60 Songs That Explain the '90s - Whitney Houston—“I Will Always Love You”

Episode Date: May 12, 2021

Rob explores the late great Whitney Houston’s iconic cover of “I Will Always Love You” by discussing the legendary vocalist’s life and legacy. This episode was originally produced as a Music and Talk show available exclusively on Spotify. Find the full song on Spotify or wherever you get your music. Host: Rob Harvilla Guest: Gerrick Kennedy Producers: Isaac Lee and Justin Sayles Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Give me one good reason why Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner don't end up together at the end of The Bodyguard. Spoiler alert, what is this movie's deal? The Bodyguard, 1992, romantic thriller, made like $400 million bucks worldwide. Soundtracks sold like 45 million copies worldwide. A lot of critics hated the movie. It was nominated for seven Razies. If you don't know what the Razies are, don't get involved. Those people are joyless.

Whitney Houston plays a pop star. Kevin Costner plays her bodyguard. He's the best. He's brooding. He doesn't get emotionally involved. He throws knives. He likes orange juice. Seriously, he drinks like seven glasses of straight orange juice in this movie. It's part of his charm. He has two glasses of orange juice in one scene. How can Whitney Houston resist? She can't resist. The first time they smooch, it's right after he cuts the scarf she's wearing in half with a samurai sword. Roger Ebert called that scene undeniably erotic. Don't try that at home, though, fellas. That move won't work for you. Kevin Costner brewed some more. Various, wildly implausible, romantic thriller-type antics ensue. Remember when Whitney Houston's jealous sister confesses that she got stoned

and accidentally hired an unstoppable assassin to murder Whitney Houston? But then the assassin murders the sister instead, and then Kevin Costner dives out a window and rolls instantly to his feet like he's Jackie Chan and chases the assassin into a snowy force, and shoots in him a bunch of times with his eyes closed because he's the best. Spoiler alert.

Anyways, from there, it's Sister's Funeral, Poolside Brooding, then the Oscars, where Kevin Costner saves the day by taking a bullet for Whitney Houston, but he's fine. His arms in the sling, otherwise he's fine, and he and Whitney Houston say goodbye on an airport tarmac. Then her private plane starts taxiing, but then she yells, stop the plane, and runs off the plane and runs back to him, and they smooch some more, and the camera spins around them as they're smooching,

and the song that you knew what's going to be playing is playing, and then they go their separate ways and don't end up together. Don't do that, romantic thriller directors. It's obnoxious Mick Jackson, director of the bodyguard, and also director of Volcano starring Tommy Lee Jones. I'm talking to you, Mick. Do Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner have spectacular movie star romantic chemistry? No.

Did they have decent, regular people, romantic chemistry? Also no. That's not the point. The point is if we've invested two hours watching two grouchy people get together, then they can't not be together at the end of the movie for literally no reason. It's contrived. It's way more contrived than two people ending up together for no reason. Fake bullshit downer endings are like 50 times cheesier than fake bullshit happy endings. And don't give me this business that maybe Whitney and Kevin are still together. Maybe it's ambiguous. You want ambivalrous. You want ambiguity, go watch the Sopranos finale again. Get on the fucking plane, Kevin. What else you got

going on at that point? If nothing else, there's probably some orange juice on the plane. Excuse me, that got out of hand. I get all riled up about contrived, downer endings in romantic thrillers. It's a part of my charm. My name is Rob Harvilla. This is 60 songs that explain the 90s. I'm only slightly out of breath. You know the song. It's the song that's playing while Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner are smooching on the airport tarmac at the end of the bodyguard. It's I will always love you. I can't talk about it yet. I'm still too salty about the end of the bodyguard. And when I'm all grouchy like this, when I need an attitude adjustment, when I need a straight shot of adrenaline, of conviction, of suspiciously comforting Reagan-era optimism,

when I need to re-experience joy, then here's what I do. I crank up the old stereo, and I blast the a cappella version of Whitney Houston's How Will I Know? How Will I Know? Whitney Houston's second number one single on the Billboard Hot 100 out of 11 number one singles total. This is one of three number ones from her debut album alone. The ballads saving all my love for you and the greatest love of all are the others. Of course, she called that album Whitney Houston. It came out on Valentine's Day, 1985. This is pure, uncut, best case. scenario, 1985, to me. This is looking at the past through rose-colored glasses personified. This is the giant bow in Whitney's hair in the How Will I Know video. This is peak

1985, right up there with Queen at Live Aid, or the Goonies, or the New York City area test market release of the original 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System, or the Tops Roger Clemens' rookie card, or the way we as a society set aside our differences and join hands as a nation to drag new Coke. Almost had it all, didn't we? Whitney Houston was 21 years old. When her debut album came out, she was born in Newark, New Jersey. Her mother, Sissy Houston, was a famous gospel singer who sang backup for Elvis Presley

and Aretha Franklin. Whitney's cousin was Dionne Warwick, of course, a super famous gospel and pop singer, who would one day be the only tolerable person left on Twitter. In 1985, we didn't need Twitter. All we needed was Whitney Houston, singing the word who. That's H-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O. There is instrumental accompaniment in the original chart-topping version of How Will I Know? Peppy keyboards and electric guitar and a dayglow saxophone solo and whatnot.

