May 2, 2024
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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?
So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.
And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.
There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.
I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.
So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.
But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”
My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher
“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.
~ David Simon
She was the greatest female vocalist of all time.
Whitney, I will always love you.
Too young. Too damn young.
http://www.movingpictureblog.com/2012/02/rip-whitney-houston-1963-2012.html
I always thought it’s such a bad cliche to hear people talking about hearing someone and getting goosebumps. Hearing that vocals-only track definitely stirred up something deep inside me and I could feel it resonate through my limbs up to the surface. I thought I could appreciate her talent, though I wasn’t likely to jam her on my walkman back in the day but hearing so many songs this evening I realize how high another playing field she was working on.
Dujardin did an appearance on SNL. I wish he would have hosted.
watched The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret – entire season …12 episodes
the first season was pretty good – about a guy who keeps getting in trouble – its done in somewhat realistic way ..
the second season – still getting in trouble but its not
realistic and the story is super confusing at parts ..and this is supposed to be a comedy …
the acting and camerawork are fine – David Cross can write good comedy
this show is like 24 … if you miss an episode – it’s hard to figure out …
for such a small series – it had lots of plot lines and lots of different characters to keep track of ..
the series is over – if ifc thinks they have a hit – they need to give this tv show to regular cable …or late night …its not a standard sitcom so its hard to show
this worldwide and make everybody on the show a huge star
Wanting that french guy to host over Zoeey Deschanel is not only anti-american, but it’s commie, socialist, and anti-religion! SHAME ON YOU, ANGHUS! SHAME!
For wrecking the way female singers have been expected to perform for years on end, I can’t say that I miss her, and kinda feel the way Patton Oswalt does about going back to 1993 so he can whack George Lucas with a shovel.
Beavis & Butthead dismissed her musical style as “stroedeling” back in the day, which they defined as “musical masturbation”. Can’t say that there’s a better description for that needless and annoying warbling.
Do not mourn for this crackhead who hasn’t had a big hit since Clinton time. She was going to lose her New Jersey mansion to foreclosure. She was going to be homeless until her record company bailed her out.
All that talent, all those riches … and she threw it all away.
@sanj: Looks like we’ve got a spambot on this site.
I’m curious if anybody knows anybody working on Sparkle and how was Whitney’s behavior on the set. If I recall she was a historic Pain in the ASS during the Preacher’s Wife, her last mainstream movie vehicle.
If it was anything like her last public performance outside the Tru Hollywood Nightclub Thursday night, probably the same.
I have a hard time believing Beavis or Butthead said any of that. Mike Judge perhaps, but not them.
Bobby Brown really fucked her up early on, he probably feels somewhat responsible .
I can’t recall who they were mocking in particular, but by the early ’90s Whitney Warbling had already started to spread like a disease through the ranks of female singers.
I bet all of you pissing on a dead woman’s legacy are huge Robert Downey, Jr. fans. To each their own, but you sound like assholes. And SamLowry, respect the voice and talent behind that warbling at least.
The reason that trying to sing like Whitney became a joke is that almost no one could come close.
On the other hand, the Whitney that make Celine Dion look like chump change did disappear more than a decade ago.
SamLowry: I don’t think Houston was ever associated with the kind of melisma overkill you’re talking about. That’s totally Mariah Carey, which led to Christina Aguilera, etc.
And yeah, ManWithNoName, I never cease to be amazed at the proud lack of compassion that always comes spewing out when some celeb screws up his or her life and loses it. Anybody ever hear the phrase “walk a mile in my shoes”? You can NEVER know the extent of someone else’s pain, or why they make self-destructive choices. Of course they’re ultimately responsible for those choices, but what’s so hard about feeling compassion and regret as opposed to callousness and superiority?
sundance 2012 has been over for a few weeks now and only 2 dp/30 have been posted .
at this point aren’t the actors a bit angry they did interviews that never got posted ..
or are they all waiting for bigger release dates and then people will rush out and watch these movies ?
did something major change ? am i missing something ?
the Sarah Polley tiff 2011 isn’t up yet ….
re: your second paragraph above, well said yancy
Whitney’s voice was unreal. Watching some of her performances from the early 90s I get a slight feeling of boredom from her. The technical mastery and vocal power was such that it’s like, where else can she go? What else could she do? Remote psycho-analysis is unfair and also a little cruel at times like this, but I wonder a little if the mere fact of being basically the best pop singer on the planet isn’t deeply harmful to a person’s psyche. I see people talking about talent wasted and I think: we’re talking about someone who reached a peak of popular success and musical achievement that maybe an extremely small handful of people can even comprehend, and somehow she wasted her talent? Huh? Like she was supposed to release another “I will always love you” every three years for the rest of her life?
