Showing posts with label Whitney Houston. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Whitney Houston. Show all posts

Sunday, August 30, 2009

Whitney Houston - The Megamix (Jody den Broeder & Warren Rigg Extended Video Edit)

Check the flawless video treatment jnxdb (as known on YouTube.) He really took a lot of time with this one, and it came out great, not to mention Jody and Warren's megamix is very good!

Although this isn't a video, this is the Freemasons remix of "Million Dollar Bill."
Here, they demonstrate their ferocious talent for the remix-
providing the top current club remix of Whitney.

Monday, August 24, 2009

Whitney Houston: new album released August 31


In the twenty-five years since she recorded her history-making debut album, Whitney Houston has become a superstar, a legend, an icon. One of the best-selling female artists of all time, she has sold over 140 million albums worldwide. She has been cited as an influence by the likes of Mariah Carey, Christina Aguilera, Jennifer Hudson, and Leona Lewis, and last year, Rolling Stone listed Houston as one of the "100 Greatest Singers of All Time."


But when her longtime mentor Clive Davis, currently Chief Creative Officer of Sony Music Entertainment Worldwide, first approached her about recording her first album since 2002's Just Whitney, Houston didn't think that she wanted to get back in the game.


"When Clive called me and said, 'Are you ready?,' I said, 'Ready for what?,'" she recalls. "I didn’t particularly care for the way the industry was going or the music I was hearing. What I saw in the videos by most of the female artists—it was like, I’m just not doing that. I was raised in this business, I was raised in gospel singing, and I wasn’t about to change what people loved about me.


"My career and my life moved very fast," she continues. "At that time I was just hitting my 40s, and I basically just wanted to be a mother and a homebody.”


Fortunately, though, Davis was persistent—and the result, almost three years later, is the remarkable new album I Look to You. The disc matches Houston with some of the hottest writers and producers in pop and R&B (including R. Kelly, David Foster, Akon, Stargate, Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz) for a set of songs full of her signature vocal power and passion. The album is built on a strong message of survival and perseverance, and reflects the hard-earned lessons of the high-profile personal challenges Houston has encountered in recent years.


A key song for the project was “Nothin’ But Love,” a propulsive dance groove co-produced by Fernando Garibay (Britney Spears, Lady GaGa). "If there was anything I wanted to say after some of the things I had gone through," Houston says, "it was that I had nothing but love, regardless of the situation. Maybe that's just the way I was raised, or maybe I had just gotten to the point of, it’s all behind me now and I’m moving forward."


Davis, the album's Co-Producer, brought R. Kelly's composition "I Look to You" to Houston, and her reaction was instant—though she hadn't been given all the information. "I heard the song, and I loved that it was so short and sweet," she says. "And then I got to Chicago, and Robert told me there was still another verse to write and a bridge! So he stood there with me in the studio and wrote the second verse right off the top of his head. He closed his eyes, we kinda leaned on each other. As he was singing, I was praying, and the words just came out."


The song (one of two Kelly contributed; he also delivered the defiantly funky "Salute") would go on to give the album its title, and she credits Davis with understanding what the lyrics would mean to her. "When Clive heard 'I Look to You,' because he knows my background in gospel, he knew that song would put it all in check for me," she says.


The relationship between Houston and Davis goes all the way back to 1983, when he signed the young artist to Arista Records. He oversaw the development and marketing of her thirteen-million-selling debut, Whitney Houston. After all these years, he remains so close to the singer that she refers to him as "my father in the industry."


"Clive and I are partners," says Houston. "He still loves music, still loves lyrics and melodies. He’s one of the few people who still has that gift of knowing what song fits with what voice. Clive is able to go beyond the personality and see what’s inside a person, what really motivates them." “To be reunited with Whitney is so fulfilling,” adds Davis. “The album provides the most exciting challenge I’ve ever had and whatever happens, I know it’s very special. Its music and her voice will once again impact millions all over the world for many years to come.”


Even with a few strong songs in motion, though, Houston still wasn't sure that she had found the direction she was looking for. Surprisingly, it's the most light-hearted moment on I Look to You—the disco-flavored roller-skating jam "Million Dollar Bill"—which she considers the turning point.


"I worked with Alicia Keys on that one," she says, "and it was probably the most fun, but it also felt like I was working with someone who understood me, who could relate to me, singer to singer. At that point, I knew that it was coming together, that this was the album that I wanted, and that it was going to get done after two-and-a-half years in the making."


Akon, another 21st-century hitmaker joined forces with Houston for "Like I Never Left." She notes that the singer was a favorite among the friends of her daughter, Bobbi Kristina; "they all had his songs as their ring tones," she says. Houston praises the "island feel" of Akon's work, and adds that when she heard "Like I Never Left," she thought, "that sounds like it could be an album title for me."


Perhaps the most memorable recording session came on the powerhouse ballad "I Didn't Know My Own Strength," written by Diane Warren. The song reunited Houston with producer David Foster, who worked with her on the incomparable soundtrack to the 1992 film The Bodyguard, one of the biggest-selling albums in history. Foster's home was damaged in the Malibu fires of 2007, and when Houston came in to record her vocal, he was working out of a small apartment.


