Waiting for Whitney to Cark It

Is anyone else sick of this Whitney Houston thing yet? Yes, she’s dead; she died, in a hotel, in a bath, pumped full of alcohol and drugs. 3 American television channels cancelled all their programming for round the clock coverage of her death. There was a report in the Manchester Evening News. There are people all over the world crying their eyes out for this person they've never met, or even know.

She is frequently cited as one of the most influential musicians of any generation. She won over 400 different awards for various things and has sold 170 million records.

I can't jump on this bandwagon.

In her entire studio album career, spanning 6 albums (3 of which had practically the same fucking name, she’s as imaginative as a fucking carrot that one), and 2 soundtrack albums, she wrote 2 songs. 2 fucking songs, so apparently she’s a fucking songwriter. She also did vocal arrangements, which basically means she decided where to sing, or to put it another way, she listened to the songwriter then filled every song with that warble-y shite that female vocalists seem to love. Musicians would call it a trill, vocalists call it vibrato, and I call it a fucking abomination. She chose who she wanted to produce an album, so she's a producer. By this logic, I'm a vocalist, backing vocalist, vocal arranger, transposer, guitarist, guitar tech, bassist, bass tech, percussionist, drummer, songwriter, arranger, transcriber, studio tech, producer, mixer, runner, audio engineer, mastering engineer, A&R, marketing, artist, liaison, and sales, as well as a band member.

It's official. I'm the greatest man who ever lived.

She also never played an instrument, so I’m struggling to see how she can be classed as a musician if she can’t read music or play an instrument. I get sick of the attitude towards vocalists. There are very few bands in which the singer was the best part. If they are writing their own lyrics, then there is something to hook onto but these overblown divas? They are little more than puppets. The songs they sing are traded from singer to singer based on what their management want to push next, all the time being told they are quite literally gods gift. They are overexposed and over-loved, this leads to the fawning attitude.

I fucking hate the fawning. She must have had one of the cleanest arses in America. The amount of tongues up there must have been sickening for the poor mare. You’re so brave Whitney, you’re so beautiful Whitney, you’ll get through it Whitney, We understand you Whitney. It’s a shame they don’t say the same things to people who have real problems. Whitney Houston was, for years, a crack-head of immense proportions, whilst raising her children on the fucking television in a car crash for all of us to see. This I don’t understand. Why are people on the street addicted to crack vilified but somehow Whitney is OK because she’s Whitney.

Michael Jackson was the same, he basically got off all the charges because parents in America didn’t want to believe that Michael Jackson wanted to put wine in a coke can, call it Jesus Juice, get their kids drunk and then fuck them. That was all he was doing. The words “I never had a childhood” is not a defense open to the common man.

There were people looking up to this wreck, all because in 1987 she had a voice and a cheeky smile. An interview she gave in 2009 was billed as “The most anticipated music interview of the decade”. The fucking decade? Jesus Christ. You know what she said in this interview? She said she'd been using copious amounts of drugs, for years and years. Really? I had to wait a whole decade for that pearl of fucking wisdom. I knew that in 1996. It's not like all these signs weren't there. She was relying on technology to keep her voice in check, she had been fired from musicals and performances for “erratic behavior” and she was taking every substance she could get her hands on. She couldn't see the line because it had gone up her nose.

The thing that really annoys me is that her voice isn't really all that good. I find it quite weak. I think that when she is really pushing it, she straddles that line between feedback and strangled cat. She never wants to hold a note. She just wants to move around it. It makes her sound totally indecisive. It's not an attractive type of singing. The absolute worse thing is the plethora of amateurs who then try it. They sound even worse. At least the studio magic keeps Whitney's voice on a note that kind of makes sense. Karaoke nights are full of wannabe girls machete their way through these soft pop ballads all being sold the same fucking dream.

Whitney Houston could have been replaced by anybody. It's quite simple. She was lucky, she happened to be singing in the nightclub Clive Davis happened to walk into. There were hundreds of others, some were probably in the night club next door, but Whitney happened to be chosen. It's the dream. Comes from nothing because of this “special” talent. Our music industry, press, venues, and everything else are part of a machine selling us this dream because it's cheap. They are shitting on us from a great height and loving it. Rags to riches. With as little work and effort as possible. It makes you wonder why you fucking bother.

And you know she isn't going away. There will be literally hundreds of recordings that have been kept back. RCA have been waiting for Whitney to cark it. The amount of re-releases in time for Christmas will be totally sickening. Then, when that's all died down, someone will have been searching in the vaults and will have found something that's never been heard by anyone. Something that was lost in 1987 and has honestly not been kept in the warehouse in the future obituary section, alongside Mariah Carey, Britney Spears, Barbara Streisand and Justin Bieber.

Dealers in dreams and death.

I'd say good riddance, but there's always another one around the corner.