In some other sad news, Ian Abercrombie has died. Best known as Elaine’s boss, Mr.Pitt, he was also a recent voice on Rango, and was the voice of Chancellor Palpetine and Darth Sidious in Star Wars the Clone Wars.
After 40+ years of ODing music stars, she knew damn well what the risks were. You can’t become addicted to something you don’t try in the first place. The first time someone handed her a crack pipe and she didn’t say, “No, thanks,” she might as well have put a gun in her mouth and pulled the trigger.
Best pop singer in the world? Maybe with vocal range, but she didn’t become nearly as iconic as someone like Madonna or Janet Jackson.
Whitney has one of the most iconic moments at the Super Bowl. It’s so iconic that each year for the last 21, we’ve held everyone up to her. That’s iconic status for singing one song. Before she found Bobby and drugs, She easily fit in that top three with Madonna and Janet Jackson. Unlike those two, she actually had a blockbuster film, with a blockbuster soundtrack, because that’s how bad ass everyone felt about her. That’s why her dying led to a lot of sadness out there, because few folks never forgot how awesome that woman was in her prime.
I always thought she was simply stunning looking at her peak. I liked her voice, her songs didn’t offend me and she had a gift. It wasn’t aimed at me so to call her a “crackhead” along with smug dismissals of her sad death from professed fans of art or esthetics is revealing.
I’m going to use the [ small voice ] now so I can deny this later, but if I’m being 10000% honest with myself: Anyone ever notice that Adele is kind of pretty? Watching the Grammys tonight, and yeah, she might need to lose a pound or 80, but she’s strangely CHAAAAAAAAARMING. I didn’t know she was British.
Okay back to K-Stew/Shailene/etc etc etc…
EDIT: N/M on the news they just showed her before some surgery and she weighed like eight million pounds.
cadavra: Sure, everyone who gets into substance abuse knows the risks. I guess the first time someone gave F. Scott Fitzgerald a shot of booze and he didn’t say, “No, thanks,” he might as well have put a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger, too.
I wouldn’t want anyone to romanticize Whitney’s self-destructive behavior the way we tend to do with dead alcoholic authors, but I don’t get it when people can’t sympathize with human frailty, especially since it can be done without condoning the behavior.
Adele got 6 grammy awards – i predict she might get 1 next year.. if she has no hit music – everybody will forget about her . she needs to cash in now from her fame …
i gotta give credit to the video Adele made for rolling
in the deep …
Norah Jones got 9 grammy’s … didn’t get any this year.
is she still making music ? does anybody care ?
my big problem with grammys is that video directors don’t get any credit for making these singers look good
…
videos of the grammy winners –
http://www.vevo.com/watch/playlist/grammy-winners/844f80d2-00d9-487d-b59c-eb3d1948a147#0
Maybe she wasn’t the undisputed number1 pop singer but vocally her dominance was widely acknowledged. I’m not trying to romanticize her death or anything. It certainly appears she threw away a good portion of her life to drugs, and it doesn’t take any kind of talent or achievement to do that. I’m just suggesting that people saying she wasted her talent might go back and consider whether it might have been the case that her talent was so freakish that she might have been a little trapped in it.
some people have no idea who Paul McCartney is
http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/who-is-paul-mccartney
Anyone who brings up “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the Super Bowl deserves to be pistol-whipped.
Before Ms. Houston became a crackhead she allegedly performed the national anthem at Super Bowl 25 while the US was bombing Iraq back to the stone age. She didn’t sing it … she LIP-SYNCHED! No amount of radio hits or platinum records can wash away the stench of that.
At least she was in good company. Ms. Houston recorded for Arista, which also was the US home of Milli Vinilli.
Whitney Houston was as iconic as Madonna or Janet Jackson for a brief stint. There were a few years around the time The Bodyguard came out that she was as big a presence as Madonna and Janet Jackson. The difference is that she never had that comeback that everyone was hoping for. By the mid 1990’s she was tabloid fodder while Madonna was putting out stuff like Ray of Light that reignited her as a viable pop star. Janet Jackson had a few extra years in the spotlight in the late 90’s when she started putting out throwaway pop songs which is all MTV would play in 1999.