That version is fine. The music is lovely. Shout out music. Shout out Arista Records, President, and Music Biz, Master of the Universe. Clive Davis, who quote-unquote discovered Whitney Houston in a New York City nightclub. Sure you did, but really all you ever need is Whitney Houston's voice, right? The rest is noise. The rest, by comparison, is noise pollution. The less distraction, the better. The less context, the better. What if we just enjoyed this voice to the exclusion of all else? What if we just luxuriated

in this voice? What if we transported ourselves back to the era when this woman had the most powerful voice in America and try not to think too hard about how that era ended. But we know how this ends. Let's get this over with. Whitney Houston was found dead in a hotel bathtub in Beverly Hills on February 11th, 2012. She was 48. Her daughter, Bobby Christina Brown, died in 2015. She was 22. Now forget I told you that. I don't want to talk about how this ends. We can respect the ending, but also free Whitney Houston's music, so much of which was buoyant and triumphant and revolutionary from the psychic weight of how this all ends. The tendency, if, for example, you're the director of a grim and heartbreaking and slightly tawdry Whitney Houston documentary, of which there are a few,

is to only use the infectious chart-smashing ecstasy of her music to underscore the plain fact that Whitney Houston, the human being, is an American tragedy, a song, as perfect and a bullion as I want to dance with somebody who loves me is only valuable now to a prestige adjacent filmmaker as ominous foreshadowing. But what if we set all that pathos aside and just danced, or at least listen to Whitney and only to Whitney as she sang about wanting to dance? I want to dance with somebody, parentheses, who loves me? That parentheses is important. That parentheses gives the song depth. And yes, okay, maybe even an undertone of sadness. But it doesn't retroactively cheapen the song. It doesn't try to turn the song into a fake

bullshit downer ending. Don't even try that shit with this song. I really wish everybody would stop trying. So as you can see, I so desperately want to talk about Whitney Houston, but I am so desperate to avoid talking about, say, the last 30% of her life. You either know too much about all that are you don't need to know very much at all. I will talk about literally anything else. I will rant about the bodyguard at uncomfortable length. What else can we, the way Whitney Houston laughs during the bridge to I want to dance with somebody, can we talk about that? This is a person who is blissfully, radiantly alive. Let this person live. Let this person live on. Find other stuff to talk about. For example, put Whitney Houston in the Pop Star Laugh Hall of Fame.

Let's build the Pop Star Laugh Hall of Fame and put Whitney Houston in it. And then let's give her company. Put Whitney right next to Janet Jackson at the end of When I Think of You. That's from Janet Jackson's album, Control. One of my favorite albums of all time. Janet Jackson passed on the song, How Will I Know? Actually, Whitney got it. Instead, Janet Jackson singing How Will I Know on Control,

just imagining that is a fun way to spend an afternoon. Control came out in 1986, the year after the first Whitney Houston record. The year after that, 1987, we get Whitney's second album. She calls this one just Whitney, four straight number one singles. Off this record, starting with I Want to Dance with Somebody. You know what I want to talk about really key changes? Whitney Houston is the Mozart, the Picasso, the Frida, the Aretha, the Alpha and Omega of Key Changes. It's like you've been shot out of a cannon directly into another canon, and then you get shot out of that one.

The three other number one hits off the Whitney album where didn't we almost have it all? So emotional. And where do broken hearts go? Heartbreaking song. Where do broken hearts go? Obviously, where broken hearts go is directly to your couch where you wear your pajamas for 72 hours straight and eat 10 gallons of ice cream. But the key change here feels like you're eating ice cream in your pajamas as you're shot out of a cannon into another. canon and then shot out of that one. God bless Janet Jackson truly, but you can't actually imagine

Janet Jackson singing, where do broken hearts go, or how will I know, or any other Whitney Houston song, because there's no point in imagining anybody else singing any Whitney Houston song. At most, you can count on one hand the singers. After or before Whitney, who have ever even approached the sheer firepower of Whitney, she started as a gospel singer, just like her mom. If you're looking for one historical source for the life of Whitney Houston, if you want the backstory and the context delivered in a way that honors the darkness without succumbing to that darkness or sensationalizing it, I recommend Robin Crawford's memoir. A song for you, My Life with Whitney Houston, came out in 2019.

