For all her Grammy awards, assorted accolades and that classically distinctive voice, Whitney Houston is perhaps best known for creating two of the most memorable pop ballads of this generation. The Greatest Love Of All and I Will Always Love You are karaoke classics that ooze the kind of structured, over-the-top emotion that Houston has mastered.
But with her recently released album, My Love Is Your Love, the soulstress is showing a side that hasn't been seen before.
'I wasn't into the syrupy kind of vibe. I just didn't feel like singing about I Will Always Love You,' she recently told Billboard magazine. 'I'm a working mother, I'm a wife, I'm an artist. There are so many things that go into that, and it's not always like, 'Everything is beautiful in its own way'.' If Houston's previous work reeked of gushy over-sentimentality that didn't quite fit with real life, her latest effort sounds incredibly personal. Despite the album's unconventional disclaimer that 'The events and characters depicted in this album are fictitious . . .' there is plenty on here that sounds like the 35-year-old crooner's life.
In My Business was co-written and produced specifically for Houston. 'I based that song upon Whitney,' said pop hip-hop hit-maker of the moment, Missy 'Misdemeanor' Elliott. 'I wanted to write thinking that this is how she would feel.' The track, replete with hip-hop scratches and Elliott's trademark spoken word backing vocals, addresses the media's fascination with the state of Houston's marriage to fellow R&B star Bobby Brown.
Houston has been quick to deny that the seven-year marriage is in any real difficulty, although the couple did separate briefly last year, and despite Brown's much publicised 'bad boy' behaviour.
Brown's history is replete with alcohol abuse and stints in jail. In 1996, he slammed his wife's Porsche into a road sign, apparently intoxicated and high from cocaine.
