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Aug 30, 2009

iWontSTFU Reviews Whitney Houston's "I Look To You"

Don’t we all remember the young, talented, beautiful lady who made millions of people happy with her music in the 80s and 90s? So let’s do a little flashback and appreciate “The Voice”.

I Will Always Love You

How Will I Know (the mirrors are a bit creepy huh?)

Exhale (Shoop Shoop)

My Love Is Your Love (one of my faves from her more recent works)

She has too many great outstanding songs to display here. I could go on for hours but it's not like you don't know them right?


And now Whitney Houston is back so check out my review for her 6th studio album “I Look To You”.

Million Dollar Bill

The song is written and produced by Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz and you can definitely hear that it is an A. Keys song. I personally love it. The chorus is catchy (If he make you feel like a million dollar bill say oh oh oh oh say oh oh oh oh) and makes you sing along.

Nothin’ But Love

This track’s instrumental starts with a rather electronic sound which gets less dominant during the course of the song but I’m not really feeling it. Danja produced this one btw.

Call You Tonight

…is a Stargate production and it is as always very contemporary and radio friendly. I like it.

I Look To You

The song that gave the album its title is simultaneously the first single. About the piano driven ballad Houston said: “The last several years spiritually, this song says all I wanted to say. There are times in life when we go through certain situations - some not so good.”
Personally I think the song is just average.

Like I Never Left

Akon definitely did a good job on this. In fact, he’s the only collaboration on “I Look To You”. Akon’s voice might be very annoying and I hate to death this “Konvict” tag because it simply doesn’t fit to the song and Whitney Houston. Besides that the song is nice.

A Song For You

Cover songs are always a tricky thing. Either you fail miserably and destroy a beautiful song or you make it as good as the original or even better. In my opinion Whitney did a fantastic job. Whereas the beginning is similar to Leon Russell’s version at about 1:30 the beat changes and the song gets up tempo. I love it.

I Didn’t Know My Own Strength

A highlight concerning the ballads. It’s just beautiful.

Worth It

I won’t lie. I can’t stand this song for some reasons. I guess it’s the cheesy lyrics.

For The Lovers

I like this one a lot. “Now throw your hands up / The next three minutes it’s about the lovers / Ladies tell your man you love him / Fellas tell your girl you love her”. Very catchy and the background vocals match nicely.

I Got You

Another “Konvict” song and it’s nice. Not one of my favorites though.

Salute

“Salute” is my favorite ballad on this album. The song is written by R. Kelly and I got to admit that the lyrics are pretty good. Whitney basically tells us she is a “soldier girl” and “made it through”. The often quote line “So don’t call me to come back / I did it for years” is debatable in my eyes. I mean let’s be real. Her last album “Just Whitney” came out in 2002.

“I Look To You” is definitely an album you enjoy listening to. It’s not the banger type of album but I think Whitney connected the old school sound with the modern one quite well and has something for everybody. I also like to notice her personal experiences she relates to in her songs. Her label hopes for first weeks sales of 300k-400k. That sounds a little too optimistic to me.

I haven’t talked about her vocals yet although that’s the thing many people wonder about. I think after all the circumstance we have to consider she sounds well. Of course she isn’t the young Whitney and her voice sounds mature now but that’s fine. It’d be interesting to hear her sing live which will for example happen when she does “Good Morning America”. Then we can really judge on her vocals.

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