"By any reasonable reckoning, in judging a great singer - as opposed to a technically great voice - we must factor in the ability to interpret a lyric. And alas, though it would be apt - and mean the world a more beautiful place - her version of I Will Always Love You is not frequently listed in the Top Ten Songs By Which To Exit Divorce Courts. Instead, with all the appropriateness of coffins taking their curtain call to Walking on Sunshine, newly married couples walk down the aisle to it every week. Somewhere, in all the showboating of vowel stretching time, the essence of the song has been so utterly lost that down means up and left means right. Which makes Whitney Houston the very definition of style over substance.
Extraordinary style, granted, that uniquely spectacular voice an instrument of peerless range and precision; no doubt, she could - should - have been one of the greatest singers of all time; could have imbued that belt, Etta style, with real feeling; could have cut out all the vocal histrionics by sitting down with a producer who’d play Olivier to her Dustin Hoffman - “Why don’t you just sing, dear girl?” - and really test herself. Instead, to return to the motoring analogy, she was like an F1 car eschewing being pushed to the limit on the track in favour of the cheap applause that comes from issuing smoke-billowing spins in closed-off city centres."
pic: Mario Anzuoni , Reuters
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