Robin Crawford was pretty much Whitney's best friend and her most trusted assistant, business associate, really. They met as teenagers in New Jersey. She called Whitney Nippy, because pretty much everyone who knew her. did. Robin writes with genuine tenderness about how she and Whitney were lovers at first, until Whitney started to become a huge star and gave Robin a Bible and told her they couldn't be together romantically anymore. Whitney wanted to have children, and she didn't want to go to hell. But Whitney also told her, you know what we shared. Robin's book, on the one hand,

nods to decades of tawdry tabloid Whitney Houston headlines. You know, gal-pal-pal-secretel. life. The stuff the press fixated on with Whitney before they started fixating on drugs. When this book gets dark, it gets dark. When Bobby Brown, Whitney's future husband and ex-husband enters the picture, it gets dark. But you never lose

Robin's reverence, platonic and otherwise, for Whitney. You never lose her reverence for Whitney's voice. Another rad key change on the Whitney album, the song Love is a contact sport. If you are at the gym in 1987, wearing a neon leotard, one presumes, and you timed it right, you could bench press

600 pounds at the exact moment the key change hits in love is a contact sport. For me, the most striking scene in Robin Crawford's book comes near the beginning. It's when Robin goes to the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark to hear her new friend Whitney sing, to hear Whitney truly perform for the first time. They're still teenagers at this point. Whitney hasn't yet been discovered at this point, but Robin describes so beautifully the sensation of watching a wrapped church full of people watch Whitney Houston sing the gospel standard he decided to die. The writing isn't flashy. It doesn't need to be. Robin writes, before she even opened her mouth, I heard murmurs. Members of the congregation were bracing themselves. Robin writes, she'd opened high, and as her

voice rose, she brought us higher. People couldn't contain themselves. Robin writes, her singing was open and vulnerable, angelic and powerful. On that day, I sat in that church and I watched that little body stand there in that white robe and fill the place with her voice. Robin writes, I didn't need her to convince me that there was a higher power. I already believed that, but I felt nearer to God and closer to Whitney. Robin writes, of the moment after the song ends, one woman had passed out and two rather large and strong. white-gloved nurses were fanning her to help bring her back. Tears streamed on the faces of many women and some of the men.

It's a miracle the walls didn't just open up and let everything fall. She was a wonder. Let's do another one. Another one. One moment in time, the song for the 1988 Summer Olympics, the key change in one moment in time. Look under your chairs. You get a gold medal.

You get a gold medal. You get a gold medal. You get a gold medal. I keep almost calling songs like one moment in time power ballads, but that's a rock band term historically. The power comes from the electric guitars theoretically, but I don't care how many Marshall stacks you've got stacked up behind you. Outside of Eddie Van Halen and maybe Slash,

ain't no 80s guitar gods serving up more raw power than Whitney Houston, holding a microphone. The microphone doesn't even have to be plugged into anything and singing whatever the hell Whitney Houston felt like singing. No matter how anybody might be. might have felt at the time about what she felt like singing. A crucial invexing part of early Whitney Houston lore is that she was booed at the Soul Train Music Awards during the ceremony for two consecutive years.

In 1988, when she was announced as a nominee for Best Music Video, then again in 1989, when she was announced as a nominee for Best R&B Urban Contemporary single by a female. She was booed ostensibly for not being R&B urban contemporary. enough, for not sounding black enough, for being too pop, I guess. The great critic and blogger Richard Joswiak wrote a rad old gawker piece about this. Both grim Whitney documentaries will tell you that Whitney was shaken to her core by those booze. Robin Crawford's book says it wasn't that serious. But with Whitney Houston's third album, 1990s, I'm Your Baby Tonight, the theory,

or at least the media narrative was that she wanted to highlight her R&B urban contemporary. side. In practice, given that this was 1990, what this meant is that she made great and quite honestly frightening songs that sounded like angry Janet Jackson, or for that matter, angry Michael Jackson. Shout out, Susan. My favorite song on I'm Your Baby Tonight is the power ballad miracle, though perhaps you prefer the power ballad all the man that I need, and why wouldn't you? There's a key change after the sex solo. Let's see you boo that, you ingrates. I'm Your Baby Tonight was technically a step down commercially.

It peaked at number three on the Billboard album chart and sold a mere four million copies or so, whereas Whitney's first two albums both hit number one, and in fact both went diamond, meaning at least 10 million copies sold in the United States. Her debut album in 1985 sold more than 20 million copies, and still makes lists of the best-selling albums of all time. But despite all that truly bonkers early success in the early 90s, Peek Whitney hadn't yet arrived. And then, peak Whitney arrived.

Multiple peaks, really, to peak Whitney. First, of course, there is her rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner at the 1991 Super Bowl. With all due respect to victorious New York Giants running back Otis Anderson, one touchdown and 102 yards on just 21 carries, Whitney Houston was the true MVP of the 1991 Super Bowl. No key changes in Whitney's version of the Star Spangled Banner. Still the best version of the Star-Spangled banner. of the national anthem since Marvin Gay at the 1983 NBA All-Star Game.

And I will never, ever forget the ascending chords, as she sang just the word brave. If you're not up on the Ringer podcast Black Girl Songbook, it's a fantastic show hosted by the great Danielle Smith. We talked to her on this show about TLC's No Scrubs a while back. Black Girl Songbook is phenomenal, all of it. And the very first episode is about Whitney Houston's performance of the Star-Spangled Banner. My favorite part of that episode, though, is when Danielle alludes briefly to the next peak chronologically in the mountain range that is Peak Whitney. See if you can guess what song Danielle's talking about here. And you can be sick of it if you want to be.

