Whitney Houston – I Look To You (2009) | Album Review

When Whitney Houston passed away in February 2012, she was in the process of yet another comeback. A sea of personal issues had turned the powerhouse vocalist into a bit of a laughing stock in the new millennium. Her death was the final sad event in what had been a series of sad events for one of the biggest pop stars of the ‘80s and ‘90s. 

The final attempt (in her lifetime) at making Whitney Houston commercially relevant came via 2009’s I Look To You, the singer’s first studio album in seven years. Commercially, it performed decently well, becoming Whitney’s only album to debut at Number One. Creatively, it does a good job of placing Whitney in what was then a contemporary context without trying too hard. It also makes the case that, despite the fact that her vocal skills were diminished due to time and abuse, Whitney Houston still had some of the most distinctive and powerful pipes in music history.

Think of the music scene in 2009. It wasn’t necessarily favorable to a singer like Whitney and I’m sure label head Clive Davis spent considerable energy finding collaborators and tracks that would make sense for top 40 radio while not sacrificing the essence of what Whitney was. Thankfully there are no guest rappers (although I’m curious what Kanye’s “chipmunk soul” sound would’ve sounded like on Whitney), there is no discernible Auto-Tune, and the lyrics don’t try too hard to place the singer in a light that would be ill-fit for her age (46 at the time of I Look To You’s release). 

The album kicks off with the sprightly “Million Dollar Bill,” produced by Alicia Keys and Swizz Beats. The retro groove (buoyed by a disco-era Loleatta Holloway sample that pretty much provides the song’s bedrock) is a perfect fit for Whitney, who cut her teeth during the disco era. “Million Dollar Bill” is one of the best uptempo songs in her entire catalog. Other winners on the album include the island-spiced “Like I Never Left,” a duet with Akon that’s charming and lightweight. “I Didn’t Know My Own Strength” is a Diane Warren power ballad that a younger Whitney would’ve blown the speakers out on, but the song’s lyrics suit the more weathered, experienced Whitney. Peak-era Whitney would’ve delivered a powerhouse vocal performance, but 2009-era Whitney had the life experiences to make her rendering of the song believable.

A Whitney album (particularly one made in the 21st century) wouldn’t be a Whitney album without some head-scratchers. A cover of Leon Russell’s “A Song for You” (made famous by Donny Hathaway and the Carpenters, among many others) should’ve been a slam-dunk, but producers Stargate bury one of the best songs written in the last sixty years in some sort of electro-slush. It renders a commendable vocal by Whitney useless, and this atrocity would rank as the worst cover of “A Song for You” for a brief few years until an embarrassing version by Amy Winehouse (whose career has sad parallels with Whitney’s) surfaced on one of her posthumous albums. There’s also the presence of R. Kelly, who writes and produces two songs, including the title track (which I remember reading about in a Vibe Magazine interview from the mid ‘90s…how long was that song sitting on ice?) Neither of his contributions warrants much of a mention, as “I Look To You” is a fairly banal gospel ballad and “Salute” is generic 2009 pop.

I’m trying to put myself back into the mindset I was in on the day I bought this CD (having only heard a single or two), and I think I was pleasantly surprised that I Look To You ended up being as listenable as it was. The previous few years had been a bit of a trainwreck for Whitney, and the possibility existed that any new music from her could’ve been disastrous. Thankfully, I Look To You is not that. It’s not a work of genius either, but arguably Whitney never created that outside of a few specific songs spread across her catalog. I Look To You is pleasant, inoffensive and its primary distinction is that, sadly, it was the last album Whitney completed during her lifetime.