You can almost track Houston’s career trajectory as a line moving straight up to the Bodyguard, and then a slow drop through the mid 90’s to a lime plummeting to rock bottom by the end of the 21st century.
It is interesting to talk about her iconic status. Because history has been fine to those who have succumbed to addiction. People like Maralyn Monroe and Judy Garland. The addiction is an asterisk but we tend to remember other moments. I think Houston’s addiction issues went on so long that it will always be mentioned.
If we’re going to bring up Superbowl moments, c’mon, Janet takes the cake over anyone, and it had nothing to do with her singing.
Whitney one-ups the others because she had a hit soundtrack/movie? That’s like saying Michael Jackson wasn’t the King of Pop because he never had a hit soundtrack/movie like Prince did with Purple Rain. Didn’t Madonna star in Dick Tracy, A League of Their Own, and Evita, all big to moderate hits? Two songs she sang in movies won Oscars. Whitney, none. The Bodyguard soundtrack was huge, can’t take that away from her, but I don’t think that makes her “better” by any stretch. Madonna’s the 4th biggest selling artist (biggest female) of all time, that’s not bad ass?
I’m not saying Whitney wasn’t huge, she was. Sold 170 million albums. but other than her voice and good looks, everything else about her kinda sucked. No one was trying to emulate Whitney outside of her voice. She never came off as very unlikable. That doesn’t mean I don’t love a bunch of her songs, just that I don’t think the world is mourning her death like they did with Michael Jackson (personally I expected both to end their lives in the fashion that they did, more or less).
Not to be to conspiricy minded but if Adele lost a bunch of weight perhaps the surgery that she had was not the surgery they said she was having. Like when young actors go to the hospital for “exhaustion” (Snorrrrrt).
Actually, Houston did sing one Oscar-winning song (When You Believe from The Prince of Egypt), although she did it as a duet with Mariah Carey.
In movie-related terms, it’s also noteworthy that 20 years on, The Bodyguard still hasn’t been topped by another musician’s vanity/crossover project. 8 Mile probably came the closest, but still grossed 150 million less worldwide than The Bodyguard.
Seriously, this is one of the best sentiments I’ve ever read on dead celebrities:
“I don’t get it when people can’t sympathize with human frailty, especially since it can be done without condoning the behavior.”
This is way too thoughtful for a comments section on a Hollywood blog.
Man. The Bodyguard was such an awful movie. That awards show finale is so wonderfully ridiculous. Terrible, terrible film. But its such a fantastic example of that terrible era for studio output. The script was do bad I would have thought Joe Ezsterhas wrote it
ROBERT WUHL HOST OF THE OSCARS.
Love how DARK and LOW RENT the Oscar ceremony is, too. Bodyguard RULES. Especially that bit where some cougar sidles up to ol’ Kev and propositions him point blank, and he just tells her to fuck off.
Yancy: Sorry if I come across as cold-blooded, but it drives me up the wall when people have the world at their feet and then throw it all away on drugs. The risk of alcohol-related death back in the 20s and 30s was not widely known; 40-plus years of music and movie stars ODing (I’m sure you’ve heard of the “27 Club”) is a gigantic red flag. I just hope Lindsay Lohan is paying attention.
Reposted from wrong thread:
According to Variety, last night’s Grammy Awards telecast “drew in the neighborhood of 40 million viewers — a 28-year high for the show and a larger audience than four of the last six Academy Awards telecasts.” I know we can attribute to the uptick to Whitney Houston’s death. But still: FOUR of the last six Academy Awards telecast? Yowza.
‘The Bodyguard still hasn’t been topped by another musician’s vanity/crossover project’
The Bodyguard was more Costner’s vanity project than Houstons. I’m sure she brought in a fair share of audience but you can’t attribute the huge gross to Houston when Costner was the biggest star in the world at the time.
I wonder if The Bodyguard would have been just as popular has Steve McQueen and Diana Ross had starred in it back in the day. (If memory serves me correctly, they were the ones originally attached to the project.)
Ah, forgot about the forgettable Prince of Egypt (so forgettable I never got around to seeing it). She needed Mariah’s help though. 😉
Aside from Eminem, who else since has really tried the whole sountrack/movie tie-in? Mariah Carey with Glitter I think, way past her prime as far as her popularity is concerned. Did anyone in their right mind think 8 mile’s story ever had a chance at topping a love story like The Bodyguard?