"Basically, I recorded in an office, next to the bathroom, with some sheets up near the microphone," she says. "It was totally different from doing 'I Will Always Love You' in a beautiful studio, or 'I Learned From the Best' in David's beautiful home. But when I listened to my vocal, it was real, it was passionate—which is most unusual when you're singing next to a bathroom!


"I wasn’t thinking only in terms of myself," she continues. "I was thinking about other people and other struggles. I thought about becoming a single mother, I thought about my mother, my cousin Dionne, my sisters-in-law. I thought about people with sicknesses, people who triumph in the face of adversity. The simplicity and strength that came out in my singing made me know how strong that song could be for a lot of people."


One of the most welcome elements of I Look to You is hearing Houston reconnecting with the dance floor and delivering uptempo songs with finesse and joy. Even the album's lone cover—Leon Russell's immortal "A Song For You," which has been recorded by greats from Ray Charles to the Carpenters to Donny Hathaway—begins at its traditional, stately pace but then breaks out into a celebratory, irresistible club beat.

Houston says that she enjoyed bringing that side of her singing out again, but that her heart will always be with the slower, more emotional numbers. "I love the uptempo songs, but I’m a balladeer," she says. "I can take a ballad and it gets in my heart, and I can understand where it’s coming from."


Most of all, Whitney Houston believes that she is a link in a chain of vocal tradition, and that I Look to You is one more extension of the sounds she was raised with. "I hope that the gospel tradition in my voice—which is just my soul—that it comes out, and that it is heard and felt by those who come after me."


The album is now being streamed at Whitney's site.




www.whitneyhouston.com




Thursday, July 30, 2009

Whitney Houston: I Look To You Release Info

WHITNEY HOUSTON’S ALBUM MOVED UP TO AUGUST 31ST RELEASE

“I LOOK TO YOU” IS NOW A GIFT TO ALL!

FREE SONG DOWNLOAD AVAILABLE STARTING TODAY AT WWW.WHITNEYHOUSTON.COM


(New York, NY – July 28, 2009) Fueled by the continuous excitement from last week’s much-buzzed about Whitney Houston album listening events in New York and Los Angeles, Arista Records has moved the release date of I Look To You up to August 31st.

As a gift to her fans, a free download of the album's title track, powered by Yahoo! Music, is available now at www.whitneyhouston.com until July 31st. "I Look To You,” a sweeping ballad with Whitney's signature soaring vocals that fans have come to love, was written by R. Kelly.

I Look To You, Whitney’s 7th studio album, boasts a who’s who of A-List songwriters and producers.

The final track listing is as follows:

1. Million Dollar Bill
2. Nothin' But Love
3. Call You Tonight
4. I Look To You
5. Like I Never Left (feat. Akon)
6. A Song For You
7. I Didn't Know My Own Strength
8. Worth It
9. For The Lovers
10. I Got You
11. Salute

Be sure to visit www.whitneyhouston.com regularly for up-to-date album information, exclusive photos and breaking news!

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Whitney Houston: New Cover Art

OFF THE HEELS OF YESTERDAY’S MONUMENTAL LONDON LISTENING EVENT,
WHITNEY HOUSTON
UNVEILS THE COVER ART
FOR HER HIGHLY ANTICIPATED NEW ALBUM
“I LOOK TO YOU”
OUT SEPTEMBER 1, 2009 ON ARISTA RECORDS!

Reports out of London describe sheer pandemonium as the audience full of VIPs, press and tastemakers raved and danced in the aisle over Whitney’s new album!

The “Queen Of All Divas” was greeted by a standing ovation after Chief Creative Officer of Sony Music Entertainment, Clive Davis presented select tracks from the album.

Be sure to visit www.whitneyhouston.com regularly for up-to-date album information, exclusive photos and breaking news!

Thursday, June 4, 2009

The Wait Is Over! Whitney Houston's New Album Arrives September 1st!







WHITNEY HOUSTON’S NEW ALBUM SET FOR RELEASE

THE MOST ANTICIPATED ALBUM OF THE YEAR ARRIVES SEPTEMBER 1, 2009

(New York, NY – June 4, 2009) Whitney Houston’s new album will be released worldwide September 1, 2009 on Arista Records. This is Whitney’s 7th studio album. Since her 1985 self-titled debut, she has built an illustrious career that has generated over 170 million combined worldwide sales of albums, singles and videos. Cited by the Guinness Book of World Records as music’s “most awarded female artist of all time,” with an unsurpassed tally of 411 awards, inclusive of 6 Grammy Awards, 2 Emmy Awards, 23 American Music Awards and 16 Billboard Music Awards…Houston remains a singular force in music today.

Photographer Credit: Patrick Demarchelier

Click onto the link below to launch the sizzle reel:
http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid25196401001?bctid=25207485001

Click here for more information and be sure to visit www.whitneyhouston.com regularly for up-to-date album information, exclusive photos and breaking news!