You can say it's too much or you can say it's not enough, but me and 8 trillion other fans will love it for you. So, bye. You guessed it. Danielle was talking about I will always love you. The Bodyguard, which marked Whitney Houston's feature film, hit theaters in November 1992. It was the second biggest movie of 1992 overall, after Aladdin, the cartoon version of Aladdin. I apologize for earlier. The romantic chemistry between Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner is fine. It's fine. They're fine. It's a chill vibe. Would you come to appreciate

amid all that overheated romantic thriller melodrama? Remember the creepy guy who's actually sending Whitney Houston's character all the ransom note type death threats? except it turns out he's harmless otherwise. He's just a creepy guy. What a bizarre movie. Robin Crawford and her memoir assures us that Kevin Costner was a perfect gentleman and that Whitney told him, just don't put your tongue in my mouth.

And Kevin, to his credit, didn't. No one really cares about the bodyguard, the movie, though. And here is why. Whitney Houston's version of I Will Always Love You begins with 45 seconds of her singing Acapella. But already, in just those 45 seconds of just Whitney Houston singing quietly, power ballad. More power, more force, the November rain, or like, stairway to heaven. An unprecedented amount of power for a power ballad.

Picture the Great Wall of China, except it's built entirely from Marshall Stacks, that much power. A Marshall Stack is a famous giant guitar amplifier. Do kids today know about Marshall Stacks? Don't answer that. Kids, sorry. I don't mean to interrupt Whitney in mid-sentence. I would only be in your way. I Will Always Love You, of course, was written and first recorded by the one, the only,

Dolly Parton in 1973. There's a cool WNYC podcast called Dolly Parton's America that devotes a whole episode to I Will Always Love You. Dolly, just the beginning of her own superstar career in the late 60s and early 70s, was the esteemed recurring guests, the girl singer on the delightful live television program the Porter Wagoner Show. Porter Wagner at the time was a much bigger country star. Porter and Dolly sang a ton of hit duets together, a ton.

13 albums of duets spread over 12 years. For a time, he did wonders for her career, and she did wonders for his. Maybe they were romantically involved. Maybe they weren't. Maybe he cut one of her scarves in half with a samurai sword. Probably he didn't. But by the mid-70s, Dali had fully eclipsed him as a star, as a cultural phenomenon. It was time for her to leave the Porter Wagoner Show,

and whatever sense you prefer to think of it to leave Porter. Dolly wrote, I will always love you, not so much for Porter as she wrote it at Porter. This is a story. startling and tender love song, but make no mistake. That is the tenderest possible way to say, I am not staying. And that is the tenderest possible way to say, you're in my way. That's diplomacy, folks. That's show business. That's love. I will always love you. Smell you later. I will always love you within its first decade of public acclaim becomes a standard. Many fine singers, many fine versions. So Kevin Costner hears Linda Rodstadt's version of I Will Always Love You from

1975 and suggests that Whitney Houston sing it as the bafo closing number of the blockbuster romantic thriller Kevin and Whitney are starring in called The Bodyguard. And Dolly is thrilled at that prospect. Dolly's going to make a fortune off this cover. Like the gross domestic product of Belarus in 1992, that's how much money Dolly is going to make off this one cover of her song over the course of the 90s. That's $10 million or so, reportedly. That was an obnoxious way to put it. I'm sorry. And here, perhaps, we've cracked the case of what's the fucking deal with the end of the movie, The Bodyguard. The question is, what percentage of the trillions of people who love Whitney Houston's version of I Will Always Love You, understand that this was the spirit in which Dolly Parton wrote

the song? Do you get it? It's not you. It's Me vibe off Whitney Houston's version of this song. The cold, hard fact is that Dolly's I Will Always Love You is a breakup song, gracefully disguised as a cosmic, tragic, sheesh for some strange reason, we just can't be together, even though we both totally love each other equally type song. Does that same spirit animate Whitney's version? I'm actually asking. I can't hear your answer, but I am asking.

We both know I'm not what you. You're not what I need. Is it clear to you that that's what Whitney's saying? Is that what Whitney's saying? Is that what Whitney's character and the bodyguard is saying? What is up with Whitney's character and the bodyguard? Seriously, spoiler alert, plot wise this movie goes, sister shot by assassins stonedly hired by sister, funeral for sister, brewed by the pool for an afternoon, and then Oscars. It feels like 48 hours of real-time tops. We all grieve in our own way. I'm not going to rant about this again, but there is no clearly stated reason why Whitney and Kevin can't be together

at the end of this movie. Or I should say, it sure doesn't seem like one of them specifically is super not into it anymore. Maybe they're both kind of not into it at that point, spinning airport, tarmac kiss aside. And that's the tragedy, though that sort of mutual apathy-based tragedy

is not historically the stuff of world historical power ballads. But on the other hand, who gives a hoot about any of this when he got Whitney Houston singing this chorus. I would like to pause here briefly and note that much of the rest of the bodyguard soundtrack slaps, if you'll forgive the phrase, if you'll forgive me using the phrase. To repeat, the bodyguard soundtrack has sold something like 45 million copies worldwide.