Speaking of Best Song Oscars, talk about a borning category for the last 15 years or so. It’s like the studios don’t care anymore. Is it just too expensive to want to make an original song for a movie soundtrack that’s, I don’t know, somewhat catchy, or could be a pop hit? The Bodyguard was a hit movie partly (perhaps probably) because of how strong the soundtrack was. Just look at most of the 80s/early 90s winners/nominees. Many of them were huge on the charts. It just seems weird that such a trend stopped so abruptly for no apparent reason.
I get you, cad; I guess it’s just that “having the world at your feet” rarely changes who a person is. It doesn’t make you smarter or more responsible or even happier, necessarily. Human beings are flawed, and if they’re predisposed to self-destruction, they’ll find a way regardless of social status or IQ.
I’m also wondering when the tide turned on this issue. We’ve lost a lot of celebrities to drug abuse, but when Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, et al., died, did anyone outside of “the establishment” say, “Good riddance, junkies”? I’m seeing this kind of thing about Houston.
And what about smokers? When George Harrison (and Dean Martin, and Warren Zevon, et al.) died of lung cancer, I don’t recall anyone saying, “Good riddance, ya freakin’ chimney.”
I have a close relative who’s a smoker and a recovering alcoholic. He has a Masters degree, and has always held good-paying, high-responsibility jobs, even in his drinking days. If he had died from the booze, or dies tomorrow from the smoking, I’d naturally be upset that such a smart guy lost his life to stupid choices. But it wouldn’t kill my compassion for his weakness and his struggle. Sure, it’s easier because I know and love him, but I can extrapolate that sentiment easily enough to people I don’t know. I certainly didn’t know Whitney Houston, and I wasn’t a big fan of her music (great voice, though), but I haven’t walked a mile in her shoes, so I prefer to try to mourn her without judgment.
If Jim, Jimi or Janis died today, you’d be reading plenty of “Fuck ’em” comments from the bloggerati. A combination of unentitled righteousness and reality TV judgement has devolved our nation into a cruel, casual voyuerism.
Whitney may’ve lip sync’d the Star Spangle Banner but she lip sync’d her own voice. I don’t think it was a question of trying to beef up a marginal talent to sound good but someone who does vocal aerobatics adding a net. Probably not necessary. Not sure whose decision it was. But it’s not like they cgi’d her voice.
I’d say her icon standing is forever intact. She wasn’t the act ‘tweens, teens and 20-somethings camped out to see like Janet or Madonna but pick a random track of hers off the radio and I betcha they’d follow along just the same. Whitney, while a pretty face, didn’t exude the same sexual energy as Terri Nunn, Pat Benatar, Janet, or Madonna. The label got all the adult contemporary airplay they could imagine out of Whitney. Astronomical record sales and put butts in seats when she did tour. Madonna and Janet were thinking global brand but then neither had signature voices.
Can’t really comment on the drug use. It’s a little easier to comprehend someone becoming an alcoholic as opposed to addicted to hard drugs. I hope this doesn’t sound as if I’m saying poor widdle Whitney but most artists have some internal pain or struggle that they deal with. Few people have such expectations for inherent success trust upon them from birth. She had the resources and people who knew the road around her to keep from falling but happy endings are never guaranteed. She’s ultimately the most responsible for her own demise but she’s also the main reason for her becoming the star she was.
Career wise, who knows if there was anything that could’ve given her as much joy and satisfaction. Some athletes go into coaching. Some actors become directors. Was she looking forward to finding love or becoming a grandmother, who knows? Hers is a bit different than Amy Winehouse, whose promise was still becoming fulfilled. I kinda see why people spewed more vitriol at her passing. I’m starting to cringe to think of what’s gonna come out should Courtney Love not make it to receive her AARP card. Still, I’ve got CDs and my hard drive to remember the best of them at any time.
