I Look to You

I Look to You

by Whitney HoustonWhitney Houston

Overview

It's only been seven years between Just Whitney and 2009's I Look to You, not even Houston's longest time between albums, but it feels much, much longer, her glory days obscured in hazy memories of lost luster chiefly deriving from a bad marriage with Bobby Brown, chronicled in an embarrassing reality show for Bravo in 2004. I Look to You attempts to wash this all away with something of a return to roots -- a celebration of Houston's deep disco beginnings, tempered with a few skyscraping ballads designed to showcase her soaring voice. Houston's rocky decade isn't ignored, but it isn't explored, either: songs allude to Whitney's strength, her willpower as a survivor struggling through some unnamed struggle -- enough for listeners to fill in the blanks, either with their own experience or their imaginings of Houston's life. More than the songs, Whitney's voice tells the tale of her lost decade. The highs are diminished, the sweetness sanded away, leaving her a thick, powerful growl that has an emotional pull not quite like a ravaged latter-day Billie Holiday, but not all that far removed, either; at the very least, Whitney can still sing, knowing when to wring emotion out of a phrase, knowing when not to push for the glory notes that she can no longer hit. This diminished skill set actually serves the showboating showstoppers well, turning them into something that operates on a human scale, injecting them with something approximating warmth, something that the songs quite deliberately avoid. Also, there just aren't that many of them on I Look to You, either. Most of the album splits the difference between burnished neo-disco and modern soul, aware of fashion but not pandering to it.

Product Details

Release Date: 08/31/2009
Label: Arista
UPC: 0886971003321
catalogNumber: 710033
Rank: 161510

Tracks

Album Credits

Performance Credits

Whitney Houston   Primary Artist
Donnie Lyle   Guitar,Musical Direction
Kenny Mason   Choir Director
Charlotte Gibson   Background Vocals
Gary Houston   Background Vocals
Tavia Ivey   Background Vocals
Bernt Rune Stray   Guitar
Courtney Blooding   Background Vocals
Lake View Terrace Voices Of Praise   Choir, Chorus
Jochem van der Saag   Synthesizer

Technical Credits

Whitney Houston   Composer,Producer
Leon Russell   Composer
Franne Golde   Composer
R. Kelly   Arranger,Composer,Producer
Clive Davis   Producer
Norman Harris   Composer
Eric Hudson   Composer,Producer,Instrumentation
Larry Eaglin Jackson   Producer
Pat Thrall   Engineer
Diane Warren   Composer
Emanuel Kiriakou   Producer,Instrumentation
Harvey Mason   Producer,Vocal Producer
Fernando Garibay   Composer,Producer
Abel Garibaldi   Engineer
Andrew Hey   Vocal Engineer
Ann Mincieli   Engineer
Swizz Beatz   Programming,Producer
Johnta Austin   Composer
Ian Mereness   Engineer
Alicia Keys   Composer,Producer,Vocal Arrangements,Vocal Producer
Kasseem Dean   Composer
Dabling Harward   Vocal Engineer
Anita Marisa Boriboon   Art Direction
Michael Daley   Assistant Vocal Engineer
Kasia Livingston   Composer
Aliaune "Akon" Thiam   Composer,Producer
Jeff Meeks   Engineer
Andros Rodriguez   Engineer
Claude Kelly   Composer,Vocal Producer
Adam Beyrer   Engineer
Mark "Exit" Goodchild   Engineer
Mikkel Storleer Eriksen   Composer,Engineer,Instrumentation
Chad Jolley   Engineer
Giorgio Tuinfort   Composer,Programming,Producer
Damien Lewis   Engineer
Jochem van der Saag   Engineer,drum programming,Sound Design
Jordan "DJ Swivel" Young   Engineer
Nate Hills   Composer
Marcella Araica   Composer

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