On best-selling albums of all-time lists, it's usually sandwiched between Pink Floyd's the Dark Side of the Moon and that Eagle's Greatest Hits album. I always thought it was a hot air balloon. on the cover of that eagle's record. It's a painted eagle skull. Dude, I had that wrong for 40 years. Anyways, what I wanted to say was that Whitney singing Queen of the Night on the Bodyguard soundtrack,

fantastic. Booth this in Great's. Really what I wanted to say is that this song reminds me of one of my other favorite songs, which is Free Your Mind by EnVogue, Pride of Oakland, California, off their funky divas record, which was also 1992. Early 90s R&B divas yelling you is one of my favorite musical genres. Fun fact about me, if my blood alcohol level rises above

0.085, I automatically teleports to the nearest karaoke bar and start doing free your mind. I don't know why I'm bringing this up right now. Right, the bodyguard soundtrack. I have nothing by Whitney Houston, power ballad, killer key change, and I have nothing. But really, and my apologies that it took this long to get to this point, the bottom line here, after four solid seconds of silence is this key change. If my blood alcohol level ever rises above 0.285, I may teleport to the moon and attempt this. And then the movie ends.

And Kevin Costner is not on the plane. And I'm pissed off that Kevin Costner is not on the plane. And then real life, Whitney Houston, does a bunch of other stuff. And a bunch of other stuff happens to real life, Whitney Houston. Some of what happens is great. Some of it constitutes one of the greatest artistic and personal tragedies of my generation. I try not to think about it. I'd rather not talk about it. This is the ending

I want. Whitney Houston in 1992. She was the precise opposite of a natural disaster. She was the eighth wonder of the world. Whitney Houston in 1992 was the key change. And in this moment, for the rest of time, as the credits roll, at least Whitney Houston is still on the plane. Our guest today is Garek Kennedy, critic and author of parental discretion is advised, the rise of NWA and the dawn of gangster rap. His next book, Didn't We Almost Have It All, in defense of Whitney Houston, comes out in early 2022. Thank you so much for being here, Garrick. Thanks for having me. Of course. On your publisher's website, it says one major theme of your book is the shame that she carried in her heart, which informed every facet of her life.

How would you describe that shame? Like, even among her fans, is that shame? still fundamentally misunderstood? I believe so. And I think, so I thought it was so important to make shame such a central theme of the book, because it's not just her own. It's ours as well. It is the shame that comes from being in the church, being the one to make it in the family that was already kind of in the orbit of pop stardom.

It's the shame that comes with being a black woman in America and what that looks like, what that looks like then, what it still looks like now, but definitely what it looked like then because that informed so much of how she moved to the industry and also how she was received by not just her people, but, you know, us at large. And so there was all these complexities to shame that I thought now that we have different language in the way that we see the world and the way that we see artists, especially pop artists, I would. wanted us to have a moment to kind of re-examine those things. And so it was really impossible to do that and not really focus on shame. And this big idea that it wasn't just her own. It was ours and what it was what we placed on her. And that idea about it being misunderstood, I think still exists because we're only just learning some things about her. It's only been the last couple of years with some documentaries, with some family members having different conversations with us, right? And also, you know, we finally got Robin Crawford's story. And that was huge.

That was the last really big puzzle piece. And so I think once you start pulling apart, all of these layers of shame that she carried with the drugs, you know, with the drinking, with her marriage, with her sexuality, with the way that she saw herself and the way that we saw her, there was just so much to unpack and that became really interesting to write about. And it was ultimately about kind of introducing some scholarship around Whitney that I think only now has started to come to the surface because we've gotten these movies and we've gotten some more transparency from her family. Right. I agree with you. Robin Crawford's memoir was the real revelation for me. Like I think that did the best job, you know, of all the movies, of all the

things that have been written of celebrating what made Whitney great without getting bogged down and how it ended. Are we better equipped now to understand the relationship between Robin and Whitney than we were in like 1992? It feels like night and day. Yeah, it does feel like night and day, but I still almost kind of put an asterisk next to it because there's a way in which I don't believe we've moved on from the idea that she couldn't have possibly wanted to then be in a relationship with Bobby. I still think there's this thinking that her falling in love with Bobby, marrying Bobby, having a child with Bobby was about pushing back on how we saw her in these rumors and this idea that she was closeted, you know, and all these things, which honestly

may possibly be, I mean, we're not going to know because there's some of this, you know, that the only person that can tell us that is Whitney and she's not here. Right. So that's why I do think, even though there's better language around understanding and definitely far more compassion now than it was, you know, for her in the 90s, and that's just with also the media and the way that, you know, she was talked about on radio, the way that I mean, you know, one of the things that is still so crazy to me is that she sat with Katie Kirk for a primetime interview.