the ever-fascinating hypocrisy surrounding ‘drugs’…
alcohol is a hard drug – insidious, addictive and with an astronomical social cost and consequences re: health, jobs, violence and addiction; nicotine is a hard-core addictive drug, proven harder to kick than heroin for the heavy smoker; and prescription drugs are amongst the most addictive, lethal and widely-abused in the world…but they’re arbitrarily legal and make a small number of people a LOT of $$$$$, ka-ching, and the people who use and abuse these drugs can sit on their high horses and apply a nonsensical double-standard sanctimoniously deluding themselves into thinking ‘but i don’t do DRUGS, drugs are for THOSE people’…
it hasn’t fully come out yet, but from reports so far it looks like houston had a lot of LEGAL prescription drugs in her possession that probably caused her death – yet another one bites the dust on lethal legal drugs – and yet people are far more comfortable with crying ‘crackhead’ because that’s what we’re conditioned to think by the establishment, who want you to be able to buy THEIR addictive drugs (so they can make a LOT OF CASH), but not those other drugs…
hypocrisy thrives on money
Well, Britney Spears did make an attempt also. I generally find 8 Mile to be pretty solid by the way – certainly a better movie than The Bodyguard, but maybe not quite as (mostly unintentionally) entertaining.
As for the Best Song, it probably became too synonymous with animated movies as the 90s went on, and when the animated movies changed (for some reason musical numbers didn’t seem to fit with computer animation), it was all over.
A lot of times Leah, the hypocrisy lies in the enablers. Not saying this happned in Whitney’s case, but of course its the speculation, but the ones who have private doctors and get preseciptions filled numerous times for these same lethal yet legal drugs. They get presciptions that would put down a small army of horses because they’re depressed, or didn’t have a good day, or they stubbed their toe, or some shit like that.
Whitney, or any other artist, should never be denied their place in history, but as someone already said, this comes as a shock, but not a surprise.
true about enablers bulldog, a built-in pitfall of celebrity.
re: singers in movie-star/soundtrack vehicles, one must never overlook rick springfield in ‘hard to hold’; prince’s ‘purple rain’, spice girls in ‘spice world’ (sadly nothing to do with ‘dune’); ‘roadie’ w/ the loaf, ‘cool as ice’ with the vanilla ice, and ONJ in ‘xanadu’! (half-joking)
I wasn’t referring to musicians trying to be actors. Crossroads wasn’t filled with Britney Spears songs (just looking at meeting songs on soundtrack).
Paul Simon’s ONE TRICK PONY, maybe? (Haven’t seen it.) Neil Diamond in THE JAZZ SINGER. George Strait in PURE COUNTRY.
Well, my comments had nothing to do with uneven legality or the fairness of societal perception of the user but I will say the physiological & psychological effects to someone addicted to meth or heroin are far greater than to someone who’s addicted to nicotine.
Brack, comparing Janet’s stupid nipple to the national anthem being song by someone at their best, is such a ridiculous comparison. It’s so myopic and ignores how Whitney put 20 years worth singers on the spot, by having their version of the anthem compared to her’s.
She sung it so damn well, that it became a hit single. Seriously, the woman mattered so damn much in the late 80s and into the 90s, that doubting it in anyway makes me think you or anyone else weren’t alive to she her phenomenon she indeed was, and that’s why the Grammy’s drew such a high rating.
You also have to understand that she CHANGED THE WAY PEOPLE SING POP SONGS! Every diva after her and even when she first started, have copied her style of singing. If you change the way people sing. You are a pretty big fucking deal.
That aside, HC, I have to disagree with you. Costner may have been big, but look at that poster. It’s Whitney. She’s the star of the show and Costner is along for the ride.
You know that it’s all about her because of that soundtrack. Seriously, the three albums to stay number one on the charts ever are Adele, Titanic, and THE BODYGUARD SOUNDTRACK. Seriously, downplaying Whitney is to ignore how big she truly was as a pop singer in this country and in the world.
Finally, people aren’t always as strong as we want them to be or as they ought to be. Life is fucking hard. If some people cannot handle it and seek out something to numb the pain. We shouldn’t discount their pain or their suffering. Why fucking people online lack sheer human compassion most of the time, never ceases to be such bullshit. Much in the way Chucky is bullshit. Seriously, stop threatening people you fucking idgit.
I can do without the potty mouth, Mr. Partisan. There is such a thing as Internet filters.
As far as that national anthem goes Ms. Houston didn’t sing it, she LIP-SYNCHED and correctly got busted. Would have been fired by her record company except her music industry Svengali was the label’s chairman.
BTW, Mr. Partisan, albums haven’t dominated the music industry since the late 1990s because the public correctly sees albums as a rip-off.
Chucky, much like the Lady man in the other thread, who gives a shit about your whack ass bullshit? Everything is a fucking conspiracy with you. Everything. The fact, the mere and simple fact, that you do not get that the national anthem Whitney lip synched, she actually sung, is why you are so fucking far off the reservation.
