Before her fall from grace following her much publicised decline into crack cocaine addiction, Whitney Houston unbeleavably had a goody-two shoes image when she pumped out her first pair of Pop/R&B albums, Whitney Houston (1985) and Whitney (1987). Critics focused on her musical gifts rather than her diminishing public image in later years.
Progressing from the Pop/Dance sounds of the Whitney (1987) album, Whitney Houston returned in late 1990 with a fantastic album, I'm Your Baby Tonight, which conveyed her growing maturity as an evidently diverse recording artist and merley supported her confirmed status as perharps, the greatest singer since Aretha Franklin. The I'm Your Baby Tonight (1990) album was much more street containing amixture of styles ranging from R&B, Hip-Hop, Soul & Pop.
The album opens with the title track, I'm Your
Baby Tonight, a nifty, commercial R&B/Pop track that is uplifting in it's content and from Whitneys rip-roaring vocal power. The volume and power in her voice is astoundingly rocketing and sensationally stunning and her voice effectively rides along the tidal wave of musical arrangements.
My Name Is Not Susan steers gently into distinctley early 1990's sounding Hip-Hop. Though this track hardly stands the test of time as well as some of the other recordings on here, the track is still overly a winner which is perharps solely due to another power-packed performance from Whitney.
What has always remained her most timeless work is her effortless flair for ballads. The beauty and soul in her voice really shines out on the glorious and breath taking ballad All The Man That I Need. Whitneys vocal delivery is sensual, strong and positivley exhilirating, gripping your attention from the opening bars and not letting it go until the song is fully completed. Again her vocals surfboard neatly along the exalting orchestrations.
Whitney literally sweeps you off your feet on the sensual and breathtakingly beautiful, Lover For Life which is almost trance-like with her exuberant vocal delivery to the sweetly mellow musical arrangements. It also features a glorious and divine saxophone interlude on the bridge of the recording which merley adds to that dazzling effect.
The album then swerves and drives back into Hip-Hop with another dated sounding number, Anymore. Whitneys vocal performance is as impeccable as ever but the track is one of the weaker spots on here. It was a conciously contemporary effort which inevitably means it sounds dated years later.
Miracle is another exhilirating ballad that is just totally magnificent! Whitney shifts vocal pitch as the second verse builds to its chrorus which merley confirms her wide range of spectacular vocal abilities. Fabulous! This should have been lifted as a single as it undoubtedly would have sailed to No.1
I Belong To You is an exotic, pretty infectious R&B/Pop number where Whitney neatly surfboards along the steadily assembled and subtle arrangements whilst more lacklustre is a playful Hip-Hop number, Who Do You Love, a fairly forgetable slice of early 90's Pop. Whats all the more surprising about this let down is the fact that its written and produced by the late, fantastic soul crooner, Luther Vandross.
She duets with Motown legend, Stevie Wonder on We Didn't Know which is another surpringly lacklustre number. Their performances sound a little disjointed and don't gel together on record as dynamically as they certainly could do. Another slushy ballad, After We Make Love is fairly average and holds some merits but does tend too fall a little on the laborious side with its syrupy content but the album closes on a high with the fantastic, I'm Knockin' which encapsulates a striking mixture of Hip-Hop and R&B, containing undertones of Jazz.
All in all, I'm Your Baby Tonight (1990) is very good and an essential album to have by Whitney Houston even though it didn't enjoy the same critical and commercial acclaim as her first pair of albums had.
Ian Phillips
September 2006
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