And Katie Kirk is asking her multiple questions about. a relationship that actually was not our business. Like she was married to a man and had been married for years. And even if she, you know, it was the fact that she was married to someone else. And so to continue to ask these questions about, well, what happened with this? I just, it felt irresponsible in a way that obviously we would not do now. But that's just where we were then. And we didn't have any role models who were black or queer or even white and queer in

the mainstream space. the way at a level that Whitney was famous, right? We didn't have some of the things that we have been able to see and like break the ground in. So I do think there's a way in which like the relationship is better understood. But I still think, you know, I keep that ashter's there because I still think that there's a lot of people who still question it and still even after Robin, you know, her truth was just like, well, was that the whole truth? And like, are you sure you weren't like paid off to, you know, not say something for all these years or were you paid off? or were you paid off to like pretend, you know, that you two weren't still carrying on when she was with Bobby. And I just don't believe that to be true because I do think that hearing from Robin, who was that last puzzle piece and her kind of walking us through their early days when they were physical with one another, I knew what that was.

I was able to connect what that was. I was, and a lot of people who were queer understood what that was and understood what that dynamic was and how easy it could have been. to then transition into a friendship, into a really close friendship for a long time. And all those things made sense to me. But I do think that because it was a person who fought back against every single question about her sexuality, and a lot of it was rooted in anger that was being thrown on to her about why don't you want to talk about it, despite the obvious reasons why she wouldn't want to talk about it, I think because we never saw her really have a real honest conversation,

there's going to always be the question. Sure. Early in Whitney's career, especially, she was often attacked because her music wasn't black enough. She got booed at the Soul Train Awards, like Al Sharpton called her Whitey Houston. And sort of the narrative is that's another thing that drove Whitney toward Bobby Brown, because Bobby was being accepted by some of the same people who were criticizing Whitney. Does anything about that argument make sense at all to you in retrospect that there was all this questioning of Whitney's, that she was genuine? as it relates to the music. As it relates to the music, yeah. Yeah. It's the one thing I have had a hard time with. As time has gone on, the one thing that has always struck me when I would go back and read some of the early reviews from LA Times and New York Times and Rolling Stone and all

these places that was covering her, I thought it was so interesting how none of them could actually identify that this is what a lot of pop soul sounded like, you know, that was sung by black people. And that's, it was just something where the attitude toward the music was, you wanted an identifier of blackness in a way that a lot of people who also were black were looking for, right? It was edge. it was having really transparent conversations around relationships. Like, that's something that R&B has just always been so rooted in.

And there was a way where it was really, like, romanticized. And it was like this fairy tale that just didn't feel authentic to, like, the experience of what it was like to, like, be black and in love. Because so much of, you know, our relationship with black love, quote, unquote, is rooted in, like, a Marvin gay. or it's rooted in, you know, it's rooted in kind of these moments where it feels so black, right? And it's that soul feeling that I believe so many folks just didn't find in her music. And I understand that. I've always actually understood that as a belief. But what I couldn't ever accept was this idea that she wasn't doing.

And I do say, quote, unquote, black music because I always want somebody to define what that is to them. And I think, you know, there's a lot of people who are going to just say, oh, it's R&B or it's hip hop. And it's like, well, yes, but she was doing R&B music. It just might not have been the R&B that you liked because it wasn't Anita Baker R&B. But it was contemporary R&B before we had contemporary. And that's the other side of what Whitney was doing, where she was a couple years ahead of what was then going to become the sound of pop music, the sound of R&B music for quite some time and even still now. But she was caught in that in between where it was like she was right before.

New Jack Swing, and she was right at the edge of hip hop. And so there was a way in which the audience was looking at this woman who was a black girl from the hood. And it's just like, oh, so this is what you're trying to sing? Well, I don't know. You know, and so I got it. But I always, especially those first, you know, two albums where I'm like, these are just like really standard R&B ballots. And I don't understand, you know, why there is this feeling that is not black. enough. And maybe it's because it was just really

sappy, right? That's so much of what a lot of the early stuff was. It was really, really sappy music. Or just too popular. Or too popular. Yeah. When you look at pop stars, R&B stars now, are they freer than Whitney Houston was in her prime? Like, Demi

Levato, you know, just put out an album. And the video for one song is a recreation of her real life drug overdose from a couple years ago. Like, would it have helped Whitney if she could have been more honest about her struggles in her music? Yes and no.

Because I think, and Demi is a great example of the reality that if Demi Lovato was a black girl who had overdosed, there would have been no way she would be treated this way. There would be no way that she would be celebrated, accepted, propped up. Now, I want to walk that back a little bit because I do think that, yes, now we have a little bit more compassion for people with addiction regardless of the color, but I do still firmly believe that there's a way in which the coverage would have looked a certain kind of way if it was, say, Normani from Fifth Harmony that had overdosed. Right? I don't think there would have been space for her to have a soft place to land when she decided to make, you know, a new record talking about it.

