both mention producer Narada Michael Walden — responsible for five of Whitney's hits, plus Mariah Carey's "Heartbreaker," Starship's "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now," and Aretha's "Freeway of Love" and "I Knew You Were Waiting" duet with George Michael — though the second time as a callback to the "only critically forgivable thing on [Whitney's] best-selling debut album in history" (i.e., "How Will I Know")

But hey, at least both albums rank higher than the D+ he gave to the only Celine Dion album he graded. Yet they fall below the B+ that Bobby Brown received for his debut.

Anyway, enjoy my favorite Whitney Houston song, which is my least-favorite Whitney Houston song, which is my favorite Whitney Houston song, because I hate it. Do you have things (songs, even) that you love to hate? Among the many things I love to hate, in the way you hated having a loose tooth that hurt but you prodded it anyway because you kinda liked the pain, was the Whitney song "Love Will Save the Day." I hated it because of its message that, don't worry that you have cancer or lost your job or didn't make it to the toilet on time when you had the runs, LOVE WILL SAVE THE DAY!

I can play this on loop and it energizes me with the uncomfortable/enjoyable pain/pleasure of fifty sharks' mouths full of loose teeth!