You also are too busy being pissed at the Weinstein’s to realize Adele’s 21 just broke a RECORD FROM THE LATE FUCKING 90s! THUS… PEOPLE STILL BUY FUCKING ALBUMS YOU SHITARD! If you want to go pistol whip something. Start with your fucking dick, idjit.
Yancy: A combination of factors. One, what Christian said: we have devolved into a society of feces-throwing monkeys; that was certainly not the case 40 years ago. Second, Hendrix/Joplin/Morrison flamed out early: they only had 3-4 years at the top; Houston was up there for over 20. And thirdly, we as a society are far more enlightened about the lethalness of drug use than we were back then: IIRC, among major rock stars only Brian Jones preceded them in death, and his was officially ruled a drowning. I would also point out that many people have overcome their addictions and successfully resumed their careers (e.g., Clapton, Downey Jr., Drew B.), so it’s not like it can’t be done if you really want to.
Also, re BODYGUARD: after LADY SINGS THE BLUES, everyone thought Diana Ross was the next big crossover star. THE WIZ and MAHOGANY put an end to that.
JS – who said Whitney didn’t matter? No one. I just don’t think in the grand scheme of things she matters as much as some other artists. A great voice, yes, but I think an artist needs more than that. Mariah Carey has probably an equal of voice, but neither of them I’d consider more than that. She hasn’t changed the way people sing. How big is adult contemporary these days? Exactly.
As far as the lip-syncing is concerned, just watch the video on Youtube and you can clearly tell it was prerecorded. But isn’t that the case for most of the Superbowl national anthems?
yancy – we were talking about movies SINCE The Bodyguard, not before.
Brack, she did change the way everyone sings. Lady Gaga sings the way she does because of Whitney Houston. Dismissing Mariah or Whitney as only being a VOICE, is just so ridiculously dismissive to the all-time single selling leader and a woman who had a soundtrack at the #1 spot for 18 freaking weeks among other accomplishments.
I think music should be more than just a great voice, it’s not dismissive, just an opinion. Lady Gaga sings the way she does because of Whitney Houston? Prove it.
JS – Isnt the poster for the bodyguard Costner carrying Whitney through the crowd? That hardly puts her in the center of attention. In fact IFIRCC there was a slight controversy regarding the advance publicity materials because they tended not to show her face (the studio being a bit shy about the interracial romance). And coming off Wolves, Robin Hood, and JFK Costner wasn’t just big, he was the Biggest. She was riding his coattails certainly not the other way around.
i think its easier to compare Whitney to Celine Dion than Lady Gaga ..
Bad Romance by Lady Gaga is at 457 million views on youtube ..
how many people talk about the actual videos Whitney did ?
maybe 50% of a songs popularity is because of the music video ..
brack: Oh — I wrote my response after leah’s post, which also included some pre-Whitney examples. Forgot about the “since” in your original post.
I think Whitney definitely is in the DNA of many of today’s pop singers. She influenced Mariah and Christina, who took the Whitney thing to a more extreme, show-offy level that then infected just about every aspiring female (and some male) singer who has ever auditioned for American Idol. Of course that’s not “everybody.”
That American Idol point is spot on. Can’t remember how many times I’ve heard I Have Nothing on that show (done both well and not so well) when I used to watch it.
As far as her videos go, anybody who watched MTV almost religiously like I did in the 80s and early 90s know Whitney’s videos were played as much as anyone’s. Of course her view count on YouTube isn’t going to be as high as Lady Gaga’s because of when they were released in time, but I remember the videos from The Bodyguard pretty well, though the outfit from Queen of the Night is largely inspired by Madonna. What’s strange is how she pretty much peaked and wasn’t able to reinvent herself. I think it’s mainly due to adult contemporary taking a backseat to so many other genres.
Does Will Smith not count? He’s always releasing songs that go with his movies. Granted, none of them sold as well as The Bodyguard soundtrack. Or is it only for performers who sing in their movies?
I thought we were going with the notion of films who’s star is most prominent on a soundtrack. I don’t think Men in Black or Wild Wild West really qualifies. Doing a track or two doesn’t seem like the same thing, but maybe I’m being too rigid.
I forgot about Burlesque from 2010, which is all Christina Aguilera and Cher. That’s something similar to the others mentioned. I guess Spiceworld would be another.