I just don't believe that we treat our black girls and women that way at all. There's just, there's too many examples of that. I mean, look at the way that people police Lizzo's body. Look at the way that, you know, folks get so angry at Beyonce, who after giving us all that she wanted to and all that she played every level of this industry and the way that you wanted. And so when she decided to make music about herself, about her people and the liberation of her people, it's, oh, my God. Well, you know, she's a racist and she hates white people and she hates cops. And, you know, all this way that she then started being spoken about is that she was not the same Beyonce that gave a single lady's in Halo, for Christ's sake. So I just don't think, I don't think it would have fully helped her. It would have helped her some. It would have been a selling point. I think critics would have loved it. They would have celebrated her. They would have, you know, propped her up in a particular way. But I just think that then it would have still been the same cycle of like, you know, Wendy Williams, who would know better. but she's going to lean in even more like, oh, now this is what you're doing.

I just don't, you know, I think there's so many ways in which it would have been weaponized against her because even when she started being honest with us, it was weaponized against us. Because the first time that she missed a note, oh, well, she must be high. You know, the first time that it was like, well, you know, the performance is not as strong. Well, you know, maybe she was drinking before or maybe, you know, something was going on. There was a way in which, like, once she started talking to us about what was really happening with her, we treated her even worse. So I have a hard time thinking that if she then made music that was specifically addressing it versus, you know, a song like I didn't know my own strength, which like anybody could have sang. But it just applied to her life, but it didn't tell us anything forthright.

I just don't think that there would have been that much of a difference in the way that she was seen or treated. Sure. The movies, the documentaries in particular, there was Nick Broomfield's Whitney, Can I Be Me in 2017, and Kevin McDonald's Whitney in 2018. Are these successful movies, in your opinion? Do they feel exploitive? Do they feel necessary? In my opinion, both were successful. Both were also very necessary. And I am very partial to Can I Be Me? And the reason that that is is because that is, that is, I mean, you know, you take away the fact that it then had to circle back around to it. It is a straight ahead concert doc. And I think those are always really great because we can see an artist where they are at that particular point in their life. And I am a huge fan of My Love is Your Love. I think it's her best album.

And that was her, to me, her best concert. And to then see kind of the pain that she was in, which is really clear in that movie, was really hard to watch. And it made me feel closer to her because I was experiencing her life at that time through her eyes and in her circle. And like seeing her and Robin together and reading their body language together,

seeing her with Bobby, seeing Bobby and Robin, just seeing the way that she was when she was not on stage and seeing that, yes, this was someone who was having a difficult time. That made me feel like I said, really close to her, but it also made me learn so much about her.

And it gave me a view of her that I hadn't seen. Whereas, you know, the Whitney Doc, obviously the participation of her family makes that really important because, you know, they were going through their own reckoning on camera. But it doesn't, it's not lost on me that Sissy's only in it for a second because, you know, as sort of the investigation of, you know, her life was happening through these interviews with people. we started to kind of pick up on some facts that we're not going to be great to handle. And so there's a way in which, you know, watching the family like fight back. I mean, I think at one point in that movie, you know, Bobby says like, oh, you know, drugs didn't matter. Why are we talking about drugs? And it's like, I understand. It's not what killed her. And I understand that idea because the way that we were in relationship to Whitney and her drug use was very

counterproductive to the reality of drug use, which people get high. You know, and it, it never felt like she was doing anything wrong. And I know that she didn't feel like she was doing anything wrong. And it's the same way that, you know, as much as we remember, you know, the crack is whack line, that's the same interview where she's like, we're rock stars. This is what we do. And it's like, yes, that is true. However, you and Bobby are still black people who are really famous and you're doing a drug that is considered when you are black doing it to be wrong. And it's not going to be glorified the way as Ozzy Osbourne or Dave or anybody else, Keith Richards, any of these rock gods who would sit and just like make music about getting high,

talk about being high in interviews, and no one is batting an eye. It's just not the same. And part of that is her image. But a great deal of that is because she was a black woman. And I don't think we've had enough honest conversations about that. So that's why I do believe those two documentaries are successful because they, are both these far extremes, and they do strip back a lot of layers and you learn a lot. And it's really important to hear on camera one of her friends say Whitney was fluid,

the same way it was really important to have somebody have that acknowledgement of, yes, I was doing drugs with her when she was 14 to 15. I was giving her drugs. He was 16 years old. That needed to exonerate Bobby in a way that I think we would have gotten if she had not passed away. we'd have continued to always believe Bobby was the problem, and that was it. And so there's a way in which these two documentaries helped bring a lot of understanding. But, you know, they're films.

And so there's a short amount of time that you can show some of these things. So I really enjoyed being able to focus on, you know, certain aspects that just as a fan and also as somebody who I love to say that I'm, you know, probably a scholar of R&B. Like I've dedicated my entire career to documenting R&B and hip-hop. but especially, you know, R&B, I don't think there's a lot of scholarship around it. And especially our architects and somebody like Whitney, I just thought there's too many connections to be made that still haven't been made because no one has given her the space to be looked at that way. She's seen as a sad cautionary tale. And yes, some of that is true.

But there's so many more things about her that are true and that are fascinating and that are compelling. Yeah. Is the bodyguard a good movie? It's the bodyguard. Okay, well, no. I mean, I want to be honest. It's not. It is a movie I love because it's Whitney and the soundtrack is incredible.

But the bodyguard is not a good. And this is why it's actually not a good movie. Because you have built a really lovely and cheesy romantic, you know, drama around a superstar, pop singer and actress who is nominated for an Academy Award. her and her bodyguard. And yeah, sure, that works for me. But in 1992, you think that you're going to have a black superstar dating her white bodyguard and there's no conversation to be had about it. And you also have this moment where she is needing a bodyguard because there is someone who is trying to murder her and does something as disgusting as like masturbate in her house. You know, there was all these layers to it where it was like, why are we ignoring this?

And even if you just, even if I can shelve all that because that's high concept, what I couldn't shelve is the fact that you still have this movie that is about Hollywood in its orbit. And you don't even explore that, like, the way that, like, a star is born explores the mechanics in the industry. Like, you're not even getting into that. And I thought that was kind of interesting. And then there's the issue with, like, the sister who was like, she hired a hitman. Wow. To snuff her. And we don't, we don't address it.

We don't get into it at all. We sure don't. She admits it and like, oh, what we do with that character is we just, let's just treat her like the tragic mulatto and like she's going to get killed. And that's kind of it and we can move on from that character. So it's not a good movie at all, but it's a fun movie that I love a great deal. And funny enough, actually the book opens with me writing about the bodyguard because it's my entry into really loving Whitney. Like I had seen her in these music videos, but I loved movies and I loved music and I loved music and I loved R&B. And so like this marriage of it, like that made me so

excited. And I watched that film in awe. And then as I got older, I just would be like, wow, they went through the effort of like recreating like music videos and she's like at the Academy Wars and there's like a sniper is here and we're just not having some of these conversations They're just glossing over things like, oh, their first date is in a country Western bar, and she's the only black person in here. No one notices. No one noticed. There's just no way. I'm sorry.

It's a great, bad movie. I think you've got it nailed. By the numbers, I will always love you is the biggest Whitney Houston song of all time. Is it her best song? Is it even her signature song to you? It becomes her signature song because. To me, I will always love you really felt like the birthplace of the style of singing that then is what we focused on, which is like, high molysmah, like that, like, that way of singing and like the crescendo ballad. There were so many things, there was so many things that she was doing on that record that I think shifted pop music and something that is still what so many people aspire to do on record when you think.

of an Ariana, when you think of an Adele, when you think of so many of these women, like, that is kind of the model. And yes, I a thousand percent think it's her signature record. And I also think it's one of, I think it's one of her best, but it's also, you know, frankly, it's a song that imprisoned her because it's like, if she couldn't sing it that way for the rest of her life, then we were going to have a very strong opinion about her. And we ended up doing that. We did that because she couldn't perform that song and that. way with that power forever, we completely just dismissed her as a great. And that's a shame to me. Who could have? You know, who could have been able to maintain particularly those runs at the end?

Just my goodness. Like, it's hard. That boom and I like over and over and over and over and over for decades. Like, nobody's doing that. Nobody can do that. I don't think nobody should be expected to do that. But that's, it's where we were with her. And that's a bit of a bummer. Yeah. When you listen to Whitney's most joyful and triumphant moments now, you know, the Star-Spangled Banner or how will I know, like, does the tragedy of how her life ended sap some of that joy now?

Like, do we honor her by always keeping that arc in mind? Or do we honor a song like, I want to dance with somebody by forgetting all that and just dancing to it? I think you've got to do a little bit of both. And, you know, I write about. about my challenges with trying to move on and the grief of that loss and the sadness over it and also the guilt and frankly that we all played a role and someone's downfall in a particular kind of way, even though, yes, this is an adult who made their own choices, that kept me from

her music for a really long time. I mean, I'll be honest. If it was on the radio and I heard it, I didn't cut it off or anything, but me actively going and playing it, and this is somebody I would play her records all the time. I just didn't for a couple of years. And part of that was just me needing to, like, grieve, which I realize it now. But it's really easy for me to separate the two when I hear, especially the joyful things. And a lot of the, a lot of the dance records especially, it's when I get into, like, the preacher's wife soundtrack. And, like, when she was really in her, like, pocket with the gospel that I know was so foundational to who she was and, like, frankly would have made her happy to sing for the rest of her life. That's where I get, you know, I get choked up and it's really hard to listen to that.

But I pretty much will play, I'm Your Baby Tonight album all the time. And I dance to it and have a great time with it. Same for my love is your love. Same for the early stuff. That sadness, it starts to kick in when it's like, if I'm. you know, if I think of the gospel album, if I think of just Whitney, when I can only associate that era with, you know, the downfall. And I hate to use that word, but that's just what that time period was. And so that's hard. Sure. Gary, this has been great. Thank you so much for being here.

Yeah, thank you. This is excellent. Thanks so much to our guest this week, Garrick Kennedy. Thanks, thanks as always to our producers, Justin Sales and Isaac Lee. And thanks, of course, to you for listening. And now, without further ado, here is Whitney Houston with I Will Always Love You. We'll see you next week.